This is the first article mini shells of a four part series on acid reflux and GERD. Read t he secon

This is the first article mini shells of a four part series on acid reflux and GERD. Read t he second article on the myths of H. pylori and low stomach acid being the major causes, t he third article on the main stream medical treatments and the final article on the myths of trigger foods and GERD diet that works without drugs.
About sixty million people in the US report that they suffer from painful symptoms of acid reflux at least once a week. Heartburn, abdominal pain, cough, sour taste in the mouth, sore throat, hoarseness, laryngitis, asthma-like symptoms mini shells and sinus irritation are the typical symptoms. Smoking, pregnancy, obesity, hiatal hernia and even tight-fitting clothes can make these symptoms worse.
Chronic acid reflux is often associated with damage because the esophagus and other affected tissues are not protected by the thick mucus layer that coats the inside of the stomach. And, the result is painful irritation which can lead to esophagitis , Barrett s esophagus , and even esophageal cancer . Persistent damaging reflux is referred to as gastroesophageal reflux mini shells disease (GERD). Acid reflux may also cause severe irritation of the vocal cords, mini shells a condition referred to as laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR).
For mini shells me this subject is personal. I am one of the sixty million people. I suffered with acid reflux for a good part of my adult life. I never understood what caused it. I only knew that my constant heartburn and regurgitation symptoms interfered with my work, my sleep and my general wellbeing. My condition continued to get worse leading to anyone s nightmare. mini shells
I awoke in the middle of the night and leapt out of bed still half dreaming, mini shells thinking Oh my god, this is what it feels like to die. I couldn t breathe; I was choking for air and my lungs felt like they were filled with burning liquid. I ran to the bathroom coughing up something from my lungs that simply did not register. It felt like acid was filling my lungs. I soon realized that I had suffered severe acid reflux; mini shells stomach acid that traveled up my esophagus until I aspirated it into my lungs. I will never forget that moment. It defined the kind of fear and suffering that is possible with GERD.
Like many people with this condition, I recognized that my situation was becoming serious. But the recommended medicines – antacids, H2 blockers and even PPI drugs did not give me adequate relief and I never noticed any dietary pattern that improved my symptoms. But that all changed in 2004.
On the advice of my older son, a personal fitness trainer, I decided to go on a low carb, high fat diet (LCHFD) to lose a few pounds. What happened next made me forget about weight loss, because my reflux symptoms vanished the very next day. I couldn t believe it! Why had no one ever told me about this? It turns out that most people didn t know or were just finding out themselves. But thanks to Google, I soon realized that this was no fluke. Many others were saying the same thing and Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades had written about this in their bestselling book, Protein Power . I also found out that some doctors at Duke University had done a small clinical study confirming that cutting carbs can relieve mini shells symptoms.
While the revelation was a great reward in and of itself, for the first time in my life I could control my symptoms, I was far from satisfied. I really wanted to know why. If removing most carbs stops heartburn, did that mean that carbs caused heartburn? I decided to get to the bottom of things and started doing research on how each type of food (fats, proteins and carbohydrates) is digested. I read about and thought about the digestive process chewing, salivary amylase for starch, stomach acid and pepsin for protein breakdown, lipase for fats, etc. And, as I started reading about digestion in the small intestine, a light bulb went off involving gut bacteria.
As a microbiologist, I had grown and studied a wide variety of bacteria for years in graduate school. I also worked with intestinal bacteria during a postdoc. at Tufts. While my focus was genetics, we constantly needed to grow enough bacteria to work with. And, I recalled two important traits of intestinal bacteria: They get the bulk of their energy from carbohydrates Most of them produce lots of gas
Depending on the strain, mini shells bacteria produce copious amounts of hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas. Also, intestinal Archaea, which look like bacteria under the microscope, but are actually a separate branch of life, produce a third intestinal gas, methane. Carbohydrates are the best fuel source for gas formation. According to Suarez and Levitt,[1] 30 g of carbohydrate that escapes absorption in a day could produce more than ten liters of hydrogen gas in small intestine. Imagine how much pressure this amount of gas can create. Intestinal bacteria produce so much gas that there have been well documented cases of explosions during intestinal surgery. [2],[3] This gave me