You’ve just eaten lunch and rather than feel a satisfying fullness, you feel a burning pain in your lower chest—what we commonly call “heartburn.” No problem you think. The tv ads say when you “feel the burn,” just pop a Tums, or down some Alka Seltzer, acid-neutralizing aids.
Those remedies work for a while, but soon you find they don’t help. So, you consult your doctor, who tells you to take an acid-suppressing drug like Prilosec. Your doctor tells you to take this drug because if you just suppress acid enough, you’ll beat back acid indigestion.
Although you don’t feel the burn anymore, you might still be experiencing bloating, diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, or burping – common symptoms of dyspepsia, or upset stomach. But, there are drugstore remedies for these maladies also, and you partake.
What’s Wrong with this Picture?
In his book, “Why Stomach Acid is Good for You: Natural Relief from Heartburn, Indigestion, Reflux & GERD,” Johnathan V. Wright, M.D. explains that acid-neutralizing and acid-suppressing drugs are not a cure as conventional medicine claims, but rather a stop-gap measure that ultimately can do your body grave harm.
To understand why this is true, you must focus on how your body works.
Your Digestive System
After you chew your food it makes its way down the esophagus, a tube passageway that deposits the food into your stomach. In your stomach the food is broken down, by both mechanical and chemical processes, so that nutrients can be extracted, absorbed into your bloodstream in the intestines, and distributed throughout your body.
If all systems are in good working order, your body uses all the nutrients from the food that you eat and you maintain good health. But, if the digestion cascade of events is compromised, the nutrients are not sent out to the right locations. It’s then that serious problems can arise, such as malnutrition, which can then lead to anemia, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, mental illness, insomnia, rheumatoid arthritis and more.
What goes Awry?
As counterintuitive as this may sound to you at first, you feel the burn because you have too little stomach acid, not too much! Yes, acid is causing the burn, but it’s because your stomach’s mechanisms aren’t functioning properly, not because you have too much acid in your stomach.
Here’s how it works. There is a loss of acid-producing cells in the stomach lining. This can be linked to:
- Age. Increasing age causes a fall-off in acid production, affecting more than 30% over 60, upsetting the acid/alkaline pH balance.
- Missing nutrients that help create the hydrochloric acid
- Irritating Foods
- Other illnesses
- Prescriptions drugs
- Acid-suppressing drugs
- Overeating
- Stress
So, what happens when there isn’t enough acid in the stomach? Eventually the function of the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES) is compromised. The LES is located at the entrance to your stomach at the end of the esophagus.
When it is functioning properly the LES closes as soon as the food is finished passing through the esophagus. If the LES doesn’t close all the way, acid from undigested food in your stomach will pass up into the lower region of the esophagus, irritating the delicate tissue lining, causing the burn you identify as acid indigestion.
But why doesn’t the LES close properly? At the other end of your stomach sits another valve called The Pyloric Valve. This valve controls the flow of partially digested food as it moves from your stomach into your small intestine.
If your food isn’t being digested properly because there isn’t enough acid in your stomach to do the job, the Pyloric Valve doesn’t open in a timely manner. Your partially digested food sits in your stomach much too long, sloshing around, backing up and pushing against the LES, working away at it until it weakens, causing it to open at the wrong time.
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The Cure for Acid Indigestion is to Replace the Lost Stomach Acid
Antacids and acid-suppressing drugs are a temporary fix to a serious problem. Conventional medicine often just deals with symptoms. I deal with cures.
By replacing the missing stomach acid with capsules containing Betaine Hydrochloric Acid, stomach acid, with every meal, you will regain normal stomach function, thereby eliminating acid indigestion a natural way. Betaine Hydrochloric Acid complements your body’s function thereby creating a healthy digestion cascade of events, repairing your stomach.
The body is always trying to heal itself, if you work with it with the right vitamins, minerals, food, and other complementary treatments.
