If you suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you might notice that certain foods and beverages aggravate your symptoms. Some heartburn-inducing foods are well-known, while others aren’t as obvious.

Citrus fruits and juices can certainly cause heartburn. In particular, avoid orange, grapefruit and cranberry juices, as well as lemons and lemonade. Tomatoes, tomato-based sauces, garlic and onions will spark symptoms in many GERD sufferers.

Spicy and fatty or fried foods are also common heartburn culprits. Full-fat dairy products (particularly milk shakes, sour cream, ice cream and cottage cheese) and chocolate are lesser-known foods to avoid, along with peppermint and spearmint, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Avoid fatty meats, such as ground beef (chuck), marbled sirloin, chicken nuggets and buffalo wings. Creamy or oil-and-vinegar salad dressings may bring on acid reflux, along with fatty desserts and sweets like brownies, doughnuts, potato or corn chips and butter cookies.

As for beverages, avoid alcohol, caffeinated drinks and carbonated beverages. This includes liquor, wine and beer. Coffee and tea can instigate acid reflux, even if they’re decaffeinated.

Additionally, everyone has their own particular heartburn triggers, so pay attention to what you eat or drink and how it affects your GERD symptoms. Keep a food diary if necessary to document what you’ve consumed, and at the same time add notes to your diary about the severity of your heartburn and other GERD symptoms.

In many cases, however, it’s not what you eat but how much you eat that can trigger heartburn. If you have GERD, eat smaller meals to ease your symptoms. Overeating is a common cause of heartburn, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Also, what you do after you eat can affect your post-meal heartburn. For instance, you should wait at least three hours after a meal before lying down. Because some GERD sufferers experience their most intense symptoms at night when they go to bed, try elevating the head of your bed about 6 inches to help your digestive tract using gravity. Simply raising your head using pillows, however, isn’t very effective, the Mayo Clinic states.

Avoid exercising or bending over right after eating meals as well. These movements will only disrupt your digestion and aggravate your GERD symptoms.

Eager for that after-meal cigarette? Skip it. Smoking reduces the lower esophageal sphincter’s proper functioning, which is the main cause of GERD to begin with. Losing weight if you’re obese or overweight and reducing your stress can also help prevent heartburn.

While you’re studying the potentially GERD-aggravating foods in your diet, also consider the medications you take. Certain drugs can worsen or trigger heartburn. These include tricyclic antidepressants, dopamine, anticholinergics for treating sea sickness, sedatives, some bronchodilators for treating asthma and progestin used as birth control or for treating abnormal menstrual bleeding.

Calcium channel blockers and beta blockers for treating hypertension or heart disease also commonly worsen heartburn. If you have GERD and take any of these types of medications, talk with your doctor about whether you can switch to a different but equally-effective medication that won’t trigger heartburn.

For more information on what to the foods to avoid in order to not suffer from GERD visit Reflux Remedy at refluxremedy.com today!

Coffee has nothing to do with your acid reflux symptoms or its cause.

There is a lot of misleading information going around. For instance blaming coffee on your heartburn . . . there simply isn’t any science to back that up.

In fact most everything blamed on causing acid reflux is a bunch of malarkey.

Certainly there are many foods available that are less than healthy for you and many that are downright harmful. The problem is you’ve been over eating for years, combined with a less than idea lifestyle and the stress of day to day living has all taken its toll on you, taxed your health and virtually bankrupted your nutritional status,

Too many people allow themselves to be misled by all the direct-to-consumer advertising they’re bombarded with in this country. By the way those obnoxious ads that acid reflux sell drugs directly over your TV or radio are illegal in every country in the world, accept the US and New Zeeland.

That’s why Big Pharma makes more money than all the 500 fortune companies added together, including coffee growers . . . acid reflux drugs happens to be a large part of that profit margin.

No one is going to trade up their morning coffee for acid reflux; it’s easier to just pop some toxic antacids all day long, believing it’s the coffee or some other food.

You are an exception to most people simply because you do your own research; I commend you for that . . . you wouldn’t be reading this if that weren’t true.

In doing my research I found a 20 year study that followed approximately 44,000 men and 84,000 women who drank coffee. The study revealed that coffee is safe and may even have some cardiovascular benefits.

How can coffee be beneficial to your heart health but cause acid reflux? Simple, coffee doesn’t cause acid reflux; it has nothing to do with it. That doesn’t mean that drinking coffee can’t trigger your acid reflux . . . anything can ‘trigger’ your acid reflux, especially when you over eat or lie down after eating a lot.

Coffee relaxes people, helps them focus and if you drink 3 cups a day may help lower age-related cognitive decline . . . so stop your acid reflux by not over eating and drink more coffee.

None of the coffee studies say anything about acid reflux. True coffee can temporarily raise blood pressure, but it isn’t a cause of hypertension. All I can say is I would stay away from non-organic coffee because of all the pesticide spraying going on these days . . . I also like to add cacao nibs to my coffee drip maker . . . it tastes great and adds magnesium a natural muscle relaxant.

Overconsumption and under-nutrition is the cause for your acid reflux, not coffee.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

In many predisposed individuals, one of the most alarming questions that they will face is: Can acid reflux cause palpitations? This is a particularly worry-causing condition since the symptoms often mimic the signs of a heart attack. While acid reflux is obviously not as life-threatening as a heart attack, it is still a painful and serious condition that warrants immediate attention.

The global scientific community seems to be in disagreement as to whether or not acid reflux causes palpitations. One Japanese study published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology in 2009 showed that conditions that are external to the esophagus may result in GERD, or at the very least produce the characteristic symptoms of the condition. The study also explores the connection between patients in which acid reflux causes palpitations and patients that were suffering from a heart condition.

Many people feel that can acid reflux cause palpitations simply because the nerves located in the chest are closely interconnected with the heart, the esophagus and the diaphragm. This is why it is often difficult for patients and doctors to determine whether it is the acid reflux causing palpitations or if it is a heart-related condition. Before a treatment can be prescribed, the doctor will first have to determine the root cause of the chest pain.

To make things even more confusing, a number of GERD medications may actually produce even more symptoms that are similar to those encountered by people experiencing heart attack. Aside from the aforementioned chest pain, these symptoms include flushing, hypertension and increased heart rate or tachycardia. There is some comfort gained from studies that show that only 1% of the population experiences such side effects, although this can still cause a significant amount of worry given that as much as 40% of the U.S. population suffers from GERD to at least some degree. Now with obesity rates rising all across the country, the number of patients think acid reflux will cause palpitations is almost certain to rise.

Since the two conditions?heart disease and acid reflux?are so often closely related, a general lifestyle change would be to a patient’s best advantage. While the issue as to whether or not can acid reflux cause palpitations is as yet a bit indeterminate, numerous studies show that addressing issues such as obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise, and excessive caffeine, alcohol and tobacco intake will go a long way in preventing these and many other health related conditions.

One site offers a safe and effective solution for people with acid reflux cause palpitations. The site is www.refluxremedy.com, and it provides a totally natural alternative to prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications, many of which can cause unwanted side effects. By relying on natural treatment methods, you may be able to avoid the unpleasant side effects of certain GERD drugs, and be assured of a lasting solution for your condition.