Acid reflux has several medical names such as heart burn, acid indigestion and gastro-esophageal reflux disease, regardless they’re all associated with STRESS.

Everyone loves stress don’t they? NOT.

Stress is stressful. Just the thought of being stressed out stresses me out . . . at least it used to. I’ve learned how to not sweat the little stuff in life in order to better enjoy the bigger, more important things . . . like my health.

Acid reflux is unnatural; it’s what happens when you do unnatural things, but in a way I guess you could argue that it’s a natural response to an unnatural act.

Acid reflux is your inner intelligence getting back at you for not going with the flow. Seriously, we humans really do take everything for granted. Your mind/body is the most intelligent representation of Mama Nature’s handy craft in the entire world, and look what we do to ourselves.

We stress ourselves out in so many ways it’s not funny one bit.

We have dumped industrial pollutants into our oceans, lakes and streams. We’ve spewed noxious gases into the air . . . we stress out the world.

Then we take living soil, rich with more than 72 trace minerals and burn it up with chemical fertilizers until our foods have nothing but nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium . . . we stress out our food.

The result is biological stress caused from under-nutrition. It takes a bushel of tomatoes to equal the nutritional value of an heirloom tomato from 100 years ago.

Then we stress ourselves out . . . with radiation from the thinning sky, cell phone transmissions and nuclear fallout to boot. Add to that our desperately paced lifestyles, racing us around 24/7 just to pay the bills . . . it’s no wonder millions of people have acid reflux and acid reflux associated diseases.

Up to 44% of the United States adult population experience acid reflux, heartburn or acid indigestion at least once per month, 14% weekly and 7% daily. Acid reflux is one of the most common disorders today and it’s all from a dysfunction between the throat from the stomach.

When people are stressed in America, they eat more, or they eat the wrong food and often eat it at the wrong times. All this triggers acid reflux because the food isn’t being digested so it places stress on the barrier between the throat and the stomach called the diaphragm. Once the stomach is stressed from all the undigested garbage food in it and the diaphragm is stressed from the pressure forcing it up toward the throat . . . acid reflux happens.

You have a flap-like valve called a Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES), which normally keeps acid reflux separate from the throat. However, once the food pressure becomes great enough it warps this flap-like seal allowing stomach acid to reflux upward into your throat, lungs, sinus cavity and mouth . . . which stresses you out even more.

Bottom line acid reflux patients who are stressed report chronic acid reflux symptoms. Psychological factors may play a critical role, especially for patients without inflamed throats. There are further studies on understanding the brain/gut relationship and how a person’s perception of stress helps trigger acid reflux.

Considering all forms of stress and its relationship to acid reflux clearly shows that less stress equals less acid reflux.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

Source: http://www.cns.med.ucla.edu/Articles/PatientArticleFl99GERD.htm

There are a number of foods that trigger acid reflux and heartburn. Although everyone is different certain foods cause acid reflux more often, and more commonly, than others. Additionally, how much you eat, and when you eat can also trigger the effects of acid reflux.

Traditionally, onions, garlic, highly acidic fruits and juices (like citrus), caffeine and alcohol are all known to cause some type of heartburn (mild or severe) in a vast number of people. Additionally, foods that are difficult to digest like fatty foods (fast food), whole milk products, and ground beef can also cause some level of heart burn.

However, you may have your own triggers that upset your stomach a great deal, but don’t bother anyone else. To help you identify these causes, keep a food journal. That just means you should write down what you eat, when you eat, and how much you ate each time you sit down for a meal or a snack. That will help you to know exactly what you’ve eaten in the last few hours since your most recent bout of heartburn. If there are any trends, you’ll be able to easily point to them because you’ve been keeping track of your meals.

Regardless of what you’re eating, you can still get a mean case of heartburn if you eat too much of it. Have you ever heard of too much of a good thing? If you flood your stomach with food all at once, that sends it into acid production overdrive, and you may find that an upset stomach is the least of your problems. Keep this from happening by eating smaller meals more often. That way you’re still getting the same amount of nutrition, but you’re making it easier for your digestive system to process.

Additionally, when you eat can impact your heartburn pain. If you eat too close to bed time, or right before you lie down for a nap, that can be a sure fire way to trigger acid reflux, even if you just ate some whole grain toast, something that shouldn’t cause heartburn in the first place. This is because when you lay down, gravity can no longer help your body keep food down in the stomach. That allows acid and food to wander up into your esophagus, which results in pain and irritation. So, just try not to eat so close to bed time. Food should be consumed two hours or more prior to lying down to avoid an attack of acid indigestion. If this rule can’t be followed, then try propping yourself up with an extra pillow to provide your body with something resembling a more natural alignment of your digestive tracts, and attempt to keep foods down in your stomach where they belong.

If you’re looking for more information about foods that trigger acid reflux and heartburn, why they trigger those conditions, and how you can naturally relieve those symptoms, check out The Reflux Remedy Report. It contains a whole host of information about heartburn, as well as holistic tips and tricks for being heartburn free. Visit refluxremedy.com today to learn more.

Infant acid reflux is clinically known as gastro-esophageal reflux disease and is more common that you might first think.

Infant acid reflux happens when the food a child eats goes right back up into the throat.

This usually happens right after feeding, but it can happen anytime the baby strains or coughs. This doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your baby.

The first thing to do to stop infant acid reflux is to breast feed the infant frequently. If that isn’t an option then try switching formulas. The most common formulas are high in unwanted ingredients. Try to stay away from animal proteins and soy if you can . . . be very careful.

Animal proteins are hard on the digestive system and liver, plus the popular soy products should be fermented. Green soy contains allergens and plant toxins that could trigger your infant’s acid reflux.

Once your infant is a year to a year and a half old the infant acid reflux issues should be over.

It’s wise to not over feed your infant. It’s better to have more bonding sessions and smaller meals. Sometimes the child isn’t being held properly or is set back down too soon.

Setting your infant on the stomach right after feeding will trigger acid reflux faster than anything.

Try to avoid resorting to medications. Infants receive way too many drugs these days, it’s best to stick to a natural routine as much as possible.

Once you lose control of your infant’s health the medical management team will take over suspecting the worst.

Breast feeding offers the infant the best nutritional profile as well as growth factors and natural probiotics for a healthy immune system. Plus Mother’s milk is unmatched for its ability to be digested quickly and easily.

Remember, you baby isn’t designed for artificial foods or drugs . . . frequent bonding close to your skin and genuine care will go miles further than any medical regime can offer.

Again, there are always acceptations to the rules and medicine has its place.

Seriously if your infant suffers from recurring acid reflux try to breast feed, or even find a surrogate mother who has breast milk.

Nothing can compete with real breast milk for your child– infant acid reflux is totally preventable and curable naturally.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

Love to live dangerously? Then acid reflux surgery may be for you . . .

It may be a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face, but millions of people live with the lasting consequences of acid reflux surgery rather than seek the natural cure.

If your doctor says you can’t control your acid reflux with diet and lifestyle changes, you are either unwilling to try or you’re another victim of bad medicine.

Nothing could be simpler than curing acid reflux . . .

The nutritional approach to acid reflux uses whole food based nutrients to address the root cause of your acid reflux issues.

If you choose the pharmaceutical approach, long term benefits will be questionable and that’s why they have acid reflux surgery, one leads to the other.

This way you get the full experience of laying your life down for an experiment in medical insanity. There are always acceptations to the rules, but the fact is according to the Journal of American Medicine more than 106,000 patients die from properly prescribed medicine each year in the US.

Add to that massive number all the people who die because of malpractice, surgical mistakes and iatrogenic infections and its closer to 225,000 patient deaths per year.

Now are you sure you want to have surgery for a little heart burn?

The standard surgery for acid indigestion is called Nissen Fundoplication. This involves some cutting and wrapping of the stomach around your lower esophageal sphincter (LES), which is a flap at the bottom of your gullet that keeps food and acid reflux in the stomach.

After your acid reflux surgery the doctor will tell you to stop all the things you didn’t stop before, like smoking, drinking alcohol and caffeine, eating fatty foods and sugar . . .

If you did that in the first place, you would never had ended up having acid reflux surgery.

By treating the symptoms of acid reflux with drugs, odds are you will end up being a candidate for this insane surgery. I say it’s insane because 99% of the people who have acid reflux surgery could have been healed of acid reflux naturally.

Once you go down the pharmaceutical rabbit whole one drug leads to another and before you know it you’re taking Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs), one of the most damaging of acid reflux drugs or of any drugs.

PPIs increase risk of second heart attack by 30%, cause acid rebound and can lead to bacterial infections of the gut.

Frankly most people who end up having acid reflux surgery do so because of the damage the PPIs have done to their natural biological functions.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate