Dr. Suzann Wang: Hi I am Dr. Suzann Wang from greenhealthspot.com. I'll be talking to you today about GERD or Gastroesophageal reflux disease and why GERD tends to be a more hypo or low acidity problem in the stomach as opposed to hypo or high acidity problem though lots of people think that it is. Now I don't know whether or not you remember your high school chemistry, but the pH system or the scale that marks whether or something is more acidic or alkaline ranges from zero to fourteen. 14 being highly, highly alkaline and zero being very, very acidic, so the stomach acid tends to be a 2.0, which is pretty acidic on the scale of acidity and 7 is neutral by the way.
So alkali or looking at the stomach and stomach acids things need to be approximately 2.04 the stomach to appropriately breakdown proteins and things like that in the stomach and allow for the rest of the pH system - in the rest of the digestive system to adjust accordingly to the high pH of the stomach. When you have relatively lower acidity in your stomach, it affects the rest of your digestive systems. So it affects your ability to digest and break down vitamins and nutrients and minerals and things like that, leading over longterm to problems in your physical illness or something.
So one of the issues that I'm trying to train a lot of, teach my, lot of patients about is that some of gas really should be acidic as possible even if you have GERD and the reason for GERD or a lot of the solutions for GERD is really reeducating your stomach to be as acidic as it should be, which then triggers everything else to as appropriately as it should. So let me try to illustrate it by hands. The stomach is a sack. So the sphincter on top which is the like a valve and their sphincter at the bottom to let food contents after spin hanging around in the stomach for a while after it -- its go into the small intestine.
So this sphincter here is the lower softer sphincter because it goes to the esophageus it becomes, food comes down through the esophageus through this sphincter into the stomach. Okay, so this is the sack of the stomach. There is the pH needs to be approximately 2.0 and then you need this will the pyloric sphincter at 2.0 will release which will allow the stomach content to kind of go out into the small intestine so that it can be digested further. So what happens often times is a lot of people as we age our stomach acid doesn't get acidic as it should. So saying instead of a 2.0 and neutral is a 7 year 3 or 4.0. So, which means that this both of the sphincters don't work appropriately. So the lower soft duo sphincter doesn't shut appropriately and this one doesn't appropriately which means you will get reflux in food and stomach content going out this way.
So what you want to do is make sure that your stomach acid is as closed to is possible so that the lower esophageal sphincter shuts appropriately and the pyloric sphincter opens appropriately which allows for further and better improved digestion. So how do you do this? So one of the ways that I often teach my patients to do this especially you can do this if you don't have active gastritis or active ulceration or lot of ulceration in the lower esophageus. So you can start by doing apple cider vinegar that usually raw organic. Apple cider vinegar one tablespoon with about quarter cup of water and you do this before each meal to help appease acidification of the acidity of the stomach. So what will happen eventually is that it really knocks down a lot of reflex feeling mainly because after you eat, the stomach acids, the stomach is able to remember or become acidic as possible using the apple cider vinegar as the impetus and eventually coming to this for may be a month or so and after that it should really fix itself because of stomach is very trainable and once you have a understand it needs to have more acidity it will the GERD will usually go away.
Another problem with GERD is often times our food sensitivity is involved this is not a usually, usually not a food allergy as food sensitivity as it delayed hypersensitivity reaction to a food that's for whatever reason will cause this sort of irritation on the digestive tract, can lead to gastritises, may or may not lead to alteration ,but it can lead to hyper acidity and problems with GERD and this feeling of fullness of becoming of burp, feeling of having discomfort in the upper chest, because generally the esophageus is kind of a tender organ and as acid or anything reflexes after irritation that's caused. So you get that burning or pain feeling. So you want to check in with your doctor and make sure that if your into acids or acid blockers, you want to not do them for very longer, really good for preventing things like ulcers and gastritises and it takes you know 4 to 6 things like that to heal and there is a number of natural substances that you can use including things like glutamine to help heal the GI tract to including, Oh! Also things like aloe Vera juice, something like DGL De-Glycerized Licorice, which is a type of licorice that doesn't increase or affect your blood pressure. All of these things are really important to help the GI system heal. And once that happens you will find the GERD will resolve itself and you can start the use of any of anti acids in the any of the acid blockers because they will inhabit your ability to absorb minerals and vitamins and things like that.
So it's really important for you as a patient to be aware that if you are using acid blockers or any of these things to help licorice that you still you are only managing the symptoms that you really want to ultimately deal with the underlying stress. There is emotional stress that can contribute to it and any of the other issues like food sensitivities and pH problems in the digestive system. So thank you for joining me and for further information you can feel free to go visit my website which is greenhealthspot.com. Have a great day. bye bye.
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