Truth about Proton Pump Inhibitors

Vincent Bellonzi: Hi this is Dr. Vincent Bellonzi. Let's talk a little bit about proton pump inhibitors. You probably heard of Nexium or Prilosec or some of these other pharmaceutical drugs and perhaps a lot of you are using the drugs and they have their place. If you are having Gastro-Esophageal Reflex, if you are having indigestion and heart burn and all these things, you have to be careful, you can cause damage to your esophagus, you can get damage in your throat. A lot of times people have a chronic cough or chronic sinus infection, they are thinking it's acid or something in the aeronology and honestly it's the acid from the stomach. But we also have to consider the fact, the acid is there for a reason. There is a reason that your stomach produces a great amount of acid and that acid helps you in the digestive process. If we take a proton pumping inhibitor, we take a drug to reduce the stomach acid. Then you're not going to digest your food. This presents a whole new problem. The help in what the damage that could be done by the acid if it gets out of the stomach. But now you've got a problem that we can't digest our food. About all the stomach is left with is mechanical digestion. And yeah the stomach does some of that but it's not going to completely digest the food. So now I move food from my stomach into my lower intestine that has been broken down and it literally begins to putrefy. I start rotting food in my gut. If you don't think that's going to cause you problem, you need to come and look at some of the cases that come to your office. It's one of the biggest problems we content with. Reflex is almost always solved by eating the right diet. Eating a diet that's suited for you. There is a lot of talk about malformation of valves and valves not closing and something wrong with your physical structure, it's just not the truth. Most of the item if you just eat a diet that is suited for you, then in essentially stomach doesn't reject, you won't have the reflex. Time after time, people come into our office and we have to work with them to change their diet. Then when we do that, reflex stops and we get them off all of these pills. If you are dependent on something to reduce your stomach acid, you don't want to do that for a long period of time. You are adding to the toxic glue in your body. Your body has to metabolize that drug. You've altered the structure and function of your digestive track. You've got rotting food in your lower intestine, and you're going to have health consequences to be covered because of it. You're going to have fatigue. You're going to feel off, you're not going to feel real good. You're going to have symptoms. As I mentioned, you're going to think, may be you have allergies or a cold, constantly you're going to have a chronic cough and even can get into your lungs, you got this acid being transported all over, and just reducing the acid isn't the answer. So what's the answer? Like I said, better nutrition, learning what your body is suited to eat. A lot of times, we can look at some of the allergy test that we do as a guide to what food is correct and what isn't. You can do a form of elimination diet. Find out what you can eat that doesn't cause indigestion. Don't follow the ads that tell you, go out and eat the pizza and whatever you want to eat and then take the pill, that's not the way to do it. What you do is, you find a food that's suitable for you. Find a food that your digestive system tolerates so you don't have the indigestion. It's silly to take a pill to alter the function of your body and make yourself sick. So it's not magic. You don't want to be dependent on that drug, we've talked about that before. I don't want you dependent on any drug. For a short-term fix, sure, use a proton pump inhibitor weeks or months, hopefully just weeks while you try to find out the solution. If you've already got damage in your esophagus or in other areas of your body because of the acid being out of its container, which your stomach, then you need to do something. But it comes down to finding the right diet. You're eating well. It comes down to taking care of yourself. The pharmaceutical drug is not a long-term fix. There are no pharmaceutical drugs out there that are designed for long-term use. We can make arguments about insulin and other things. But really there is a strategy to al least the use of a drug and the majority of the drugs out there again are for short-term use. Once you're using a drug, once you got a label, you need to turn it around. So I want you take action, if you are using a drug like Nexium or I don't want to name all of them but proton pump inhibitors, the acid reducers, you don't want to use them for a long-term. You can't find an answer when it comes down to your diet in most cases. So if your stomach is rejecting food in essence, then you need to change. Don't take the idea that a drug is going to elude you to do it yourself, that's what too many people do. And don't just because the TV tells you to do something, go out and do it. Research it, look into it. Learn how to take care of yourself so you are not dependent, so you don't cause problem. We've had a number of very sick people and it's because they took these acid reducers for a long period of time and it completely threw their whole digestive system out of work. Discussed it before, so I don't want to go into it again. Your digestive track is intimately linked with your immune system. So if my digestive track isn't functioning, I am not functioning in my immune system, that means I am going to get sick a lot, a lot more often, my body is not going to be ready for a real threat when it occurs, I am going to upset the entire balance. Then I get more diseases, I get more symptoms, I get more drugs, and just bills and bills and bills. Don't go there. Find out how to take care of yourself. Consult with a nutritionist. Talk to a certified clinical nutritionist. Look into some of the clinical lab testing that's available or simple get your diet together and figure out what causes indigestion and what doesn't and then eat the right stuff. It's really as simple as that. Again, there are a lot of solutions out there that don't involve drugs. Drugs have their place short-term, long-term is not a good idea. So don't get dependent on anything as far as a drug, look for the strategy to get away from that. Don't interrupt your digestive system and alter not only your ability to get nutrients in your body, which is really important. But again, if you have the putrefying food, it actually is going to produce substances that are going to upset the balance, even from that standpoint. If you're going to cause problems for yourself, you are just going to build on more and more dependence on drugs and doctors and everything else. I don't want you dependent, I want you self sufficient. So don't think that just because you are taking a drug that allows you to eat junk food or whatever it is that you eat that causes indigestion, that's you solved your problem. That's the indication, that's the red flag, that should be the stimulus for you to decide and find out what you can do about it. Again, take the drug if you need it for a short-term fix. But it's just like a crutch, eventually you want to throw it away. So look into it, look into the side effects. Don't live with food putrefying in your stomach. Rotting food is going to make you sick. You want a properly functioning digestive system. From the time you put something in your mouth and the enzymes in your saliva start working on it, and you chew it correctly and it gets into your stomach and the acid that's there is supposed to be there starts breaking down the food, turning into what's called chyme, and then it passes onto lower intestine all the way through to the end of the tube. You wanted to work correctly. You want to get your nutrients. The other thing that we find really often is that people end up with more allergies because they take the proton pump inhibitors. Again they don't digest the food, it gets into the intestine and the body actually absorbs undigested food into the blood stream. Well guess what? Your body doesn't know what to do, it thinks it's a foreign invader. So now you have an allergy. You create what's called a leaky gut. You end up with this whole list of symptoms because you are reacting to even the food that you eat. You cause the problem on your own. It's a self caused problem. But it's something that you can turn around. Those foods that you are reacting to if you identify them, is it through some kind of an organized diet or you do a blood test. There are blood tests available. We do a couple in our office that are very helpful. But determine what the foods are that your body is not reacting to, that you are intolerant to, you take those out of your diet for a short time, and you can loose reactivity again to those foods. If you set up the problem, look for a way to fix the problem. So again, I am always talking about taking care of yourself. Health is about being self sufficient and that means not dependent on drugs, surgery, doctors, any of that. You can ensure to take care of yourself. Doctor means teacher, doctor means advisor. You can go get information, you can go, have somebody to work with, you can have a guard or mentor, whatever you want to call it. But you don't want somebody directing everything you do in your life. The problem is that you start with that one thing and the next thing you know, you are on 8-10 medications. This one medication is there to fix, what this first one, creative. So don't look at those acid reflex drugs as a fix. They are short-term finger in the diet. And it's up to you to take it to the next level, to eliminate the dependence and solve the problem. You are the only one that can do it. You have to make better choice in what you eat and you have to take better care of yourself. Activity makes a difference as well. But don't get dependent on something made in a lab. You should depend on good choices, the things that were designed to be used in your body, good food, real food, food close to its origin. So think about it, take some action. Again, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, this is Dr. Vincent Bellonzi, have a good evening.