Jonathan Wright - Why Stomach Acid Is Good for You: Natural Relief from Heartburn, Indigestion, Reflux and GERD

The ideas and advice in this book are based upon the experience and training of the author and the scientific information currently available. The suggestions in this book are definitely not meant to be a substitute for careful medical evaluation and treatment by a qualified, licensed health professional. The author and publisher do not recommend changing or adding medication or supplements without consulting your personal physician. They specifically disclaim any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use of this book.

for my wife Holly and with special thanks to June Perbohner, for her incredible dedication to finding and preserving copies of hundreds of research papers concerning stomach acid and disease from the 1800s onward also, thanks to Lane Lenard, Ph.D., coauthor extraordinaire and Jennifer Morganti, N.D., for her longtime skillful help in the library and deepest appreciation to the thousands of individuals suffering from low stomach acid with whom I have worked at Tahoma Clinicwith the information gathered from your experiences collected and reported in this book, many, many others will find help for their own health problems

Jonathan V. Wright, M.D.

for Phyllis and Katy you make it all worthwhile

Lane Lenard, Ph.D.

Stomach acid has little or no value to our health. We may not even need it for digestion. Therefore, whats the harm in turning off the acid pumps when our gastric juices start erupting into heartburn and acid indigestion? If it gets rid of the pain and discomfort, why not turn them off for the rest of our lives? Stomach acid? Who needs it?

I f this sounds silly, try not to laugh too hard, because its what most doctors in this country believe. The conventional medical establishment in the United States, thanks in large part to hundreds of millions of advertising, research, and educational dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry each year, has learned to fear the evil stomach acid dragon. How else to explain their zeal for pushing dragon-slaying acid suppressors on a public convinced it is drowning in its own internally-produced acid bath?

Acid-suppressing drugs are a more than seven-billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States. Yet, this unimaginably large franchise is built on a convenient deception: that virtually eliminating acid from the stomach can only be good for us, and that it will have no consequences today, or tomorrow, or twenty or thirty years from now, when were still popping potent acid-suppressing pills to control our symptoms of hyperacidity.

In this book, we emphasize some of the importanteven essentialroles that stomach acid plays in digestion. We describe how hydrochloric acid, secreted by special cells in the stomachs lining in reponse to a meal, is a key upstream link in a complex chain of events that culminates in the absorption of vital nutrients that make a long, healthy life possible. Break that chainby severing the acid linkand the downstream cascade of events required for proper digestion and the continuing health of the gastrointestinal (GI) systemas well as the rest of the bodywill be severely impeded.

We also ask an important question: What diseases can emerge when stomach acid secretion is too low for too long? We wish the forces that control conventional medicine would ask this question, but for the most part, they seem uninterested. The fact is they dont really want to know the answer. There is simply too much invested in the myth of acid indigestion.

Yet the consequences for our health of long-term acid reduction due to disease or aging (known as atrophic gastritis) have been well-known for the better part of a century. What about long-term drug-induced acid-suppression? Based on very limited FDA approved trials, conventional medicines practitioners and promoters feel comfortable pretending that everythings going to be all right for people taking acid-quenching drugs like Prilosec, Prevacid, and their even more powerful successors for ten, twenty, or thirty years or longer if they live that long!

We think that those who choose to believe this myth have their heads buried firmly in the sand. These are powerful drugs that cause profound changes in the bodys chemistry and physiology at a key juncture in the digestive process. They should not be taken casually. Yet the current trend, with the widespread promotion of acid-blocking drugs for ordinary heartburn, is promoting just that.

When it comes to acid blockers, the conventional medical establishmentincluding groups like the American Medical Association (AMA)National Institutes of Health (NIH), the various specialty medical associations (e.g., American College of Gastroenterology, ACG) and disease advocacy groups (e.g., International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD), not to mention the two most powerful groups of all, the global pharmaceutical industry and its in-house enforcement agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)are all whistling (in chorus) past the graveyard. At our peril, they ignore decades of research clearly demonstrating that low stomach acid, whether caused by disease or drugs, is linked to a wide range of serious, chronic, so-called incurable diseases, some of which can be fatal.

Just because serious problems have not appeared after only a few years of drug use, theres no guarantee we wont start seeing themand experiencing themin a few more years. Natural atrophic gastritis typically takes decades to progress to more serious conditions such as ulcer or stomach cancer. Why should we expect acid-blocking drugs to be any different?

If you or someone you love suffers from heartburn or other symptoms of gastric upset, we urge you to ignore the constant barrage of advertising that leads most peopleincluding most doctorsto believe that the only way to treat these disorders is by suppressing acid secretion. More than a centurys worth of scientific research confirms that this simply isnt so. What has come to be calledincorrectlyacid indigestion is almost always associated, not with too much stomach acid, but with too little .

In this book, we propose a natural program that in many cases can cure acid indigestion. Instead of drugs that merely suppress symptoms by disrupting normal GI function, we tell you how to use a variety of safe, natural, inexpensive substances that work with the bodys physiologynot against itto restore healthy gastric functioning, heal damaged tissues, prevent future disease, and perhaps extend your life.