Eric Bakker - Heartburn

 Read more from Eric Bakker ND

Do you get heartburn?

In 1982, when Aussie Dr. Barry Marshall identified a new bacterium Helicobacter pylori as an infectious agent responsible for peptic ulcer disease, it completely transformed medicine’s understanding of the microbiology and disease of the human stomach. This clever little bug lives in the stomach wall, and secretes an alkaline bicarbonate solution which neutralises the acid around it.

Before 1982, the accepted medical paradigm was "no acid, no ulcer", and that stomach ulcers only occurred when excess acid damaged the stomach wall and that all treatment should be aimed at reducing or neutralising that bad acid. Today it is an established fact that most cases of peptic ulcers and gastritis, diseases that affect millions of humans worldwide, potentially result from this H.pylori infection, and not “too much acid” in the stomach. Unfortunately, many such patients today are still seen as having “too much stomach acid”, and treated with antacids or stomach-acid blockers as front-line therapy, when in my clinical experience actually the opposite applies! Most people as they age have decreasing levels of acid, not increasing. As many as 20% of Kiwis may be infected with H. pylori, and prevalence is age related, since the percentage of persons colonised is roughly equivalent to age. When I see those advertisements on TV at night regarding “too much acid” in the stomach, I can’t help but thinking if some of those sufferers possibly have an undetected H.pylori infection.

How do you know if you have this bug?
Generally, you may present with symptoms such as nausea, bloating, lots of burping, heartburn, maybe diarrhoea or constipation. After being infected for several years, you may have disturbed sleep, altered appetite and develop mineral deficiencies which can lead to a myriad of health problems. Is it any wonder, how is an ailing stomach is supposed to do its job, i.e., digesting and absorbing foods efficiently when a bacterial infection is causing such dysfunction? Your doctor may have initially prescribed a medicine such as Losec, Gavascon or Mylanta for your stomach, serving to block acid or dilute it. How is your tummy supposed to work at all now? Then you go back and complain that the symptoms are unchanged. What then?

How do you treat this bug?
You need checking out, and can be tested for H.pylori. The problem here is that a test may come back negative and be a "false negative" for many reasons, for example you may have been taking a medication for some time which has suppressed this bug, giving the impression that all is well when in fact it isn't. Other causes need to be excluded through a comprehensive history taking and examination. Triple therapy (which include antibiotics) is generally employed, yet no clear indications exist for treatment of each individual case of H. pylori-associated gastritis. Complete eradication is difficult, even with a combination of bismuth and antibiotics and/or natural medicines. I have had several patients who have come to me after having had triple therapy with poor results, the recurrence rate can be very high indeed making one feel that it is "all in the head" rather than the stomach. I recommend an eight-week course of treatment designed specifically for the individual, with promising results for many patient. And what a relief, to be free of heartburn, bloating and that “awful feeling in the tummy” again.


DISCLAIMER: GrownUps is not a Health Professional and we are not making a recommendation to you. GrownUps accepts no responsibility for decisions made as a result of using the information provided by the author.

Published 20th Jun 2008

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