Word: gerdes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most of us call the resulting pain heartburn (though it has nothing to do with the heart). If you get it often, it's called gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. Along with an estimated 15 million Americans, that's what I've had for nearly 30 years. No big deal, though--or so I thought until I read a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine a couple of weeks ago. Turns out that this repeated acid bath can alter esophageal cells, creating a condition known as Barrett's esophagus. Once that happens, the cells can become precancerous, then...
...Most of the time, these and other heartburn remedies are all that are necessary to settle your stomach. But if you suffer from regular bouts of acid indigestion, you may need more than just a drugstore fix; you could have a more serious condition called gastroesophageal reflux disorder, or GERD, which can severely damage the esophagus and even predispose some people to throat cancer...
Nobody knows exactly how many people have GERD. But the latest surveys suggest that at least 15 million Americans experience heartburn, its principal symptom, on a daily basis. And things are only getting worse. "The number of Americans reporting frequent heartburn has grown 10% in the past two years," says Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, chairman of a national heartburn advisory panel and an associate professor at Cornell University Medical College in New York City. Some of that is due to aging. But a lot is caused by such habits as late-night snacking, high-fat eating and a related propensity...
Fortunately, GERD has a cure. For years doctors tried to minimize the problem with antacids. Then they turned to drugs like Tagamet and Pepcid to block a biochemical signal that sets off acid production. Neither of these remedies, now available over the counter, can turn off the stomach's acid-making machinery at the source, however. That's where a new group of prescription medications, called proton pump inhibitors, comes in. "You don't just get better on these pills," Dannenberg exults, "you actually return to normal." And because the drugs are activated only in the acid environment...
...Reported by Gerd Behrens and Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town and Dick Thompson/Washington