Take a pepcid and sue me in the morning

National Public Radio recently reported an interesting story about how taking heartburn medication can worsen heartburn. More amazingly, they reported on a recent study performed in Copenhagen in which healthy adults who were given heartburn medication for three months actually developed stomach diseases such as reflux and heartburn after stopping the medication. In other words the medication itself causes the disease it is supposed to be treating! Let me explain how this works.

When a receptors in the body is suppred with blocking medications the body reacts by increasing the number of receptors which are causing the "problem" in the first place. At some point in time, there was an increased need for the compound in the body that the receptor corresponds to which is why the number of receptors increased. In time, the need goes away, but the physiology gets "stuck"--and that's when maladptive state occurs. If you block the receptor but not the compound, the body simply makes more receptors because now the body is used to a certain level of function. If you reduce the compound, the body will reduce the number of receptors. It's a matter of simple feedback.

There are no bad receptors or bad hormones or bad physiology in the body. There is only homeostasis, imbalance, and the attempt to return to homeostasis.

When estrogen blocking drugs such as tamoxifen are used to treat estrogen positive cancers, studies show that there is a small but important risk of developing uterine cancer within 10 years of using the tamoxifen.

When a person has high blood pressure and you use a beta blocker to lower the blood pressure, the body actually increases the number of beta receptors. If you suddenly stop a beta blocker drug, you actually worsen the person's blood pressure.

Now to the topic of our blog: when a person has heartburn often times it is because they're making too much stomach acid. They're a number of hormones that are responsible for stimulating stomach acid production, So it's important to figure out are driving the increase in stomach acid, and why those hormones are being stimulated in the first place. Usually there's a good reason for the body reacting the way it does, and we should figure it out rather than outright suppressing it.

Usually stomach acid is increasing its because the body needs more nutrients due to some huge emotional or physical stress that is increasing metabolic activity somewhere else in the body. In this case, the stomach is an "innocent bystander". That is to say, the person is reacting to some type of stress, and he could be losing their job or having cancer, but the stress that they experience leads to all sorts of reactions in the body which require extra nutrients to meet the new metabolic demands from stress.

Stomach acid plays an important role in meeting this demand. For example, stomach acid helps break down food and allows for more efficient digestion in the small intestines. It serves as a defense mechanism against unhealthy bacteria that might try to enter the body through the stomach. For example, a recent study showed that people on acid blockers have an increased risk of pneumonia. Stomach acid improves calcium absorption, which helps with nervous system function and building bones and cell membrane activity. Antacids block calcium absorption long-term and long-term use of acid blockers can increase the risk of osteoporosis.

A holistic approach to medicine, such as the endobiogenic method used in my clinic, suggests that if we understand the whole person, their emotional state the stage of life that they are in, and their hormonal imbalances we can understand the true cause and continuation of illness--and then we'll know how to treat the person, not just the disease. Of course, that it goes without saying that their dietary habit must also be examined very carefully. I can tell you that my rate of using acid blocking medications is 0%.

If you want to correct the problem, look not only at the compound and its receptor the entire terrain or internal milieu of the person. In medicine as in mysticism, the answer lies within.