Helping you eat the foods you love – battling heartburn with enzymes
If you’ve ever felt a burning sensation in your gut after eating a greasy pizza or devouring a bar of chocolate, you know that occasional heartburn is not easily dismissed. Its infrequent occurrence offers a painful reminder of digestive distress, and typically demands immediate attention. According to Western statistics, heartburn may be more widespread than you know.
Recent research has shown that in Western populations, 25% of individuals experience heartburn at least once a month, 12% at least once a week, and 5% experience symptoms daily. When these numbers are compared with the current US population, they may indicate that around 77 million people suffer from symptoms of heartburn at least once a month.
So what causes heartburn? While factors such as genetics and environment can certainly play a factor, those who experience symptoms of heartburn are often encouraged to avoid certain trigger foods in their diet in hopes of minimizing this uncomfortable and often painful condition.
Some of the most common trigger foods include things like tomatoes, garlic, onions, spicy foods, cheese, nuts, alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, and carbonated beverages. The huge scope of the items on this list, as well as the hundreds of items not mentioned here, demonstrates that it may be impossible to completely avoid heartburn just by modifying one’s diet.
Many sufferers of occasional heartburn choose to take a supplement or other product to try to easy their symptoms, and these options do work to various levels of effectiveness. The problem comes from the fact that many, if not most, of these products are designed to address only the symptoms of heartburn, and may often mask the underlying causes of the condition.
Before banishing chocolate, pizza, and Philly cheese steaks from your diet, you have another option to consider. Enzymes can offer a unique solution for improving the body’s ability to digest a vast array of foods, and can also help the body digest food more efficiently, making better use of the precious nutrients in what we eat. (Although the “precious nutrients” in a slice of pizza can often be up to debate!)
Some suffers of occasional heartburn have found solace in Enzymedica’s Acid Soothe™ product. Acid Soothe™ contains natural digestive enzymes that work with the body to soothe occasional indigestion and enhance the natural digestive process. Also, new this month is Acid Soothe™ Chewable, which offers the same benefits of the encapsulated version of Acid Soothe™, but with a chocolate mint or berry burst flavor.
[i] Moayyedi P, Axon AT. Review article: gastro-oesophageal reflux disease – the extent of the problem. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2005 Aug; 22 Suppl 1:11-9. Review. [ii] U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. & World Population Clock, Web. 12 May 2011. <http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html>.
