Kresser: 3, 2, 1 Treat Your GERD

To review, heartburn and GERD are not caused by too much stomach acid. They are caused by too little stomach acid and bacterial overgrowth in the stomach and intestines. Therefore successful treatment is based on restoring adequate stomach acid production and eliminating bacterial overgrowth.
This can be accomplished by following the “three Rs” of treating heartburn and GERD naturally:

1. Reduce factors that promote bacterial overgrowth and low stomach acid.
2. Replace stomach acid, enzymes and nutrients that aid digestion and are necessary for health.
3. Restore beneficial bacteria and a healthy mucosal lining in the gut.

http://chriskresser.com/get-rid-of-heartburn-and-gerd-forever-in-three-simple-steps

It's no surprise that the first thing you have to do to reduce bacterial overgrowth and low stomach acid is to reduce your intake of carbohydrates to rational levels.  In other words, GERD can be addressed the same way that hypertension can be addressed, the same way that gout can be addressed, the same way that abdominal fat stores can be addressed, the same way that osteoporosis can be addressed, the same way that a disease forecasting lipid profile can be addressed, and same way that diabetes can be addressed. 

Clearly, this correlates nicely with the paleolithic model of nutrition.  None of these diseases are either "normal" or "mysterious."  They are a likely result, a predictable result, of feeding the human machine in a way that is contrary to design specifications.

The rest of the article details the process more thoroughly, read it.  GERD is not just an annoying disease that you should be popping pills to treat for the rest of your life, it's a symptom of ill health created by a poor diet.

Kresser: GERD

I will present evidence demonstrating that, contrary to popular belief, heartburn and GERD are caused by too little (not too much) stomach acid. In the second article I’ll explain exactly how low stomach acid causes heartburn, GERD and other digestive conditions. In the third article I’ll discuss the important roles stomach acid plays in maintaining health and preventing disease, and the danger long-term use of acid suppressing drugs presents. In the final article, I’ll present simple dietary and lifestyle changes that can eliminate heartburn and GERD once and for all.

http://chriskresser.com/what-everybody-ought-to-know-but-doesnt-about-heartburn-gerd

Drugs for acid reflux and GERD are cash cows for the pharmaceutical companies. More than 60 million prescriptions for GERD were filled in 2004. Americans spent $13 billion on acid stopping medications in 2006. Nexium, the most popular, brought in $5.1 billion alone – making it the second highest selling drug behind Lipitor.
.... heartburn and GERD can have serious and even life-threatening complications, including scarring, constriction, ulceration, and ultimately, cancer of the esophagus.
Recent studies also show that the damage from poor stomach function and GERD not only extends upward to the sensitive esophageal lining, but also downward through the digestive tract, contributing to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and other gastrointestinal problems. IBS is now the second-leading cause of missed work, behind only the common cold.

Just as studies show acid secretion declines with age, it is also well established in the scientific literature that the risk of GERD increases with age.
If heartburn were caused by too much stomach acid, we’d have a bunch of teenagers popping Rolaids instead of elderly folks. But of course that’s the opposite of what we see.

Read Chris' article to find out why MORE stomach acid is good for you, and how you can cure GERD by adding more hydrocholric acid to your guts - and the rest of his series for how to treat your GERD.

If you are already eating meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit and starch, and no sugar/wheat, you probably don't have GERD anyway.

As I was thinking about how this situation parallels the statin situation, I got to this part of the article:
Note: if you think this sounds strangely like the situation with the #1 selling drug, Lipitor, you’re correct. Lipitor arbitrarily lowers cholesterol across the board, even though evidence clearly indicates that high LDL cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. What’s more, low cholesterol is associated with greater risk of death in the elderly population. Something is definitely wrong with our “healthcare” system when the #1 and #2 medications are actually contributing to the conditions they’re supposed to treat.

So, let's get this strait.  We didn't have the money (in the US Treasury), but passed a "prescription drug benefit" to make sure everyone could afford drugs, and the two most common are drugs which treat conditions which are nearly 100% preventable through a dietary intervention - so we then recommend a diet which does not help GERD, but which may exacerbate GERD, and diabetes ... yes, reverso world.