Is your HeartBurn Causing HeartAche?

If you have chronic heartburn, acid reflux, ulcers or other acid related conditions, you may be doing your Mental Health an injustice by using common over-the-counter (OTC) and prescriptive medications to treat your sour stomach.

In a recent article by Bottom Line Editor Bob Barnett citing research by naturopathic physician Andrew L. Rubman, ND, Dr. Rubman talks about when harm is done to  beneficial bacteria in the stomach, how it can have several negative effects on the body…Depression being amongst them.

Common Drugs like:

• Nexium
• Prilosec
• Protonix 

…and many other Proton-Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) reduce the body’s production of stomach acid. Patients that chronically use these medications (described as twice weekly) are twice as likely to develop depression according to peer-reviewed studies in Italy and Taiwan.

Mental health providers,  see first hand the effects of lasting depression on individuals, their families and even broader, the work-place.  In mental health, depression is the leading cause of preventable deaths in United States, therefore the importance of counseling for depression can not be overstated.  

However, all is not lost for those who chronically suffer from Stomach acid complications.  Talk to your health care provider about acceptable options to calm you achy stomach. Taking an active role in your health care is vital.  After all you are the expert on you.   Some alternatives to consider include:

• Changing your eating habits.  Many of us use food to emotionally self-soothe depression, but you can do better at preparing your body’s natural acid making machine by taking 5 minutes to smell your food before eating it.  This will give your body time to produce adequate acid to handle the job.

• Practice Mindful eating: This has been mind-blowing for me personally.  Life lessons (especially Marine Corps Boot Camp) taught me to inhale my food, and eat it down before it even has the chance to stain the plate.  Mindful eating is re-training my mind to actually taste my food bite by bite…and enjoy it more.  This allows my body and mind to be more aware, and to actually feel when I’m full, rather than waiting for my pain receptors to cue me that I’ve over did it.

• Limit fluid consumption during meals:  That soda may help you wash down that  triple-decker cow wrecker with cheese, but it also dilutes those gastric juices that help liquefy the dead moo-moo into goo-goo. I’ve often thought of fluids while eating was a means of washing my food down.  However, the body has built-in mechanisms to tackle this task.

The Bottom line is that diet does have a role to play in mental health.  Psychotherapy, a healthy diet and moderate exercise are great attributes to aid in better mental health that you can actually “Super-Size” safely to treat depression.