The
apple has many benefits – it is useful in acid
reflux too. Find out
how.
Acid
reflux (gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD)
has been tormenting the medical profession for
decades as no specific medication has yet been
found for this distressing disease condition.
Apart from anti-acidic over-the-counter
medications that prove more injurious than
beneficial to GERD sufferers and proton pump
inhibitors that try to stop acid secretion in the
stomach which again interferes with the very
process of digestion, nothing else seems to come
anywhere near a total cure.
Sensing
this void in the field of ethical products,
various alternative medicinal preparations or
supplements have gained ground, among which
lactobacillus acidophilus, which is a lactic acid
producing bacteria is said to have healing effect
on the esophagus, thus alleviating heartburning
and associated discomfort in GERD patients. It
today seems that holistic remedies are giving
better results than conventional drugs and they do
not come with side effects
too.
However,
the concept of a household item and a very common
crop like the apple which the old aunts have been
recommending since ages to people suffering from
heartburn, somehow seems to have been overlooked.
It appears that the jet age values and fast food
culture have thoroughly washed out the validity of
the old axiom of distracting the doctor with the
dose of an apple a day. Nevertheless, the apple as
a savior of heartburn patients, have come to
stay.
For
people who dislike sinking their fangs on raw
apple all the while, the best remedy for acid
reflux comes in the form of raw apple cider
vinegar. Available in gallon jars, the apple cider
vinegar as it is popularly called can be stored in
the attic and when inspected after a few days, one
may locate a cloudy fluid settling almost at the
bottom of the jar. This is the “mother” that
contains all the enzymes and various other
medicinal properties that go in curing the
heartburn.
The
apple cider vinegar tea is made of one teaspoon of
ACV ‘mother’, one teaspoon of raw honey and eight
ounces of plain water all mixed together for an
eight hour consumption. The ACV tea may be sipped
slowly before the meals, after the meals as also
when heartburn threatens to recur. This medicated
raw apple cider vinegar tea has reportedly cured
many heartburn patients who have benefited from
the healing effect of apple and so, apple acid
reflux syndrome could open a helping window to an
otherwise dark corridor that failed to raise any
hope amongst heartbroken heartburn victims all
over our small little
planet.
Contra
Indications
As
the healing effects of ACV on the esophagus was
published in several US medical journals and
comments were invited from the reading public
which included doctors and healthcare
professionals, one wrote back – “But at this
point, I do not even know if this product (Apple
cider vinegar) truly is harmless or not. What I do
know with a good amount of evidence is that the
wall of esophagus is far more fragile than that of
the stomach, and repeated exposure to low pH (as
in acid/vinegar) causes chronic inflammation,
cellular dysplasia, and ultimately a high risk of
cancer”.
Apple
may offer an acid reflux remedy –
but the gain would be temporary. For a permanent
treatment, you need to turn to holistic treatments
that treat the body as a whole and diagnoses all
the contributing factors of the disease (which by
the way can be many). Holistic remedies give a
better cure because unlike conventional drugs that
treats just the symptoms mostly, they delve deeper
and tried to investigate the real causes of the
ailment.
So
the only way to cure and prevent this chronic
condition permanently would be to tackle all the
acid reflux contribution factors. And this is
possible through holistic
remedies.
