If you’ve ever felt that fiery burn rising from your stomach into your throat after a meal, you know how miserable heartburn can be. Here’s what’s happening: Your esophagus (the tube connecting your mouth to your stomach) is protected by a small muscular gate at the bottom called the lower esophageal sphincter. Its job is to open for food and close to keep stomach contents where they belong. But when that gate gets lazy or loose, stomach acid backs up—a process called reflux—and it can singe the delicate lining of the esophagus.
Heartburn symptoms
This burning sensation is heartburn. Other everyday heartburn symptoms include pain that worsens when you bend over or lie down, a sour or bitter taste in your mouth, and difficulty swallowing (it feels like food is stuck in your throat). You might also experience a chronic cough or throat irritation, hoarseness (especially in the morning), frequent burping or hiccups, and nausea or upset stomach after meals.
Also known as acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), heartburn and its symptoms affect nearly half of us at least once a month, with 20 percent of us suffering from it far more often. Altogether, we spend around $14 billion yearly trying to douse the flames.
Heartburn relief
How do you get rid of heartburn? Well, the most common remedies for heartburn relief are the acid-blocking drugs called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), prescription and over-the-counter drugs like Prilosec, Nexium, and Prevacid. They work. But they don’t come without problems. They’re highly addictive, are linked to a 44 percent higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, dramatic loss of bone density, and a 25 percent higher risk of premature death.
Remedies that really work
With that in mind, consider these safe and effective ways to get rid of heartburn fast—at home.
Curcumin works as well as a drug
In a study published in BMJ Journals, people with heartburn were given either the herb curcumin (500 mg, four times a day) or the PPI acid blocker Prilosec OTC (omeprazole). After two months, the benefits reported from each group were similar: People in both groups had less pain—or no pain—after eating, and both groups were satisfied with the effectiveness of the remedy they were taking. Unlike PPIs, curcumin has other health benefits, like easing chronic inflammation, boosting immunity, and controlling blood sugar.
Try baking soda
This is an easy way to clear up heartburn fast. Use half a teaspoon of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), mixed in 4 ounces of water. This quickly neutralizes stomach acid and relieves pain. It’s especially helpful for acid reflux at bedtime. However, do not use baking soda in children without a doctor’s guidance, as kids can easily overdose.
Boost the bed
For acid reflux that occurs at night when you are in bed, use gravity to keep the acid down in your stomach. Simply raise the head of the bed around three to four inches. Use sturdy blocks or cones to place under the legs at the head of the bed. They are widely available online or at major retailers like Target or Walmart. You can also use a bed that lets you adjust the head section electronically.
Use a special pillow
Most pillows don’t work to raise your head sufficiently to provide heartburn relief. But there are types that work well, like the Sleep Improving Pillow Wedge from www.hammacher.com. No matter how you raise your upper body, you want a gentle incline of four to six inches from waist to head. And make sure the slope is even—don’t just raise your head; raise from the waist up. (That’s why propping up pillows doesn’t work.)
Try DGL licorice
This special form of licorice has been shown in studies to work as well as drugs like Tagamet. Important: Only use deglycyrrhizinated (DGL) licorice, to avoid blood pressure problems. In the newest study on the remedy, researchers in India gave either a placebo or an extract of DGL (GutGuard) to 200 people with heartburn. Those taking the licorice had much better heartburn relief than those taking the placebo—less regurgitation, less pain, less burning in the center of the chest, and less sour taste. They also reported a “significantly better quality of life,” wrote the researchers in Complementary Medicine Research. And the extract worked fast, often resolving heartburn symptoms completely after two weeks (the first time the researchers measured results).
Add mastic gum
Mastic gum is a natural resin harvested from the mastic tree, especially from the Greek island of Chios. The resin hardens into translucent drops that become chewable when softened. It’s been used for thousands of years for heartburn and other GI discomfort—and it’s still working in the 21st century, soothing the stomach and coating the esophagus with a mildly protective barrier. In a study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Greek gastroenterologists asked people with digestive ills to chew either Chios mastic gum or a placebo. Seventy-seven percent of the people checking the gum had a “significant improvement” in digestive ills, including heartburn—nearly double the results in those taking the placebo. Chew the gum daily after meals.
Add vinegar
In many cases, what causes heartburn isn’t an excess of stomach acid—it’s low stomach acid. Yes, chronic heartburn is often caused not by too much stomach acid, but by too little. This condition is called hypochlorhydria, with some clinicians thinking it causes nine out of 10 cases of GERD. How can an underproduction of stomach acid cause the problem most everyone thinks it due to acid overload? Simple.
Meals and heartburn-causing acid hang around in the stomach longer than nature intended because you don’t have enough concentrated stomach acid to turn the food into the soupy chyme that is ready for the small intestine. After a couple of hours, your body says to itself, “This meal isn’t working out. Maybe we should send the undigested food back the way it came.” And an acidic slurry sloshes out of your stomach into your esophagus.
To find out if this is your problem, try adding two to three teaspoons of vinegar to your salad. If your heartburn (and digestion) improve, odds are you have low stomach acid. Make vinegar-based dressings a regular feature of your meals.
With a little effort, you can beat heartburn at home—naturally, safely, and often faster than you think.
