Many doctors recommend relieving GERD symptoms by adjusting the diet. However, before you start doing so, you should understand what GERD is in the first place. If put simple, GERD is a conditions caused by the irritation of esophagus. The esophagus is a tube that connects your throat with the stomach and carries food after it has been chewed and swallowed. This tube ends with a small sphincter that connects it with the stomach and doesn't allow the food to get back into the esophagus after it has entered the stomach. When this sphincter is weak or there are other causes for its malfunctioning, the contents of the stomach can reflux up into esophagus and damage its sensitive tissue (due to potent acids from the stomach). This is when the symptoms of GERD occur.

When speaking about a diet for relieving GERD symptoms, you have to keep in mind that in most cases it's a muscular problem. It's the malfunctioning of the sphincter in the esophagus that causes the problem. However, if you adopt a special regimen you may reduce the severity of symptoms in addition to the use of special medications. Here are some things you should consider:

Meal timing

As most of you may know, GERD symptoms are usually very intense in the night time. So when speaking about a diet for GERD, it's not the type of food that matters but rather the actual time you're eating it. If you are bothered by heartburn, acid reflux and other symptoms of GERD it's quite likely because you're eating too close to bedtime.

Japanese researchers have conducted a study that revealed the increase of GERD risk with the reduction of time between food intake and sleep. There was a direct relation found between the symptoms of GERD and

how much time passes between dinner and bedtime.

The study involved 147 patients with GERD symptoms and 294 volunteers who didn't have any problems for reference. matched "control" patients who had not experienced GERD symptoms during the previous year. Each participant had to fill out a questionnaire determining the usual time between their dinner and sleep.

It was observed that people who went to bed within three hours after eating their dinner were 7.5 times more likely to experience GERD symptoms such as heartburn than people who had a larger period of time between these activities.

Therefore it is highly recommended to eat at least four hours before going to bed if you do not want to enjoy medication treatment with drugs like Aciphex. Moreover, it is recommended to keep the evening meals small in order to reduce the amount of food processed by the stomach during this time of the day. If you tend to eat large meals in the evening this puts more pressure on the stomach and the sphincter connecting it with the esophagus. By eating less, you will ease the pressure and avoid having GERD symptoms.

Moreover, there are specific foods that are believed to cause GERD symptoms:

• chocolate

• creamed foods

• fast foods

• fatty foods

• milk

• oils

• peppermint

• caffeine drinks

Try avoiding these foods in the evening and it may turn out that you won't need Aciphex or other special drugs for GERD at all.