Re: Digestive enzymes, stomach acid, and all that...

[Guest guest]

That was all very interesting, TY Elenor.

For me, I'm just a bit afraid of getting Barrets b/c I have stage 2 esophagitis.

I have been taking Protonix now since last September. I stop it once in a while

and wait and see if I get heartburn, if I do, I start taking it again. I believe

in the theory of needing acid in the stomach, but if one already has a

condition, such as mine, it's too scary to me to stop my PPI and use HCL. I am

using a digestive enzyme product w/o HCL. Are those enzymes acidic?

I have not asked my gastro MD as he told me to stop all vitamins, iron included

while on this medication. I didn't b/c I had low ferritin and I don't eat as

well as I should, so I take multis, calcium for my osteopenia too.

I'm very afraid of getting Barrets from my esophagitis. I also have dudonitis

and hiatus hernia to boot.

>

> Permit me to recommend to you (y'all) a couple of blog entries with some good

info about stomach acid, reflux, and all that.

>

> http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/heartburn-cured/ (how it all

works, when it works right, and what can lead to it not working)

>

>

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/corn-eating-cow-crap-chuckin-up\

-your-insides-blues/

>

>

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/supplements/protexid-and-protexid-nd-and-adve\

ntures-in-dr/ (This offer of his has expired, I expect -- but the info is still

sound.)

>

> About: proton pump inhibiting drugs:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/good-eating/another-reason-to-eat-grass-fed-b\

eef/

>

> I've been reading Dr Eades for nearly a decade: I trust him. I have found him

to be honest, honorable, extremely deep-thinking. He has spent a chunk of his

blog dissecting and revealing how medical studies are badly done, or badly

reported: he actually reads the medical studies, not just the conclusions -- or

worse, the media reports of the conclusions -- and as was recently posted in the

Diabetes Update

(http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-health-media-missed-jama-study.\

html) blog:

> ===================

> ... Almost always close reading of these studies finds statistical abuse so

blatant that one concludes that the peer reviewers who approved it for

publication flunked Statistics 101.

>

> Now a study in JAMA quantifies just how bad this statistical abuse really is.

The study is,

>

> Reporting and Interpretation of Randomized Controlled Trials With

Statistically Nonsignificant Results for Primary Outcomes. Isabelle Boutron et

al. JAMA 2010;303(20):2058-2064.

>

> ...

> What the JAMA study found was that in 72 studies where the primary outcome

resulted in a statistically nonsignificant result there was significant " spin. "

>

> Spin was defined thus:

>

> ...specific reporting strategies, whatever their motive, to highlight that

the experimental treatment is beneficial, despite a statistically nonsignificant

difference for the primary outcome, or to distract the reader from statistically

nonsignificant results

>

>

>

> In plain English, " spin " means claiming some treatment works when the

statistics show it does not.

>

> How frequent was spin? The JAMA Study finds:

>

> The title was reported with spin in 13 articles (18.0%)

>

> Spin was identified in the Results and Conclusions sections of the

abstracts of 27 (37.5%) and 42 (58.3%) reports, respectively, with the

conclusions of 17 (23.6%) focusing only on treatment effectiveness.

>

> Spin was identified in the main-text Results, Discussion, and Conclusions

sections of 21 (29.2%), 31 (43.1%), and 36 (50.0%) reports, respectively.

>

> More than 40% of the reports had spin in at least 2 of these sections in

the main text.

>

> So no, I am not paranoid when I assert that peer reviewers approve the

publication of studies that claim results where none occurred, based on

ignorance of how statistics work.

> ...

> ===================

> Hope you find the info helpful,

> Elenor

>