Your Heartburn Is Trying To Tell You Something

 The latest news about acid inhibiting drugs and their adverse effects on vitamin B-12 absorption is just another example of an unintended consequence of treating symptoms with harsh drugs. These particular drugs are very popular because they are quite effective in relieving heartburn symptoms.  They allow Americans like Larry The Cable Guy to eat the typical American garbage and avoid the body’s pain and discomfort signals that let us know that we just ate some damaging food.

 A few years ago, I attended a presentation by Tim Van Orden, raw food ultra-marathon runner, who used a great analogy to describe the bizarre practice of taking a drug so you can eat foods that make you sick.

He likened this practice to a person who constantly hit his thumb with a hammer and went to the doctor due to having a very sore thumb.  The doctor gave him a numbing cream and instructed the patient to apply the cream before he strikes his thumb with the hammer.  The cream worked and the man was able to continue to damage his thumb without feeling any pain.

 Of course the man would have been much better off  if he had just stopped hitting his thumb with a hammer. This would get rid of the both the symptom and cause of his pain, and it would allow his body to heal his thumb.  Acid inhibiting drugs allow Americans to continue to eat foods that no longer cause heartburn symptoms, but these foods will eventually cause one or more chronic diseases that will likely result in unnecessary misery and premature death.

 The Standard American diet (SAD) is the hammer.  The human body is amazingly resilient, but eventually, it will begin to break down from many years of constant pounding from meat, cheese, cupcakes and oil. Your heartburn is your body screaming at you. Taking an acid inhibiting drug is like putting earplugs in your ears so you don’t hear the body’s screams, but the body is still hurting.  Switching from the SAD diet to a WFPB diet will stop your body’s screams because it will no longer be getting pummeled.