Dropping Acid vs Fast Tract Digestion Heartburn Diets

I noticed a few people tried the Dropping Acid diet (Jamie Kaufman) for LPR/GERD and one user in particular got good results, then he switched to the Fast Tract diet by Norman Robillard but didn't really do much of a follow up.

Are any of you trying either diet? How is it working for you?

I bought both books and I started on the Norman Robillard book because I was diagnosed with SIBO and Jamie's book had a few portions that worried me. One was to take Aloe Vera gel straight from the plant (the National Toxicology Program study points to a potential cancer risk which Jamie doesn't even acknowledge). The other was her seemingly over the top/simplistic examples of her patients who would suffer from LPR but drink 6 cans of diet coke a day, or eat 30 mins before bed and were cured by stopping doing those things.

Her theory is that there is acid present in the food we eat, and it's sufficient enough to re-activate pepsin in our esophagus (pepsin is a digestive enzyme that breaks down protein and can damage tissue in our esophagus and larynx). That makes sense to me on a few levels. There have been papers written that show pepsin will damage our throats and that it can be de-natured by a pH of 7 or more. My only problem with her approach is that it doesn't really address the underlying issue of reflux. Her approach is similar to taking PPIs, it reduces the throats exposure to acid, thereby stopping it being damaged by pepsin. But it doesn't stop you refluxing in the first place.

Which brings me onto Fast Tract. Norman Robillard claims that people with GERD and IBS suffer because a lot of the food we eat contains complex carbs that are hard for our intestines to break down. Couple this with a low stomach acid level, and bacteria in your small intestine can overgrow and ferment the food causing a lot of gas which cannot escape. His theory is that the gas forces it's way up the GI tract and pushes stomach contents up our esophagus. His book is pretty good and he backs it up with quite a lot of evidence. The reviews of all his books are seemingly very positive. Other doctors have written similar diets that have also been shown to work for at least IBS, and when you consider the substantial overlap between IBS and GERD it could prove effective. His diet consists of foods with a low potential to ferment.

I'm on day 2 of the diet so I don't have anything to report just yet. But I will keep you posted. I've been suffering now since May.

There are threads here on both of these diets. Fast Tract helped me the most. I'm off meds now after having some severe GERD issues. I just take a TUMS maybe once or twice per day.

Kauffman uses her diet to supplement heavy ppi use. They can be necessary to enable the esophagus to heal, but they make digestion worse because it requires adequate stomach acid. Fast Tract is a much better solution. Consultation with Norm was also very helpful to me, through the Digestive Health Institute. He is very approachable and helpful.

Post Edited (sunbeam48) : 8/4/2013 7:13:21 PM (GMT-6)

I believe the Fast Track book is on to something. I would like to get a copy of that.

ericapeace2000: That's interesting. I'd like to incorporate the low pH foods from Kaufman too but my biggest issue is eating enough calories in the day to maintain my weight. I'm already pretty skinny and since I've had GERD I have been losing weight (mainly due to me not eating junk). The high fats in the Fast Tract are a good thing to me, that and the recipes are easy for me to bring into work.

It must be difficult for you avoiding gluten too right? One thing that has stumped me, is how do you work out your trigger food? I tend not to get heartburn straight after a meal but rather 2 hours to 5 hours after a meal, and my symptoms are more like LPR than full on heartburn most of the time.

ethanol - i realize it's been a long time since anyone posted to this thread, but I'm wondering if you have any updates on which diet worked best for you. i have similar symptoms to you (mostly LPR), have trouble figuring out my trigger foods, and am trying to determine which type of diet would work best for me. if you have any updates, please let us know!

thank you!