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A large-scale, long-standing study of diet, lifestyle and health found that by adhering to specific guidelines, women can reduce more than a third of the incidence of symptoms.
Findings from the Nurses Health Study, one of the longest studies of women’s health, show that five factors related to diet and lifestyle, including regular exercise, can have a significant impact on gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or symptoms of heartburn. It was published as a letter in JAMA Internal Medicine.
GERD is a common condition, affecting approximately one-third of the American population; the main symptom is heartburn and it is often treated with medication. This new study suggests, however, that following diet and lifestyle guidelines can dramatically reduce symptoms and make medication unnecessary for some patients.
The five factors include a normal weight, never smoking, moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 30 minutes per day, limiting coffee, tea and soda to two cups per day, and eating “conservatively”.
“This study provides evidence that common and debilitating gastrointestinal symptoms could be well controlled in many cases with diet and lifestyle changes alone,” says Andrew T. Chan, MD, MPH, senior author of study.
“Given that there are long term health effects of GERD and lingering concerns about the side effects of the drugs used to treat it, lifestyle should be considered the best option for controlling symptoms.”
Chan is a gastroenterologist, head of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at the MGH, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The primary author of the research letter is Raaj S. Mehta, MD, a gastroenterology researcher at the MGH and Harvard Medical School.
Nursing Health Study II is a national study established in 1989 with participants returning a detailed health questionnaire twice a year. It started with 116,671 participants and had over 90% follow-up. This study included data from nearly 43,000 women aged 42 to 62 who were asked about symptoms of GERD or heartburn from 2005 to 2017 – which represents roughly 390,000 person-years.
The researchers created a statistical model that allowed them to calculate the “population attributable risk” for GERD symptoms associated with each of the five anti-reflux lifestyle factors – in other words, they estimated the probability that each lifestyle factor will reduce risk. to feel symptoms. They found that following all of these guidelines could reduce GERD symptoms by 37%.
The more a woman followed specific guidelines, the lower her risk of symptoms. In women using common treatments for heartburn (proton pump inhibitors and H2 receptor antagonists), following the guidelines also reduced symptoms.
“We were particularly interested in the effectiveness of physical activity,” says Chan.
“This is one of the first studies to show its effectiveness in controlling GERD.” This effect, he suggests, could be due in part to the effect of exercise on digestive tract motility. “Being physically active can help eliminate stomach acid that causes the symptoms of heartburn,” he says.
(This article was posted from an agency feed with no text changes. Only the title has been changed.)
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