Alkaline water does have a place for LPR sufferers like me because it deactivates the pepsin that has vaporized and deposited itself in my esophagus and throat which when activated by acidic foods will begin to digest my soft tissues. The rest of ways to sell it I agree are completely bunk.
This is true for most fad health things. They come from a place of “this is good for one hyper specific medical outcome” and then extrapolate to “this is good for literally all medical outcomes”
Remember the gluten free phase where people with no gluten alergy whatsoever decided they wanted to eat breads stripped of most of their protien(gluten) because they thought it was healthier.
Low carb diets led to commercial production on non-wheat breads in the western world, creating more options for people with celiacs and increasing public awareness of gluten allergies. With more bread options some people noticed they felt better after chowing non-wheat bread.
Without a lot of health info and bullshit american healthcare, they figured they had gluten allergies or celiacs and adjusted their diet accordingly.
A widely publicized study on non-celiacs gluten allergies found no gluten allergy, media took it out of context and implied those people were full of shit. This polarized the public against anyone claiming a gluten allergy.
But! More and more people self-diagnosed gluten allergies, and more study led to discoveries on how fermentation helps digestion (like with sourdough), that parts of grains contain enzymes that aid digestion, found industry-wide problems with undercooked grains, and allergies to different classes of grains.
So it was healthier for a lot of people, they just didn’t know why.
Being gluten free is a nightmare because of the stigmatism from the gluten free movement and all of those idiots fadding. Sincerally a gluten allergy sufferer well not so much an allergy as much as a immune system disease.
I have a very high family risk of diabetes and my rule of thum for carbs has always been the more fiber the better. White breads, especially wonder bread has so little fiber you’re basically just eating fluffy sugars. I’m no doctor and my body isn’t everyone’s body but If someone was asking me why bread messes with them my first question will always be, well how much fiber are in the bread you eat? Less then or equal to 10g carbs per 1g fiber? Alright. If you can get to 7:1 better. If you can crack 5:1, that’s pretty good for bread.
That’s a great point, too. Our digestive systems didn’t evolve as fast as food processing.
I researched the gluten thing because I was a chef around the time it took off in my part of the world, and almost had to fire a line cook when he flat out refused to follow protcol because of the gluten study.
I wasn’t super on board at the time, but now I think we should just listen to people. They know their bodies even if they don’t understand the mechanisms.
That’s still unbelievably common where I live. Some restaurants will have zero vegan options, but you can be sure they’ll offer half a dozen clearly marked gluten free items. Come on, you can’t spare the overhead for a block of tofu, but you can keep gluten free breads and pastas?
I’m curious if it’s just additional labeling or new options? Are they just labeling things they already served as gluten free that didn’t have wheat, or are they making new options specifically designed to avoid gluten?
Can I just say though, as someone who does have diagnosed Coeliac Disease, the gluten free fad really helped to open up my options both for products to buy and restaurants I can eat at and for that I’m thankful. It does suck that there aren’t more/better vegetarian and vegan options at mainstream restaurants though.
I don’t know how common this is, but I’ve heard the opposite sentiment. It caused a lot of restaurants to stop being careful to ensure there was no cross contamination because most people asking for gluten free foods didn’t actually have an issue with eating it.
Yeah I’ve heard that a fair bit too - thankfully I’m a high-tolerance Coeliac meaning my body can handle very small amounts of cross contamination but for those whose bodies can’t process a single iota of gluten this has become a significant issue for them. I find that when I order gluten free a lot of servers will ask me “is that for preference or are you Coeliac” and that gives me confidence that when I tell them I’m Coeliac they’ll take extra precautions.
The biggest initial issue for many is that it’s pretty sedating, but that lessens with time. I slept like the dead for the first three weeks as baclofen is one of the few drugs that increases the frequency and duration of deep sleep. Now I can take 100 milligrams in a day and not feel a thing. I have literally no side effects.
One downside is sudden cessation is hell. If I miss an entire day, my anxiety gradually increases until it’s through the roof until I start taking it again. Two days results in gradually increasing visual hallucinations. All of this completely reverses within an hour of taking a dose. You must taper off this stuff, but doing it isn’t hard at all. Just don’t go cold turkey.
It’s also a medication that people tend not to grow resistant to. It hasn’t lost any effectiveness for me despite having taken 60-80mg/day for almost two decades.
I used to have constant burning throat pain and the taste of stomach contents. Not anymore!
It reduces the frequency of transient lower esophageal sphincter (LES) relaxation and increases its resting tone. Here’s a relevant paper for anyone interested:
Alkaline water does have a place for LPR sufferers like me because it deactivates the pepsin that has vaporized and deposited itself in my esophagus and throat which when activated by acidic foods will begin to digest my soft tissues. The rest of ways to sell it I agree are completely bunk.
This is true for most fad health things. They come from a place of “this is good for one hyper specific medical outcome” and then extrapolate to “this is good for literally all medical outcomes”
Remember the gluten free phase where people with no gluten alergy whatsoever decided they wanted to eat breads stripped of most of their protien(gluten) because they thought it was healthier.
The whole gluten thing is pretty interesting.
Low carb diets led to commercial production on non-wheat breads in the western world, creating more options for people with celiacs and increasing public awareness of gluten allergies. With more bread options some people noticed they felt better after chowing non-wheat bread.
Without a lot of health info and bullshit american healthcare, they figured they had gluten allergies or celiacs and adjusted their diet accordingly.
A widely publicized study on non-celiacs gluten allergies found no gluten allergy, media took it out of context and implied those people were full of shit. This polarized the public against anyone claiming a gluten allergy.
But! More and more people self-diagnosed gluten allergies, and more study led to discoveries on how fermentation helps digestion (like with sourdough), that parts of grains contain enzymes that aid digestion, found industry-wide problems with undercooked grains, and allergies to different classes of grains.
So it was healthier for a lot of people, they just didn’t know why.
Being gluten free is a nightmare because of the stigmatism from the gluten free movement and all of those idiots fadding. Sincerally a gluten allergy sufferer well not so much an allergy as much as a immune system disease.
I have a very high family risk of diabetes and my rule of thum for carbs has always been the more fiber the better. White breads, especially wonder bread has so little fiber you’re basically just eating fluffy sugars. I’m no doctor and my body isn’t everyone’s body but If someone was asking me why bread messes with them my first question will always be, well how much fiber are in the bread you eat? Less then or equal to 10g carbs per 1g fiber? Alright. If you can get to 7:1 better. If you can crack 5:1, that’s pretty good for bread.
That’s a great point, too. Our digestive systems didn’t evolve as fast as food processing.
I researched the gluten thing because I was a chef around the time it took off in my part of the world, and almost had to fire a line cook when he flat out refused to follow protcol because of the gluten study.
I wasn’t super on board at the time, but now I think we should just listen to people. They know their bodies even if they don’t understand the mechanisms.
That’s still unbelievably common where I live. Some restaurants will have zero vegan options, but you can be sure they’ll offer half a dozen clearly marked gluten free items. Come on, you can’t spare the overhead for a block of tofu, but you can keep gluten free breads and pastas?
I’m curious if it’s just additional labeling or new options? Are they just labeling things they already served as gluten free that didn’t have wheat, or are they making new options specifically designed to avoid gluten?
Can I just say though, as someone who does have diagnosed Coeliac Disease, the gluten free fad really helped to open up my options both for products to buy and restaurants I can eat at and for that I’m thankful. It does suck that there aren’t more/better vegetarian and vegan options at mainstream restaurants though.
I don’t know how common this is, but I’ve heard the opposite sentiment. It caused a lot of restaurants to stop being careful to ensure there was no cross contamination because most people asking for gluten free foods didn’t actually have an issue with eating it.
Yeah I’ve heard that a fair bit too - thankfully I’m a high-tolerance Coeliac meaning my body can handle very small amounts of cross contamination but for those whose bodies can’t process a single iota of gluten this has become a significant issue for them. I find that when I order gluten free a lot of servers will ask me “is that for preference or are you Coeliac” and that gives me confidence that when I tell them I’m Coeliac they’ll take extra precautions.
And thank God for that fad, now I can actually find food for my celiac wife everywhere.
cough keto cough
TIL, thank you. It indeed makes perfect sense that it would help for this.
Huh, cool.
Hey fellow LPR person! Ever looked into baclofen? It’s an oddball, but it helped me and a friend with our LPR.
No but I will take a look, thanks! Always pursuing any lead on this particular issue ;-).
Edit: took a look, looks like pretty serious stuff, any side effects?
The biggest initial issue for many is that it’s pretty sedating, but that lessens with time. I slept like the dead for the first three weeks as baclofen is one of the few drugs that increases the frequency and duration of deep sleep. Now I can take 100 milligrams in a day and not feel a thing. I have literally no side effects.
One downside is sudden cessation is hell. If I miss an entire day, my anxiety gradually increases until it’s through the roof until I start taking it again. Two days results in gradually increasing visual hallucinations. All of this completely reverses within an hour of taking a dose. You must taper off this stuff, but doing it isn’t hard at all. Just don’t go cold turkey.
It’s also a medication that people tend not to grow resistant to. It hasn’t lost any effectiveness for me despite having taken 60-80mg/day for almost two decades.
I used to have constant burning throat pain and the taste of stomach contents. Not anymore! It reduces the frequency of transient lower esophageal sphincter (LES) relaxation and increases its resting tone. Here’s a relevant paper for anyone interested:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9981648/
Bonus: 20 mg for non-users will halt hiccups but will likely also sedate them pretty hard. 10-20 mg will prevent MDMA hyperthermia.