Mediterranean diet ‘helps control reflux’

Sticking to a Mediterranean diet is just as effective at controlling reflux as medicines prescribed to millions of Britons each year, research suggests.

Patients who followed a Mediterranean diet and drank specially-filtered water to make it more alkaline reported a greater reduction in their symptoms than those on proton pump inhibitors (PPIS), it found.

PPIS neutralise acid in the stomach and are widely prescribed by GPS for people with different types of reflux such as laryngopharyngeal reflux (sometimes called silent reflux) and gastroesophageal reflux disease, which produces typical heartburn symptoms.

In the UK, there are more than 50 million prescriptions for PPIS every year but they have been linked to sideeffects and an increased risk of death.

In the study, published in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, experts compared 85 patients treated with PPIS with 99 who followed a 90 per cent plantbased, Mediterranean diet, who also drank alkaline water.