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You can use lots of salsa or pepper on you tuna/egg whites w/o worrying about ulcers but don't take too much aspirin (in your ECA stack)
There you are, having pepperoni pizza, when that feeling comes over you: pressure, burning and fullness in your upper abdomen and a bitter taste in the back of your throat. To add insult to injury, your kid brother reminds you about your ulcer and advises you to start eating better. You wonder how you could again get along with the diet recommended to you when the ulcer was first detected in college.
Similar scenes are repeated over and over in great restaurants and dining rooms every day. Such scenes exemplify how the myth about food causing ulcers is perpetuated.
The Answer Is No
The word has not gotten out: It is now well-established that food has little or nothing to do with ulcer development. Food's true effect on ulcers is dwarfed by other, more important factors (that is, by the true causes of ulcers -- see below). And many people erroneously cling to the (now disproven) notion that if you have had an ulcer, you must be careful about what you eat for fear of making the ulcer worse or causing a new one.
Theories about the cause of peptic ulcer disease have evolved over time. For many years, it was thought that the type of foods you ate mattered: foods that stimulate acid secretion, foods that are acidic themselves or spicy foods that burn the mouth were all assumed to be important in causing or aggravating ulcers. However, in the past 10 years, it has become clear that the vast majority of peptic ulcers have one of two causes:
A bacterial infection (that is, Helicobacter pylori infection)
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen or aspirin.
A small percentage of ulcers are caused by other problems (such as excessive acid production or tumors).
However, the myth about the role of foods in ulcer disease is difficult to debunk for several reasons:
Understanding about the cause of ulcers is relatively recent, and it has received only minor publicity outside of medical circles.
It seems intuitive that spicy foods must be bad for the stomach.
There is widespread confusion between the symptoms of heartburn or other causes of stomach pain and those of ulcer disease.
Food's True Role
Food, including spicy food, and coffee and even modest alcohol intake play a minor or negligible role in peptic ulcer disease. In addition, frequent small meals with a bland diet and milk, time-honored recommendations for the ulcer patient, may actually increase acid production because of milk's high calcium and protein content. In some case, milk may reduce symptoms (because of other potentially protective proteins it contains), but it should not be considered effective ulcer treatment.
In actuality, eating food may relieve the upper abdominal pain associated with ulcer disease; this pain is worse between meals. Just after eating, food buffers the stomach acid, much like the way antacids work. Over the next few hours, the stomach empties, but it continues to make acid in response to the meal. This leads to more pain between meals or in the middle of the night.
If You Have Ulcer Disease
If you have ulcer disease, avoid NSAIDs, find out (with your doctor's help) if you have H. pylori infection and, if you do, take the antibiotics that effectively eradicate the bacteria.
And if your kid brother keeps pestering you about your diet, give him that lecture about his smoking.
By Robert Shmerling, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
There you are, having pepperoni pizza, when that feeling comes over you: pressure, burning and fullness in your upper abdomen and a bitter taste in the back of your throat. To add insult to injury, your kid brother reminds you about your ulcer and advises you to start eating better. You wonder how you could again get along with the diet recommended to you when the ulcer was first detected in college.
Similar scenes are repeated over and over in great restaurants and dining rooms every day. Such scenes exemplify how the myth about food causing ulcers is perpetuated.
The Answer Is No
The word has not gotten out: It is now well-established that food has little or nothing to do with ulcer development. Food's true effect on ulcers is dwarfed by other, more important factors (that is, by the true causes of ulcers -- see below). And many people erroneously cling to the (now disproven) notion that if you have had an ulcer, you must be careful about what you eat for fear of making the ulcer worse or causing a new one.
Theories about the cause of peptic ulcer disease have evolved over time. For many years, it was thought that the type of foods you ate mattered: foods that stimulate acid secretion, foods that are acidic themselves or spicy foods that burn the mouth were all assumed to be important in causing or aggravating ulcers. However, in the past 10 years, it has become clear that the vast majority of peptic ulcers have one of two causes:
A bacterial infection (that is, Helicobacter pylori infection)
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen or aspirin.
A small percentage of ulcers are caused by other problems (such as excessive acid production or tumors).
However, the myth about the role of foods in ulcer disease is difficult to debunk for several reasons:
Understanding about the cause of ulcers is relatively recent, and it has received only minor publicity outside of medical circles.
It seems intuitive that spicy foods must be bad for the stomach.
There is widespread confusion between the symptoms of heartburn or other causes of stomach pain and those of ulcer disease.
Food's True Role
Food, including spicy food, and coffee and even modest alcohol intake play a minor or negligible role in peptic ulcer disease. In addition, frequent small meals with a bland diet and milk, time-honored recommendations for the ulcer patient, may actually increase acid production because of milk's high calcium and protein content. In some case, milk may reduce symptoms (because of other potentially protective proteins it contains), but it should not be considered effective ulcer treatment.
In actuality, eating food may relieve the upper abdominal pain associated with ulcer disease; this pain is worse between meals. Just after eating, food buffers the stomach acid, much like the way antacids work. Over the next few hours, the stomach empties, but it continues to make acid in response to the meal. This leads to more pain between meals or in the middle of the night.
If You Have Ulcer Disease
If you have ulcer disease, avoid NSAIDs, find out (with your doctor's help) if you have H. pylori infection and, if you do, take the antibiotics that effectively eradicate the bacteria.
And if your kid brother keeps pestering you about your diet, give him that lecture about his smoking.
By Robert Shmerling, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
