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Have you ever wondered what gluten, heartburn and GERD have to do with one another? Apparently much of what we know about the latter two is totally wrong and has led to overuse of popular medications for years. The side effects of these drugs include issues close to the heart of women — osteoporosis (just to name one).
I’m willing to bet that you know someone who’s lived with heartburn and GERD for years… and for many, low stomach acid might be the real culprit. That’s why I wanted to talk with Dr. Kevin Passero about how anyone struggling with these issues could make simple changes and get to the bottom of what’s actually causing their symptoms.
Truthfully, there’s so much more to this puzzle than just the blanket-assumption that you simply have too much stomach acid since this isn’t the case for most.
What Every Person with Gluten Sensitivity Needs to Know About Heartburn & GERD with Dr. Kevin Passero
The following points were discussed in during the podcast:
00:17 — Jennifer introduces Dr. Kevin Passero who will discuss natural solutions to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
01:58 — How GERD treatment, serious side effects and [bad] prescription practice brought Dr. Passero to his field.
03:20 — The difference between GERD and acid reflux.
05:08 — There is more to acid reflux than meets the eye and the surprising symptoms associated with acid reflux.
07:41 — How acid blocking drugs, like proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), were initially designed to work, and what it means for those who use them on a regular basis.
10:31 — On a scale of 1 to 14, stomach pH should be at . . . And the relationship between a metal nail and a healthy immune system.
12:05 — The use of (properly prescribed) PPIs increases the risk of [THIS] by 30% and is responsible for [THIS MANY!] deaths each year.
13:17 — The scariest side effects of daily PPI use—enough for the FDA to issue a warning.
14:48 — The two classes of OTC drugs to look out for.
16:07 — Can acid blocking drugs trigger food sensitivities and vice versa?
19:12 — Alternative remedies for acid reflux and GERD.
24:11 — A different approach is needed for H. pylori-induced reflux and how to tell the difference.
26:04 — Dr. Passero shares his simple, safe and effective reflux solutions in his book.
27:47 — The link between stress and gastrointestinal problems, and when relaxation techniques are no longer effective.
29:29 — How to get in touch with Dr. Passero and closing thoughts.
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COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
Jennifer: Welcome back to the Gluten-Free School Podcast. I’m your host, Jennifer Fugo. Today, we’re going to talk about acid reflux or otherwise known as GERD. Now, I have an excellent guest with me who is going to talk you through this whole process of understanding what exactly acid reflux is and what we can do about it naturally.
His name is Dr. Kevin Passero. He’s dedicated his career to helping individuals obtain optimal health through a combination of the best naturopathic and mainstream medical treatments available.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in environmental biology from the University of Colorado and then completing four years of medical education at the Natural College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Passero began his naturopathic career with a practiced focus on clinical nutrition, herbal, botanical medicine, homeopathic medicine and lifestyle counseling.
Dr. Passero has been providing naturopathic care to the citizens of the greater Washington D.C. area through his private practices in Annapolis, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
As an educator, he has been featured as a speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health partnered with the Baltimore and Annapolis Departments of Aging, been featured on national TV and shares information on health and wellness weekly with the public through his local radio show, The Essentials of Healthy Living on 1500 AM.
He is the past president of the Maryland Association of Naturopathic Physicians and is an active member of the National Association of Naturopathic Physicians.
Welcome to the program.
Dr. Passero: Thank you, Jennifer for having me on.
Jennifer: Yeah, I’m excited! So let’s kind of just get right into this. I want to know what interested you in acid reflux.
Dr. Passero: Sure! Well, what interests me is what interests my patients. People come in time and time again and they are having issues with reflux.
And a lot of times, Jen, it’s not so much that they come in necessarily saying that the reflux is their problem. They may come in with a thyroid problem or a fatigue issue or there’s a lot of Lyme Disease issues in the area where I live and work with, but as I review their medical records and we’re going through their case, I see a list of medications that they’re on that perhaps they’re taking an acid reflux medication or on the gastrointestinal section of my intake form, they circle things like reflux symptoms.
I’ll always ask, “Well, what is this about? Why are we on this medication?” and the conversation just keeps coming up.
The other thing that really draws me into this topic is that there are very good natural approaches to dealing with reflux that do not require pharmaceutical intervention. It’s not so much that I’m against pharmaceutical intervention, but the class of medications for treating acid reflux have some really serious side effects and some really serious problems that many people are not aware of and I think in the majority of cases (at least in what I’ve seen), they’re really not prescribed appropriately.
Jennifer: So let’s kind of rewind a little bit and say, okay, if I’m coming to your office and I’m looking at that form, that intake form and it says ‘reflux symptoms’, I’m like, “I think I have acid reflux, but I don’t really know what that means. And then I’ve heard this term ‘GERD’,” what exactly are those two and are they the same thing?
Dr. Passero: They’re very similar. GERD is more of a chronic condition where you have this gastro-esophageal reflux disease. So it’s sort of an ongoing process. The body is really having trouble regulating the acid or controlling the acid in the stomach, it’s continually irritating the esophagus or other areas of the upper gastrointestinal tract versus an acid reflux could be an isolated event.
Nobody is immune to just getting acid reflux. You eat the wrong food, you do the wrong combinations of things and you get that little burning in your chest. Maybe I don’t have GERD, but I’ve had an episode of acid reflux in my life, whereas GERD is the more chronic presentation of it and can lead to more serious conditions because if it becomes chronic. Then you can develop other complications, probably the most serious one being precancerous condition called Barrett’s Esophagitis, which is basically a precancerous condition in the esophagus.
Jennifer: That does not sound pleasant.
Dr. Passero: No, it’s not.
Jennifer: So acid reflux is something more that we could experience now and then.
Dr. Passero: Yeah, exactly, now and then. That means some people experience it all the time and it’s just not called GERD, but yeah, pretty much acid reflux is sort of an event, a description of the process of what happens and GERD is more of a chronic state of recurrent refluxing episodes, which makes somebody symptomatic all the time or may cause other problems.
Jennifer: A lot of people (like myself for a long while) believe that acid reflux was caused by having too much acid in the stomach. Is that really true?
Dr. Passero: Well, it is certainly what we are led to believe and it makes perfect sense because to be honest, the medications that are given for acid reflux really do work well for many people and the exact mechanism by which they work is by blocking stomach acid secretion in the stomach. So you basically get a lower pH, you suppress the acid production and symptoms go away, so everybody thinks, “Oh, of course, it must be that there’s too much acid in my stomach.”
But when you really look at the nuts and bolts of what’s going on with reflux, there’s virtually no evidence to suggest that reflux occurs because there’s too much acid.
For example, we have population data showing us that as people get older, stomach acid pH (which is basically how you measure acidity in the stomach), it declines meaning that our stomach is less acidic as we get older, but we know that conditions of acid reflux, the diagnosis increases as you look at older people in the population.
So the fact that we think that reflux is just due to too much stomach acid is really based on nothing. It’s based on the fact that we know if we suppress the stomach acid, people will feel better. But there’s more going on to the story than what we hear on the surface.
We hear that mainly on the surface because that’s the only drug therapies that we’ve been given that are easily administered that can help to prevent reflux.
Jennifer: Is really the only reflux symptom, is it just that burning sensation?
Dr. Passero: No, it can vary. I mean, some people never experience burning at all. Some people may have symptoms like asthma or they may have sinus congestion.
One of the number one reasons why people go into the emergency room thinking they have a heart attack is because they’re actually having a reflux symptom. You can have pain, referred pain down the left arm or the right arm. You can have back pain. You can feel squeezing or constriction sensations in the chest. You could have symptoms of feeling like you’re hungry after you ate or symptoms where you feel like you get really full really easily. There can be burning pain lower in the abdomen, below the esophagus, right below the rib cage. There’s a whole host of symptoms that can be associated with reflux although the most classic one is that kind of burning in the esophagus or the chest.
Jennifer: Wow! I had no idea. I honestly had no idea. So if I have no idea, I’m assuming the woman that are listening to this are probably thinking the exact, same thing, that a lot of these stuff that we might be experiencing can actually be an acid reflux type of problem.
You have mentioned about this whole idea that maybe these drugs aren’t as safe as we believe them to be. I would love for you to touch on that because we’re seeing more and more of them become over-the-counter, which I think makes them easier for people to chronically use.
We also believe that over-the-counter medications are “safe”, but what are some of the consequences or potential concerns that physicians like yourself have in using medications like this long-term?
Dr. Passero: Let’s talk about that because these drugs weren’t always available over-the-counter. Basically, the drugs are discovered, they’re patented and they’re really restricted in their use. And then over time, sometimes they are released to be used over-the-counter. That’s sort of the story that happen with a lot of the acid blocking drugs, specifically the most recent ones that are considered to be the most effective, which are the proton pump inhibitors.
Now, let’s just set the stage initially. Researchers originally developed these drugs for only short-term use, about four to six weeks to facilitate healing of gastric and duodenal (which is the small intestine) ulcers. So when we were developing these drugs, the drug manufacturers in the medical community is saying, “We don’t have great ways to treat stomach and small intestinal ulcers. What can we do?” These drugs came along to treat that and they were designed for only short courses, four to six weeks.
Even the FDA warns that proton pump inhibitors, which are the most common acid-blocking drugs, should be used for no more than 42 days in the course of a year divided amongst three 2-week courses. So even the FDA says these drugs were designed to be used in 2-week intervals, basically no more than three times a year.
Now, you know (and many people out there know listening to this) that these drugs are given open-ended prescriptions. Now that people can buy them over-the-counter, there’s no real indications or warnings to tell people, “Hey, you shouldn’t be taking these drugs every day on an ongoing basis to manage the fact that you get heart burn if you don’t take them.”
So it’s important to at least just point out what they were initially designed to do. Now, as a result of taking them on a daily basis, it does set up the situation where we run into problems. There’s a whole host of problems that can come up.
The issues that most of it stems from is the fact that our stomach is supposed to be incredibly acidic, Jennifer. It’s supposed to be at a pH of 2. A pH is how we measure different things in chemistry and the most acidic thing we can measure on the pH scale is a pH of 1, the least acidic is 14 and our stomach should be at about a pH of 2, which is a pH strong enough that if you dropped a metal nail in a solution of acid that had a pH of 2, it would melt that metal nail.
Jennifer: Oh, my gosh!
Dr. Passero: Yeah, so our stomach is supposed to be acidic and it’s supposed to help us break food down. The primary role of stomach acid is to activate digestive enzymes in our stomach that break down protein and to denature proteins so that our stomach enzymes can basically get to those proteins and break them down into the amino acid counterparts.
And people also don’t realize – everybody knows and I’m sure you’ve had people say this on your podcast that most of our immune system is located in our gut. A lot of people sort of know that by now with the advent of how popular probiotics are, but we don’t think about the stomach as part of our immune system, but it is.
It’s a barrier part of our immune system and that acid neutralizes so many different types of parasites, viruses, bacteria. Things that we come in contact with in our food supply is loaded with all sorts of organisms and things that our body needs to defend itself from. Plus, our esophagus shares a local path with our trachea, which goes into our lungs. So we actually know that people have an increased risk of pneumonia and lung infections when they’re on these acid suppressing drugs.
There was a really well-done study that was published in 2009 in one of the most prestigious medical journals, the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was conducted by a Harvard-based researcher who’d reported that there was a 30% increased risk of hospital-based pneumonia in patients on these proton inhibiting drugs when they were admitted to the hospital.
It was based on the review of 64,000 patient records and the research estimates that proton pump inhibitors, Jennifer account for 180,000 cases of hospital-acquire pneumonia and 33,000 deaths every year.
Jennifer: That’s crazy!
Dr. Passero: Yeah.
Jennifer: That’s literally crazy.
Dr. Passero: And that’s when they’re properly prescribed. So this is not the improper use of these meds. This is when they’re “properly prescribed”, daily use. And basically, what’s happening is you’re compromising that immune barrier and you’re allowing for bigger bacterial blooms in that whole stomach, trachea, esophageal area and eventually, it migrates to the lungs.
There’s some other really concerning side effects that come up with proton pump inhibitors. One of the biggest things is risk of fractures, bone fractures. The data is pretty convincing. In 2012, the FDA came out with some warnings basically. If you use one of these proton pump inhibiting drugs every day, your risk of fracture can significantly go up.
Part of it has to do with the fact that you need stomach acid to what’s called ionize calcium. When you take food in, that contains calcium (or even a supplement that contains calcium), in order for that calcium to be absorbed, it needs to be ionized first, basically change its electrical charge. The way to do that and how our body does that is through exposing it to acid. Once it’s ionized, then it can be absorbed. And as these acid blocking medications reduce stomach acid, they reduce our body’s ability to absorb the calcium.
In addition, they seem to have a direct effect on some of the bone cells that the osteoclasts – these are cells that break bone down. They seem to inhibit some of the activity of these cells that help to balance the strength of our bones. Our bones are constantly being built and as that bone tissue ages and becomes fragile, we have cells that tear it down so that new, strong bone can be built. And if you inhibit the cells that tear down the bone, you can’t rebuild strong bone in its place.
So there are some serious concerns about fracture risks especially when used long-term. The data on that is really scary and most people are not aware of it.
Jennifer: Now, I want to just back up one quick second because you’ve mentioned the term ‘proton pump inhibitor’.
Dr. Passero: Yes.
Jennifer: That’s a class of drugs or are there some generic names that if people are going to the store, they might not see ‘proton pump inhibitor’, but they might recognize the name.
Dr. Passero: Right.
Jennifer: So what are some things we need to look out for as far as the medications we’re actually talking about here?
Dr. Passero: Yeah. So pretty much the only things that you’re going to be getting over the counter are going to be two classes of medications for reflux. I mean, there’s the classic ones like TUMS, which are basically just a gentle antacid. It’s a calcium carbonate. It just neutralizes acid. It doesn’t do it for the long-term. They’re just used for symptomatic relief.
The other ones are going to be the histamine blockers or the proton pump inhibitors, the two main classes of acid-blocking medication. They’re going to go by names like the H2 blockers are things like Tagamet or Pepcid or Zantac. The proton pump inhibitors, the brand names are things like Aciphex, Dexilant, Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec, Protonix. Those are all the main brand name drugs that are out there that are going to be classified as proton pump inhibitors or H2 blockers. Those are the ones that most people are buying and using on a regular basis.
Jennifer: So what would happen if say I’m using these, some sort of acid reflux medication on a regular basis? Would this put me at risk for developing maybe like food allergies and food sensitivities?
Dr. Passero: It’s a great question given that your whole site and platform is related to sensitivities to food. I think that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to cover this topic. There is some evidence to suggest that using proton pump inhibitors, using acid blocking medications can increase the risk of food sensitivities. And there’s been studies to document this effect in humans and in animals.
There’s even one study that was published in an Italian journal that correlated the use of proton pump inhibitors directly to the development of Celiac Disease. And basically, the mechanism is that our stomach as they talked about, its job is to help denature and support pepsin (which is a digestive enzyme secreted in our stomach) to denature and break down protein structures into their amino acid building blocks. If you don’t have the stomach acid necessary to do this, these protein structures don’t get completely broken down.
And when they enter the gastrointestinal system – as I referenced earlier in the show, most of our GI system, about 70% to 80% of our immune system is located in our gut. If these proteins are coming in contact with all of these immune tissue, it creates a high likelihood that our immune system is going to mistakenly tag one of these proteins as a foreign invader.
The reason why that happens is because our body is trained to look at protein as potential invaders because how our body tags a bacteria is there’s a protein signature or a protein structure on the outside of a bacteria, on the outside of a virus, on the outside of a substance that our body reacts to.
Our immune system is very sensitive to looking at proteins and these large protein molecules that come from food when they’re not properly digested, they can create a much greater risk for developing food allergies and sensitivities.
Jennifer: But could it go the other way around then too where a gluten allergy or sensitivity could maybe influence or cause reflux issues?
Dr. Passero: Right, sure. So there’s a little less hard data in the medical literature about that. But I will tell you clinically, I do see that often. So there are cases of people that have acid reflux (and we’ll talk about some of the natural strategies for dealing with acid reflux), but in some cases, it really comes down to food sensitivities.
They can be a huge trigger for reflux problems and cleaning off somebody’s diet and getting them off of the food sensitivities like a gluten or dairy can be an amazing way to almost completely eliminate reflux symptoms.
I’ve had patients where medications don’t control it, the herbal supplements that I typically prescribe don’t control it, and it really came down (the one that I’ve seen the most success with) is gluten. When people give it up, I very commonly see reflux issues resolve very nicely.
Jennifer: Wow! That’s really wild. It’s great though for people who maybe aren’t gluten-free yet to try that and give it a shot and see if it works.
Dr. Passero: Right!
Jennifer: So you mentioned some of these more natural things to deal with things. If you’ve got a woman, she’s listening to this and going, “I struggled with acid reflux or GERD for years. I’m gluten-free already, I’m at my wits end. I don’t know what to do. I can’t just not take this medication,” what are some alternatives for her to give a try that might be less pharmaceutical?
Dr. Passero: Another thing to consider as we discussed the medications and side effects is these medications are known (the proton pump inhibitors) to have an addictive type quality meaning that if you or I, Jennifer who don’t have acid reflux, if we take a daily dose of this medication for a month, if we stopped it after a month, we would have acid reflux symptoms.
So it can be a little bit tricky weaning people down on these meds to allow their body to adjust because you have to let the medication work itself out of the system.
I do have a protocol that I do help with patients. It’s going to be outlined in the book that I have coming out in the fall, which maybe we’ll talk about it. There’s not a hard date of when it’s going to be released. But it’s how to basically successfully wean yourself off of them.
So the key principles coming down to treating acid reflux naturally is not about suppressing the acid. As we talked about, in most cases, people don’t have too much acid. They have irritation and suppressing the acid will help that, but it’s not that they have too much acid that’s the primary problem.
So what we want to do is help the body to protect itself from the acid that it should naturally produce. So what we use initially are herbs and nutrients that stimulate the body to secrete more of this protective coating that guards the stomach and the esophagus from acid.
And as we talked about, if stomach acid is strong enough to melt a nail, why doesn’t it just digest right through our stomach? Why doesn’t it just eat a hole right through our little stomach tissue?
The reason is because our stomach has this elaborate mechanism set up of secretions that create a buffer zone so that that doesn’t happen. And there are herbs. The primary one that I like to use is one called deglycerinated licorice or deglycyrrhizinated licorice.
It’s a form of licorice where the glycyrrhizin portion has been removed, which makes it much more useful for the broader population because that glycyrrhizin portion is contraindicated for people with high blood pressure. DGL (or if it’s been deglycyrrhizinated) doesn’t have an issue with high blood pressure.
What this herb does when you take it internally is it stimulates your body to secret more of the protective secretions that guard it from acid. So we don’t have to suppress the acid. We just have to help nurture our body’s own mechanism for balance and sustain our protection from the acid.
Jennifer: And you mentioned something about this being addictive. Are you saying that it’s not a good idea to go cold turkey off your meds?
Dr. Passero: Some people can get away with it depending upon their degree of reflux, but if people have been on reflux medication for a long time, I really don’t suggest they go cold turkey.
You’ll hear a lot of people, Jennifer talk about, “Hey, I was on these meds. I was so sick of taking them. I heard that they were bad for my bones and I was diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis,” they triangle off of them and it turns out that they have horrible symptoms and then basically, the message that they get is, “I can’t be off of these medications. I have to be on them. I have this horrible reflux” when in reality, if they had been transitioned appropriately and had the right support doing it, the transition could’ve been done.
Jennifer: So are there herbs or other supplements that people could also try as well?
Dr. Passero: Yes. I mean, as we talked about, the DGL Is one of the best. I even give some specific recommendations. You want to try and find what’s called the 10-to-1 extract. That’s a very concentrated form of DGL and I’m usually recommending pretty high doses, 300-400 mg. two to three times a day. A powder is a great option as well. I do have some products available through my website that people can look at it if they want. There’s some really great ones out on the market that you can find at the local health food store.
In addition, there’s a great nutrient called ‘zinc carnosine’. Zinc carnosine is actually used in other countries as a prescription to treat stomach ulcers. We can get it over the counter here as a supplement in the United States and how it works.
Zinc has a very healing anti-inflammatory property and so does carnosine. And when you put them together, it helps to coat the tissue of the esophagus and the stomach and promote an anti-inflammatory and healing effect. And traditionally, they work very well together.
Now, many people, their reflux issues can be managed with the right doses of the right product, of DGL and zinc carnosine along with some dietary changes that eliminate the worst offenders.
Now, some people have reflux because they have infections. This is an H. pylori infection. That may have been where you were going next, but that’s a little bit of a different story if it’s due to an infection. There are some antibiotic protocols that may have to be considered and there are some herbal protocols that can be pretty effective at dealing with H. pylori.
Jennifer: How would somebody know though if they had just “acid reflux” or if H. pylori was the culprit?
Dr. Passero: Well, typically, if somebody’s got an H. pylori infection, number one, there may be other symptoms. You can have really random things like profuse bleeding of the gums, you can have other types of pain, maybe even a stronger type of – less reflux, but more of like an ulcer feeling, which is more painful, more of a gnawling feeling at a different area of the abdomen. It’s really something that they should talk with their doctor about.
Number two, if you’ve got H. pylori, basically, none of the herbs that I just recommended are going to work all that well. And even some of the proton pump inhibiting drugs aren’t really going to work all that well until you clear the infection.
Because it’s an infection, you can also get things like fatigue and other symptoms of lethargy because there’s an immunological process going on, not just an irritation process.
Really asking your doctor to get tested. There’s blood test, stool test for H. pylori and then there’s breath test for H. pylori where you can actually measure things that are excreted in the breath that are a byproduct of the H. pylori’s life cycle. These are all different ways and getting tested is definitely the best option.
Jennifer: And those tests are generally covered by insurance?
Dr. Passero: Yeah, these are very standard, medical tests. That would be easily administered by a gastroenterologist or if you’re working with a naturopathic doctor, an osteopath who’s well-versed in the area, typically, insurance will cover all of these things or at least they do for all of the patients that I work with.
Jennifer: Dr. Passero, why don’t you tell us real quick why did you decide to write a book all about gastrointestinal issues such as acid reflux?
Dr. Passero: Well, I mean, as we talked about in the beginning of the show, it’s because it’s a condition that I think so many Americans deal with. So many people experience acid reflux not just intermittently, but on an ongoing basis. As a result, they’re given these prescription medications and these prescription medications as we’ve talked about do come with serious side effects.
In addition to pneumonia, there’s about a two times increase risk of developing a gastrointestinal infection called Clostridium Difficile if you’re taking these medications. And although most young people can recover fairly well from a C. difficile infection, some people really struggle with it and it recurs and recurs. It is the number one hospital-acquired infection today. So many people every year die of C. difficile infections that are acquired in the hospital. Your risk of getting it is more than two times the average person’s risk if you’re on these medications.
So I saw that there is this need, there is this condition that so many people have. There was an intervention for it, but a very, in my opinion, unsafe one. And juxtaposition one, there’s these wonderful natural therapies that are so effective at dealing with acid reflux and GERD symptoms. They’re so simple, so incredibly safe and so incredibly effective. I saw so many of my patients easily get off of these reflux medications without any problems that it became so evident that this information need to be shared.
Jennifer: So can I ask you one more question?
Dr. Passero: Sure!
Jennifer: What is your thoughts on using breathing exercises and mindfulness as a way to help control acid reflux? Do you find that that’s at all helpful?
Dr. Passero: It can be. I mean, certainly, stress drives gastrointestinal problems including reflux. You get stressed, we have a surge in cortisol levels. Cortisol suppresses certain hormones in our body that help us to produce these secretions that protect our stomach from acid. So yes, stress management is a huge part of any health condition.
That’s sort of where I would put it. Oftentimes, when the irritation is present, it’s hard to kind of get out of that situation once the irritation has already been triggered.
Jennifer: So it’s better as part of the toolbox overall rather than as the main approach to resolving this.
Dr. Passero: Yes, I would say so unless somebody knows that they have no reflux issues, unless they’re really stressed. And if they’re under a lot of stress, if they can manage that stress through these types of exercises, that may be all they need to deal with their reflux. But I find that although a lot of the people are under stress, whether they’re stressed or not, they’re dealing with these reflux issues. So it’s more in the broader scheme of overall health and wellness rather than a targeted therapy.
Jennifer: I wanted to thank you so much for coming on because you have, number one, shared with us some incredibly eye-opening information. I don’t ever hear about this stuff on the news. I mean, this is important information. So many people use these drugs for years and years.
And especially for women, we’re always concerned about our bones. This absolutely has an impact. Especially too, you know, if you have Celiac Disease, you’ve got a greater risk for osteoporosis and all sorts of stuff. So this is really important stuff.
And you’ve got your book coming out, which I’ll definitely link up to when it’s available. And you’ve also got a really great practice as well where you see patients, yes?
Dr. Passero: Yeah, absolutely.
Jennifer: We’ll link up all of your sites and make sure that everybody knows how to reach you.
I had no idea that so much was connected to these drugs and what major consequences that they could have because again, the idea that an over-the-counter drug is safe, unfortunately most people think that and it’s not always the case. So thank you for busting through that myth for us and sharing with us exactly what we need to be aware of in the event that someone does have acid reflux and they’ve been taking these drugs for a long time or maybe they’re thinking about taking them. Let’s pause and really think about if this is good for our health.
So thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Passero: thank you so much, Jennifer. I appreciate the opportunity.
Jennifer: Remember, everybody, please stay in touch with Dr. Passero. You can go to his website at GreenHealingNow.com. He’s got a great newsletter that you can sign up for when you visit the website. He’s also on Facebook and Twitter as well. I’ll put those links below so you can easily just click through and follow him.
And again, get his book The Drug-Free Acid Reflux Solution. We will make sure that you know exactly when that is, so that you can grab a copy. I know I will because this topic is – honestly, my mind has been blown today. This is great information and I’m glad that I now have the ability to share it with others and I hope that you will as well.
Remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. And then head on over to Gluten Free School, leave your questions and comments for myself and Dr. Passero. We’ll definitely try to get back to you and answer any of those questions that may come up so that we can continue the conversation.
Thank you, guys so much for joining me. I look forward to seeing you the next time. Bye bye.
The links referred to in this episode are:
Dr. Kevin Passero – http://www.GreenHealingNow.com
BUY THE BOOK –> The Drug-Free Acid Reflux Solution
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenHealingWellness
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/drpassero