Could a Mediterranean diet be as good as drugs for acid reflux?

Conclusion The results of this relatively small cohort study seem to show that a plant-based Mediterranean diet with alkaline water is equally good as PPI medication at treating acid reflux symptoms when people also follow standard advice to cut out certain things from their diet. This might suggest that the first port of call for people with gastro-oesophageal reflux could be to try a Mediterranean diet before going on PPI medication, to avoid potential side effects. There are, however, some limitations to this research: Cohort studies can only show links and cannot prove definite cause and effect, and retrospective cohorts such as this are even more limited than prospective cohorts. Prospective cohorts that follow people up over time have the advantage that they can at least assess and collect data on other factors that could be having an influence. When you have to rely on previously collected data, you cannot be sure that all relevant information has been collected. We do not know exactly what people in each group were eating and we cannot tell what it was about the plant-based Mediterranean diet or alkaline water that might have provided a benefit. Food diaries or food frequency questionnaires might be one way to determine this in the future. Follow up was only six weeks, which is not much time to see longer-term outcomes. It might be that either PPIs or the Mediterranean diet have a different effect in the longer term. We don't know for sure that the Mediterran...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Source Type: news