Bucket

I had an argument today against two schmucks... er, I mean, my coworkers... about heartburn.

It all started when one of them said they had heartburn. I suggested having a bit of vinegar or a cup of orange juice to make it better. Unless they had some genetic digestive disorder, more than likely it would have worked. Understandably, they found this preposterous.

I argued that the most common cause of heartburn/Acid Reflux Disease is that your body is not producing enough acid. Of course, they reject this idea-- presumably because the idea of stomach acid escaping into the esophagus makes "too much acid" the most simple and logical cause. Problem is, you'd have to prove just how your stomach produces enough acid that it overflows the stomach and somehow is unable to pass through your intestine. The real answer is much simpler than that: food is not being digested fast enough. I also argued that antacids or acid blockers do nothing to cure you of heartburn, and they had a problem with that, too. They don't seem to see that the neutralization of ALL the acid in your stomach as a bad thing. Just me, then?

At any rate, time came to provide sources... they came up with websites (suspiciously littered with blurbs saying stuff like "sponsored by Nexium") that said the typical shit: mentioning that it's caused by acid in the esophagus with no real suggestion on how it GETS there or STAYS there long enough to do damage... so they ask me to tell me where I "heard all this stuff". I told them I read it in a book called "Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You", written by two PhD's. They got all haughty because there was no webpage to read.

Well, God forbid I should learn something from elsewhere than teh intarweb. You'd think it was just like being wrong. I think there's a bigger problem going on here, though: the rejection of information that is neither illogical nor based on any fantastical assumption, just because it somehow SOUNDS contradictory to their own assumption they made long ago.

Noted.