Dr. George: Preventing Ulcers Is Possible But Requires Diet & Life Changes

Dear Dr. Meinig: What can you tell us about the non-drug treatment of ulcers? I’m on my second bout with ulcers. The first time they had me on a prescription of Tagamet but the weird side effects were worse than the ulcer. What you write always seems to make good common sense. Hope you can help with this problem. –U. A.

Dear U.A.: There are many good and sensible ways to stop and to prevent stomach and duodenal ulcers. They usually require some dietary and lifestyle changes but people are coming around to seeing food habit adjustments are far more practicable to face than some of the drug side effects that are so common today.

First, let’s consider the diet factors that lead to the formation of an ulcer. They are alcohol; caffeine products (and that means coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate and medications that contain caffeine); and also tobacco; refined carbohydrates; aspirin and some other drugs; deep fat-fried foods; large amounts of fruit juices and spicy foods.

Instead of these items, a diet that includes protein, fish, poultry, meat, eggs, fresh vegetables, 100 percent whole grains, and a small amount of fresh fruit provides the foods that supply the best selection of minerals and vitamins.

The prevailing opinion about ulcers is that the patient has too much stomach hydrochloric acid, and it is the acid that causes the ulcer. That diagnosis has been questioned and it is often loosely given without being substantiated by suitable x-ray pictures that show the presence of the ulcer. In fact, many that are told they have too much acid really have too little. Strangely, the symptoms of excess acid and too little are very similar.

There is also a body of medical opinion that believes ulcers aren’t directly caused by too much acid at all, but that they take place because an adequate amount of mucus is not being produced on the stomach lining. It is the presence of mucus that keeps the acid from attacking the stomach wall.

The Textbook of Medicine states that smokers have more ulcers of the stomach and duodenum than nonsmokers. Another authoritative source states that the use of tobacco causes the slowing down of the production of bicarbonate, so essential to alkalinize the acid-laden food coming into the duodenum from the stomach.

The connection of smoking as a cause of ulcers in the stomach has been harder to pinpoint but some researchers feel smoking slows down or stops the production of mucus, thereby allowing the acid to ulcerate the exposed lining of the stomach.

A team of 19 doctors reported in the New England Journal of Medicine during September 1984, that they found duodenal ulcer patients who smoked had a 72 percent recurrence rate while only 21 percent of nonsmokers had a return of their ulcers.

The most interesting and simplest treatment for ulcers that I have come across came in an article from London: the English treatment report appeared in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology and grew out of a study in a prison in Iran. It all started when an imprisoned physician was called one night to treat a patient suffering with an extremely sharp ulcer pain. The prison had no medications available during the night, so the doctor gave the patient a pint of water to drink. The pain subsided immediately, and was completely gone in eight minutes.

As a result of this success, the doctor, during his remaining imprisonment, treated more than 600 ulcer patients by having them drink a glass of water half an hour before eating and another one, two and a half hours later. Patients had access to antacids during the day, but during this treatment study, the prison pharmacy had almost no need for them.