How to avoid holiday heartburn

Sugary, fatty holidays foods can wreak havoc on your heartburn.

Platters piled with buttery cookies, bowls of nuts, boxes of chocolates, fancy seasonal toddies — the holidays are a heartburn nightmare waiting to happen.

"At holiday time, versus any other time, the simple abundance of food and the temptation to overeat is probably one of the biggest problems," says Katherine Zeratsky, a dietitian at Mayo Clinic's Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center.

Many people have occasional bouts of heartburn, but if you have episodes more than twice a week, you may be one of the 20% of adults who suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and are especially prone to flare-ups, say medical experts. But there are effective ways to avoid such spells, and to treat the discomfort, experts say.

GERD happens when the ring of muscle at the bottom of the esophagus — the valve-like lower esophageal sphincter that creates a barrier between the esophagus and stomach — is relaxing more frequently than it should. That allows stomach acids to back up into the esophagus which can cause discomfort and burning in the chest and throat.

ON THE WEB: Info on GERD from the Mayo Clinic

"Reflux is epidemic," says gastroenterologist Rahul Shimpi, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, who says the rise in obesity is linked to its increase.

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, GERD leads to 18.3 million ambulatory care visits, 3.1 million hospitalizations, and 64.6 million prescriptions each year in the USA.

While the classic reflux sufferer is overweight and middle age, Shimpi says, "I see reflux in people of all ages, shapes and sizes now."

Even children are affected. A recent Kaiser Permanente study of more than 690,000 children found that extremely obese children have a 40% higher risk of GERD, and moderately obese children have a 30% higher risk compared to normal-weight children.

Symptoms can vary from person to person. While "heartburn" is traditionally recognized as the most common one, some experience a cough, asthma symptoms, or trouble swallowing, says laryngologist Jamie Koufman, Director of the Voice Institute of New York and author of Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure, published this year.