Anti Heartburn Diet
Please help , does anyone know?
anything about gastric acid. 8 weeks ago I starting doing the atkins diet and for 5 weeks I have had Heartburn And pain in the sternum (only when bending over).I have taken the usual anti -acids and have had some relief , the strange thing is if I drink anything fizzy the pain goes away completely.So my question is does anyone know does this indicate too much stomach acid or not enough .
Thanks , 2 brilliant answers I wish I could give you both 10 points
A burning pain near your chest or oesophagus does indicate too much acid from your stomach.
However, it might not be the Atkins diet doing it; you could just be prone to an Acid Reflux, where the acid in your stomach can flop up into your chest a little. It is painful, but I doubt it’s life-threatening.
I think the reason that the fizzy drinks take the pain away is because the carbonate in the drink (the part that actually makes it fizz, e.g. fizzy water is filled with carbon, which reacts with the hydrogen and oxygen in the water to create a carbonate) is slightly alkaline. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that it is slightly alkaline, especially considering biCARBONate of soda is used by people with acid pains.
Milk of Magnesia can help acid pains, as well as other methods which you’d have to see a doctor about.
To be honest, anything that changes your diet so quickly and drastically such as the Atkins diet is going to upset your digestive system; just like someone eating piles of fruit all at once will give them acid and general stomach problems (not least because of the citric acid in fruit, but that’s not my point) for a few days.
Hope I helped 
Alanis Morissette loses 20 lbs on Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live diet!