Some articles on the internet say that milk is good for heartburn, others say “Be aware from milk for heartburn”. Which one is right? and does milk help with heartburn?
That’s what you will discover in this article (Trusted resources are added).
So, without further ado, let’s see if milk helps for heartburn or not.
Before we go, acid reflux and heartburn are the same thing!
Does milk help with heartburn?
First and before we answer this question: “does milk help for heartburn? or is milk good for heartburn?”, you need to understand what milk has in it that effects your heartburn or acid reflux. (By the way, acid reflux is has the same meaning of heartburn)
Milk itself has a lot of food elements. Some of them doesn’t have any effects to heartburn while others has big effect. Here, we are going to see the 3 main heartburn effecting elements and these elements are:
- Milk’s fat content
- Calcium
- Protein
Each one has specific effect to heartburn, good or bad. We are going to see each one here (One by one).
Milk's fat content: does milk's fat content help with heartburn?
According to healthline, each one cup (nearly 245 ml) of whole milk has 8 grams of fat. Also they’ve added that the fatty foods are one of the most popular trigger to heartburn or acid reflux (sources are below). In some situation, whole milk CAN CAUSE acid reflux or heartburn.
While whole milk has bad effects to heartburn, the low-fat milk doesn’t seem to have the same effects to acid reflux or heartburn. It packs 0-2 grams of fat.
What does that mean to you?
The milk's fat content is BAD and one of the trigger for heartburn. However, the low-fat milk is good.
For calcium: does milk's calcium help with heartburn?
Milk (cows’milk) provides you with nearly 21%-23% of the DV (Daily Value) for calcium. And Calcium has some benefits when talking about heartburn.
Also milk is considered one of the natural heartburn remedy because it has high calcium content in it.
In fact, a study in over 11,000 people showed that some men reduced their risk of reflux. (Sources are below). And as you know before, calcium is VERY important for muscles.
So does milk's calcium help with heartburn?
The absolute answer is YES.
For protein: does milk's protein help with heartburn?
The best source for protein is milk. One cup of milk is enough to give you about 8 grams of protein.
In a study to over 215 people with heartburn, they reported that when they consumed more protein, their heartburn symptoms became less.
Because protein stimulates gastrin secretion, researchers say that protein may help treating acid reflux or heartburn.
In case you don’t know gastrin before, it’s a hormone that increases LES contraction, and that hormone helps the emptying of your stomach’s contents. This will make less food available to move back up.
But, gastrin is one of the hormones which helps to produce stomach acid, and that may cause more burning feeling in your chest.
Now, does milk's protein help with heartburn?
There is no obvious answer for this. But, after many people try it, It helps them to reduce heartburn symptoms.
So what? does milk help for heartburn?
You saw that milk in some of its elements helps to eliminate acid reflux and in some of other of its elements can cause heartburn. Protein and calcium in milk are good for heartburn. While milk’s fat content is BAD for acid reflux.
So the answer for “Does milk help for heartburn?” is: milk has pros and cons to heartburn. The low-fat milk has some benefits for relieving acid reflux. On the other side, whole milk does help from one side and increases stomach acid from the other one.
In short, does milk help for heartburn?
For low-fat milk: YES, it helps. But for whole milk: may be yes, but it has some cons on the other side.
What about pregnancy: Does milk help with heartburn when pregnant (in pregnancy)?
Our researchers found that there is no relation between drinking milk in pregnancy or not in pregnancy.
So, even if you are pregnant, you can still take the benefits of drinking low-fat milk.
Conclusion & Our opinion: does milk help with heartburn?
For pregnant women: drinking low-fat milk may help you cure heartburn.
For non pregnant women: drinking whole milk may not help you treat heartburn.
For men: there is no difference here. whole milk can help and may increase stomach acid. And low-fat milk is good to go with.
Our opinion: we see that milk can help and hurt. So, instead of being afraid of milk and its cons to your heartburn, why not just avoid drinking more than 3 cups of milk in a week and search for a good treatment? that will be better.
Do milk's substitutes help with heartburn?
People are different from each others. Some people proved that milk helped them while others not!
Some people recommend to drink goat’s milk or almond milk to cure heartburn. But there is no enough support to these suggestions.
Goat’s milk has higher fat than cow’s milk. Which means that this type of milk can make your heartburn symptoms worse!
On the other hand, goat’s milk has better digestibility than cow’s milk. Also it has anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory properties as the studies showed. This can help your overall health.
What about almond milk?
What we found is that because of its alkaline nature, it helps to reduce acid reflux symptoms.
Conclusion
Even if some people suggest you to go with an alternative option to cow's milk to treat heartburn, there is still no enough researches to support this recommendations.
What is the best treatment for heartburn in our opinion?
There are a lot of people are suggesting you with this option or that treatment. Maybe theirs are helpful, but, in most cases, the treatments are not home based remedies.
So, we focused on finding a good HOME REMEDY for curing heartburn (You can do your researches to see the options).
We found one of the best options for treating acid reflux. It’s called “Heartburn no more”. We think that it’s the best effective home remedy for acid reflux because there a lot of people who cured their heartburn through this program…click here to learn more about it.
Or
Click here to read Ashley’s story and know how she cured her heartburn with that program.
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