If you suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), the disorder more commonly known as heartburn, your doctor has probably told you to quit smoking and to stop drinking alcohol, coffee and tea.While the advice on stopping smoking still tops the list of things to do to prevent the problem, a new study questions whether alcohol, coffee and tea have any effect on GERD. The study also found that dietary fiber and regular exercise could protect against heartburn. Moreover, it adds a new culprit to the list of things to avoid: table salt.The study, which appears in the November issue of Gut, surveyed more than 3,000 people with severe heartburn and compared them to more than 40,000 people who didn’t have heartburn.
