Mediterranean diet treats reflux just as well as traditional medicine, study says

It’s no secret that a Mediterranean-style diet has a slew of health benefits including lower risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia. Now scientists are linking it to reduced reflux symptoms.

» RELATED: A Mediterranean diet could help reduce your risk of developing dementia

Researchers from Northwell Health and New York Medical College conducted an experiment to determine how eating habits can affect laryngopharyngeal reflux symptoms, such as heartburn, a bitter taste or the feeling of something stuck in the back of the throat.

To do so, they examined 184 people split into two groups - one that used proton-pump inhibitors, a traditional medicine to treat the illness, and one that adhered to a Mediterranean diet that included alkaline water.

After six weeks, they found a minimal difference between the two groups, which suggests that common medication for the disease is just as good as a diet-led approach.

» RELATED: Why this diet praised by Jennifer Aniston could work for you

"I did research and saw a lot of studies using plant-based diets to treat patients for many other chronic diseases, so I decided to develop a diet regimen to treat my laryngopharyngeal reflux patients," lead author Craig H. Zalva, said in a statement. "The results we found show we are heading in the right direction to treating reflux without medication."

Researchers believe a plant-based diet should be used as treatment before prescribing reflux medicine. They also noted that those on the plant-based diet experienced weight loss and a reduction of medications used to treat conditions like high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Although their trial was small, they believe their findings, which were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Otolaryngology, present new methods that could successfully treat the disease.

» RELATED: First Look: Find gluten-free Mediterranean at Mediterranea in Grant Park