| ||Medical Myths || | Does Food Cause Ulcers? Last reviewed on
January 13, 2011 By Robert H. Shmerling, M.D. Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center There you are, having pepperoni pizza,
when that feeling comes over you: pressure, burning and fullness
in your upper abdomen and a bitter taste in the back of your
throat. To add insult to injury, your kid brother reminds you
about your ulcer and advises you to start eating better. You
wonder how you could again get along with the diet recommended
to you when the ulcer was first detected years ago. Similar
scenes are repeated over and over in great restaurants and
dining rooms every day. And along with it, the myth about food
causing ulcers is perpetuated. The Answer Is No It is now well
established that food has little or nothing to do with ulcer
development. Food's true effect on ulcers is dwarfed by other,
more important factors. But the word has not gotten out, and
many people erroneously cling to the (now disproven) notion that
if you have had an ulcer, you m