belching splashes the esophagus with an excess of gastric acid, which sloshes out of the stomach along with the gas. If this happens too much or too often, the acid burns the esophagus. Now you have another reason to visit Dr. Jones: heartburn. How much acid exposure is “too much”? More than about an hour a day, according to research by David Metz, the University of Pennsylvania gastroenterologist we met in the previous chapter. That’s the cumulative time each day that the normal esophagus is exposed to gastric acid. (People with gastric reflux spend far more time bathing their pipes in acid;
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