Well, it's finally "proven." Avoiding eating before you go to bed can help your body properly digest your food and reduce your risk of stomach complaints and ulcers if you are prone to these problems.

However, there are far more powerful tools to help heartburn than simply moving back your bedtime. You can treat your ulcers and GERD far more effectively by making simple lifestyle changes.

One of the most important choices you can make is to avoid dangerous anti-ulcer drugs like Nexium. Nexium is a proton pump inhibitor. You should also avoid all the other ones like Prilosec and Prevacid. 

It will be important to wean off of these dangerous drugs as they produce a type of dependency in your system and stopping abruptly can actually make the problem worse. I typically advise patients to switch to less dangerous H2 blockers like Zantac and then wean off the Nexium.

Another powerful choice you can make is to avoid soft drinks. Replacing ALL soft drinks, including the far more dangerous diet sodas, will go a long way toward providing your body with the rest and recovery it will require to heal this problem. 

It will be important to replace the soda with clean water -- enough to make your urine a very light yellow. This is typically at least a quart to half gallon a day for most people.

Other helpful lifestyle choices for heartburn are:

• Use high-quality probiotics. This is a very important supplement as it will help improve the bacteria in your stomach that will actually heal the ulcer.
• Follow my eating plan, being careful to avoid sugar.
• You can also try 1-2 cloves of raw fresh garlic per day to eradicate H. pylori, which is a factor for many with heartburn.