Untreated GERD can result in serious health problems including:

• Lower Quality of Life
• Esophagitis
• Barrett’s Esophagus
• Esophageal Cancer

Quality of life, also known as well-being, is particularly important in healthcare. Health-related quality of life measures the impact an illness has on patients’ lives. Symptoms of GERD, especially symptoms that occur at night, severely affeect a GERD sufferer’s quality of life.¹

Many patients’ GERD symptoms occur when they are sleeping or lying down, affecting the quality and quantity of their sleep.¹ A survey of 1,000 adults who experience heartburn at least once per week found:

• 791 respondents reported nighttime heartburn.¹
• 75 percent of the 791 respondents said that heartburn affected their sleep.¹
• 42 percent said they could not sleep through the night.¹

A 2005 study measured the health-related quality of life of patients with untreated GERD.¹ Health-related quality of life studies ask patients to rate the impact of an illness on their ability to do certain things and on how they feel. Quality of life covers many different facets of life including:

• Mobility and self-care: walking, running, eating, grooming, and endurance
• Emotions: anger, embarrassment, anxiety, irritability, happiness, ability to relax, depression, and satisfaction
• Pain and discomfort: chest pain, abdominal discomfort, and abdominal pain
• Jobs and education: attendance, focus, task completion, achievement/promotion, satisfaction, financial reward
• Relationships: friendships, coping, support, extended family and children, mates, sexual function
• Well-being: fatigue, sleep, self-control, energy

A study found that patients with untreated GERD had a quality of life:

• Similar to the quality of life of people who had experienced a heart attack¹
• Lower than the quality of life of people with diabetes, cancer, or other severe diseases¹

Esophagitis is inflammation of the esophagus, particularly the lining. It occurs because stomach acid refluxes or flows back up into the esophagus frequently over a period of time. If left untreated, it may cause discomfort, difficulty swallowing, ulcers, and scarring. In some cases, Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition, may develop. Symptoms of esophagitis include difficulty swallowing, heartburn, mouth sores, feeling as if there is a lump in your throat, nausea, and vomiting.

Barrett’s esophagus may develop in people who have GERD or esophagitis. The esophagus lining is damaged by the stomach acid and causes changes in the cells that line the esophagus. The cells that line the esophagus change into the type of cells that usually line the stomach or the intestine. Symptoms are similar to GERD, but often more severe. However, some people do not have symptoms at all.

Barrett’s esophagus is a serious condition that can lead to cancer. It is estimated that one in 200 patients with Barrett’s esophagus develops esophageal cancer (adenocarcinoma) each year.⁴

Esophageal cancer is cancer of the esophagus. Cancer often is treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or combinations of these treatments.

The survival rate for esophageal cancer is low. Statistics related to esophageal cancer (adenocarcinoma) show that people diagnosed with the disease:

• Have a median duration of survival of approximately nine months⁴
• 12 percent will live for five years.⁴

The mortality rate of esophageal adenocarcinoma is high because many people are not diagnosed until the cancer has become locally advanced or metastatic (growing in a different part of the body than where it originated).⁴