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A 2-week bridge dry swallowing exercise with 10 swallows per session, may offer a non-pharmacologic option for managing persistent GERD symptoms, and lessen medication dependence.
For patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) who continue to experience persistent symptoms despite acid-suppressive therapy, a simple physical exercise may offer relief, according to new research published in “J-STAGE: Internal Medicine”. The bridge dry swallowing exercise, which involves swallowing saliva while holding a bridge position, drastically improved reflux symptoms in a small cohort of patients.
The study by Tomoko Nishimura et al., which included 15 participants with intractable GERD symptoms, investigated whether this physical intervention could provide symptomatic relief. All patients had been on acid-suppressive drugs for more than 8 weeks but continued to report significant discomfort, scoring ≥8 on the Frequency Scale for the Symptoms of GERD (FSSG).
Participants performed a two-week regimen of dry swallowing saliva 10 times while in a supine bridge position (hips elevated). At the end of the intervention:
All participants tolerated the exercise well, with no documented adverse events.
While proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) remain the mainstay of GERD treatment, some patients do not achieve full symptom relief despite long-term use. These findings suggest that bridge dry swallowing exercises may be a safe and accessible adjunct therapy for refractory GERD symptoms.
However, experts caution that the study size was small and that larger, controlled trials are needed to validate these findings and determine long-term efficacy.
J-STAGE: Internal Medicine
Efficacy of the Bridge Dry Swallowing Exercise for Refractory Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease
Tomoko Nishimura et al.
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