Best Bicarbonate Gum for Acid Reflux

If you struggle with acid reflux, you need relief and fast, especially after a meal. Reflux can disrupt your afternoon at work or evening out with friends and family. Thankfully, chewing the right gum can actually have a positive and rather immediate effect on reflux symptoms. 

Why Chew Gum?

Chewing gum can help with nausea or reflux by stimulating saliva production. Saliva coats the esophagus, pushes reflux back down, and increases sodium bicarbonate levels to neutralize stomach acid. 

That said, while in theory you can chew just any ole gum, some gum options are better than others. 

When evaluating options, I looked for things like:

1. Flavors: A lot of gums have mint or cinnamon flavors as their top options, but these can exacerbate reflux for people, so it’s important to find gums that have fruit or other alternative flavors.
2. Ingredients: The ingredient list is important, and things like bicarbonate ingredients can increase the neutralization of stomach acid and immediately offer relief for reflux. 
3. Support: While it’s great to find a gum that works really well for acid reflux, I also wanted to look at gum options that offer other forms of support, like anti-inflammatory properties for esophageal damage. 

So, what are my top picks?

• Epic Gum
• Nazar
• Alka-Seltzer Gum
• Reflux Gourmet

Epic Gum

The first option on my list of best bicarbonate gum for acid reflux is Epic Gum. This option contains Xylitol as its main sweetener. This can actually be helpful as an alternative to things like aspartame. Moreover, Xylitol is used by dentists to help quickly generate saliva. Therefore, it works very quickly at increasing saliva and helping combat reflux. 

I also like that they have a wide selection of flavors. Yes, they do have the traditional cinnamon, and half of the flavors are some form of mint, but beyond that, you can also invest in orange mango, fresh fruit, or bubble gum if you don’t like the mint or cinnamon options. It is important to note that no matter the flavor you pick, the main ingredients will stay the same, including the Xylitol and the calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate, of course, helps to neutralize stomach acid.

In terms of the support you get, it’s very limited. Now, when I say ‘support,’ I mean ingredients designed intentionally to get at the cause rather than manage the symptoms. If there is a fire blazing across your front yard, you don’t just try to blow away the smoke; you try to put out the fire.

So, the best bicarbonate gum for acid reflux should act similarly by trying to get at the cause, which is stomach acid getting through the esophagus rather than just blowing away the smoke, so to speak.

Most of the bicarbonate gums you find today just blow away the smoke if we are keeping with that metaphor; they work to neutralize stomach acid after it has already risen rather than creating an actual blockage or any type of prevention, let alone helping to heal the damage in the esophagus. 

In terms of easy access, you probably won’t find this gum in any grocery store while you are standing at the checkout counter, but you can find it on many marketplaces or grocery store websites and simply pay for shipping. 

Flavors:

• Bubblegum
• Cinnamon
• Fresh Fruit
• Orange Mango
• Peppermint
• Spearmint
• Wintergreen

Ingredients:

• Xylitol
• Sunflower Lecithin
• Gum Base
• Gum Arabic
• Calcium Carbonate
• Natural Flavors

Support:

• Calcium Carbonate to help neutralize stomach acid

Nazar

Nazar, a Turkish company, has a handful of gum options. Here, though, unlike the Epic Gum options, the only flavor that contains bicarbonate is the bicarbonate gum. Unfortunately, that means it’s not going to have any type of flavor other than a bit like chewing on baking soda.

While they have fun flavors like strawberry watermelon, the strawberry watermelon does not contain any of the sodium bicarbonate, so it won’t help you with reflux.

Personally, the downside to me is that the company uses aspartame as their sweetener. Where Xylitol might be given by a dentist to help increase saliva, aspartame is given by a doctor to overcome constipation, and I promise that if you chew enough of this gum, it will do just that and more. 

A bigger downside is that the company is based in Turkey, which means shipping will be expensive. You won’t be able to find as many distributors locally if you are in the United States or Canada. You can find the gum on places like Amazon, but the shipping might very well cost just as much as the gum itself.

Much like the other options, Nazar seems to be focused on blowing away the smoke instead of putting out the fire (I really hope you like this metaphor because there’s a lot more coming).

On the upside, the gum markets itself as being able to enhance your jawline because of how strong it apparently is, so you might have acid reflux, but at least you’ll have a good smile. 

Flavors:

• Bicarbonate
• Mastic
• Mint
• Strawberry
• Watermelon

Ingredients:

• Gum Base 
• Flavoring
• Aspartame
• Antioxidant (BHT)
• Sodium Bicarbonate

Support:

• Sodium Bicarbonate to help neutralize stomach acid

Alka-Seltzer Gum

So, at face value, this is a good gum. It does exactly what the company markets itself for: reducing the symptoms of reflux. Almost all of the Alka-Seltzer product line contains the same set of ingredients, and in this case, it’s calcium carbonate. 

The name is not bicarbonate, but it is, in fact, a bicarbonate, and it works much the same, neutralizing your stomach acid to help alleviate the symptoms.

The good thing here is that Alka-Seltzer is a well-known brand, so if you already use Alka-Seltzer, you might like this particular product. The bad thing(s) include a complete lack of flavor options, just the cool mint, as well as no help with anything aside from symptom management and a ridiculously long list of ingredients that include things I’m quite certain shouldn’t be in my gum.

If you compare the ingredient list of Nazar or Epic Gum, you’ll notice that they don’t have blue (or any other) coloring for their product lines, so you get unnecessary things that are just for show to make the cool mint flavor look like the color you would associate with something being cold. 

It also has just a list of flavors, sorbitol and sucralose, both of which are sweeteners and sugar derivatives, so it also has twice the sugar as any of the other options.

Now, Alka-Seltzer is a much more well-known name in the United States and Canada, which means you will have a much easier time finding this product in theory. The product should be available across more mediums than just Amazon, and shipping should, in theory, be minimal, if any.

However, in my experience, I have actually had a very difficult time finding this gum in the past. It seems like there are times when it is everywhere; you can find it at grocery stores and online, but then there are, just as frequently, times when you can’t find it anywhere, and I’m not sure why that is. It might be a distribution chain hiccup, but regardless, it seems like it is unreliable. 

And lest we forget, this option is probably the most heavily focused on blowing smoke and the least focused on getting rid of the fire itself (I told you there was more). 

Flavors:

• Cool Mint

Ingredients:

• Calcium Carbonate
• Acesulfame Potassium
• Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT)
• Copovidone
• FD&C Blue No. 1 Aluminum Lake
• Flavors
• Gum Base
• Isomalt
• Magnesium Stearate
• Sorbitol
• Sucralose
• Talc
• Titanium Dioxide

Support:

• Calcium carbonate to help neutralize the stomach acid

Reflux Gourmet

So this brings me to my favorite, which is Reflux Gourmet. Out of all the options on the market, this is by far the best bicarbonate gum for acid reflux for a number of reasons:

1. Firstly, it doesn’t have any of those weird ingredients that you see with Alka-Seltzer.
2. Secondly, the ingredients are natural, and each is designed intentionally to help with different elements beyond just symptom management.
3. Thirdly, chewing this gum not only helps you reduce the acid reflux at the moment by creating a gel-like barrier between your stomach content and your esophagus, but it also helps soothe your digestion and provides additional anti-inflammatory aid to heal your esophagus.
4. Finally, it is the only option on this list created by doctors specifically for acid reflux.

There is so much to like about the product, not least of which is the fact that it is designed to support your overall health and provide long-term improvement, not just eliminate symptoms the moment they happen. Think of the products like Alka-Seltzer as a Band-Aid over a hole in a boat. Sure, the Band-Aid will temporarily stop the water from getting in, but the better solution is something like Reflux Gourmet, which actually plugs the hole and stops the water entirely. 

Based out of Napa, California, shipping is very easy across the United States and elsewhere. You can find the products you want directly from their website, from marketplaces like Amazon, and from other places online.

Lest I forget, this is the only option you will find in terms of the best bicarbonate gum for acid reflux that uses its ingredients to intentionally try and “put out the fire” and not just “blow away the smoke.” It has ingredients to help calm down your digestive system, to help reduce the level of reflex that makes its way through the esophagus, and to help heal the damage in the esophagus. 

Flavors:

• Berry Soothe
• Tropical Soothe

Ingredients:

• Proprietary Alginate Blend
• Sodium Bicarbonate
• Ginger Root
• Celery Root
• Aloe Vera

Support:

• Bicarbonate to help neutralize the stomach acid
• Celery and ginger root to support digestion
• Alginate blend, which uses a natural substance to create a gel-like raft between your stomach content and your esophagus
• Aloe vera helps support reduced inflammation and healing in the esophagus 

Summing Up

While there are a lot of options out there, each of which has some positive qualities, the best bicarbonate gum for acid reflux is Reflux Gourmet. 

• It has the right type of flavor options without mixing in any mint or cinnamon that could aggravate symptoms. 
• It contains natural ingredients and is the only alginate gum therapy on the market today.
• The ingredients go above and beyond simply stopping reflux and helping to heal the esophagus and improve digestive health.

So, while any gum could potentially help increase saliva and subsequently help with reflux, the best gum will contain bicarbonate and other supportive ingredients like Reflux Gourmet.