(HealthDayNews) -- If you have heartburn, what's the best treatment -- an antacid liquid, or a tablet that reduces stomach acid production?
To get the answer, the Centre for Human Drug Research in Leiden, The Netherlands, studied 49 patients. Every patient took pills and liquid. In half the cases, the liquid was real and the pills were dummies -- and in the other half, the pills were real and the liquid was fake. That way, nobody could guess what they were really taking.
As the researchers reported in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the liquids worked faster and even a little bit better.
The patients taking the liquid said they felt better after 19 minutes, while it took over an hour for the pills to make anybody feel better. After three hours, there were no differences between the two groups.
