iStock.com/egal. This is the second article in a series on heartburn and GERD. If you havenât read the first one, Iâd suggest doing that first. The idea that heartburn is caused by too much stomach acid is still popular in the media and the public. But as Daniel pointed out in the comments section of the last post, anyone familiar with the scientific literature could tell you that heartburn and GERD are not considered to be diseases of excess stomach acid.
Symptoms and signs of acute porphyrias involve the nervous system, abdomen, or both (neurovisceral). Attacks develop over hours or days and can last up to several weeks. Most gene carriers experience no, or only a few, attacks during their lifetime. Others experience recurrent symptoms.
David H. Dolphin, a biochemist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, suggested that the effects of the porphyria diseases, which involve a malfunctioning in the body's manufacture of crucial chemicals, could have left victims grotesquely disfigured, turned them into creatures of the night and caused them to suck the blood of their brothers and sisters.