Kim Kardashian revealed she’s facing a new health condition in the trailer for season eight of “The Kardashians.” “I have something called esophagitis,” Kardashian says in one clip from the trailer, released Thursday.In another clip Kris Jenner, Kardashian’s mother, says the diagnosis “makes me want to cry.” According to the Mayo Clinic, esophagitis is inflammation of the tissue lining the esophagus, the muscular tube that carries food and drink from the mouth to the stomach.Later in the trailer, Kardashian is shown lying in a hospital bed hooked up to machines while someone off camera asks whether that is what her father, Robert Kardashian, died of.
Robert Kardashian died of esophageal cancer in 2003, at age 59.Dr.Stuart Spechler, a gastroenterologist at Baylor University Medical Center and a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, said there are many types of esophagitis, and that Kardashian did not specify which type she has.“Far and away the most common form is reflux esophagitis, which is a complication of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD),” he said.In those patients, Spechler explained, the mechanisms that normally keep stomach acid from moving back up the esophagus are defective, allowing refluxed acid to irritate and damage the esophagus.
Common symptoms include heartburn and regurgitation.Some patients with reflux esophagitis go on to develop Barrett’s esophagus, a condition in which chronic acid exposure damages the esophagus’s normal lining and causes it to be replaced by cells resembling those found in the intestine and stomach, Spechler said.“It is a risk factor for developing a type of esophageal cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma,” he said of Barrett’s esophagus.Still, Spechler noted that esophagitis is only a small risk factor for esophageal cancer, and that women are less likely than men to develop both Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer.“Most patients who have GERD and reflux eso...