This is an eye opening information for me who experienced severe GERD last year.
The finding is exactly the opposite to what I believed.
No wonder I was making things worse by doing strenuous treadmill exercise when I was having severe symptoms.

Where is the information you quote for GERD, Dr. Lee?
GERD doesn't belong to my specialty but I am very familiar with due to one closest friend/comrade/teacher of mine, Prof. Zhong-Gao Wang of Beijing, himself had one. It took a long time to confirm the condition as the cause of such severe asthmatic attack(?) to need ER visits a few occasions. While he was here in the U.S. to visit his daughter, vascular surgeon, he underwent laparoscopic fundoplication at Englewood Hospital by Herbert Dardik's team and the symptoms were gone like a magic. So when he went back to China, he organized GERD Center promoting throughout the country.
So GERD seems to be under the control with various approaches including simple fundoplication.
Regards,
BB Lee-'63