Subject: Are gastric complaints caused by too much HCl or too little HCl?

In a response to "How does Histamine aid in the secretion of gastric acid", your
reply included the following: 

"Like many activities our body must carry out, stomach acid production is highly
regulated. Many stomach diseases (such as ulcers and GERD) are either directly
or indirectly caused by a lack of regulation of HCl in the stomach. In this way,
stomach acidity can be decreased by blocking vagus nerve stimulation, by
blocking gastrin- releasing peptide release, by blocking gastrin release, or by
blocking histamine release."

It seems that the popular perception has been that GERD, gastritis, etc is
caused by the presence of too much HCl, but I have also read that it is actually
caused by too little and that the way to correct this is by supplementing with
add'l HCl, rather than suppress acid or histamine. Which is it?

Re: Are gastric complaints caused by too much HCl or too little HCl?