The Causes and Effects of Acid Reflux Disease
Every person has natural acids floating in their stomach. It is very important because it helps break down food and other natural occurrences in the body. When someone eats that food moves through the esophagus and down into the stomach were it gets broken down even more by the acids. Once the food moves through the esophagus it closes back up so the acid doesn’t come back up and hurt you. That is what makes Acid Reflux dangerous.
It really is a nasty disease to contract. It literally is a disease that burns the inside of your body and esophagus with acid. As the acid builds up it begins to burn the esophagus and can do major damage. In some cases the damage can cause cancer, but only on very rare occasions.
The causes of Acid Reflux are not as straight forward as they once were. It used to be believed that drinking alcohol, coffee, and things high in salt and acids were to blame, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Smoking is an obvious cause of the disease, however, in recent studies table salt has become a candidate for a cause of the disease. Alcohol is not a cause and neither is coffee or tea. The newer findings seem to show that salty things are more of a cause. Any kind of tobacco will also greatly increase your chances as well. People who smoke every day for 20 years increase their risk of getting the disease by nearly 70 percent. What wasn’t known was people who eat large amounts of salt also increase their risk greatly. These are some of the more common causes of the disease, but it is surprising how many natural causes there are for the disease.
The more a person eats throughout the day, the more the stomach has to produce acid to break down the food. When professionals tell people to spread their meals out, it is not just for dieting purposes. There is also a health risk involved. If a person doesn’t wait 3 hours between each meal, they could seriously hurt themselves. Some experts also say not to drink too many fluids during the meal because that can dilute the acids, but that is information has not totally been proven.
If a person eats to much it can cause problems as well. When a person stretches the stomach the contents inside have to go somewhere else because their no room. Many of the food that is in the stomach then comes back up towards the esophagus.
Something that a person should watch out for is drinking and eating too many refined sugars. The sugars sometimes cause the stomach acids to produce more than it should.
Certain foods, prescription drugs, and drinks have been known to cause problems in the pathway from the stomach to the esophagus. This will cause the acid to come back up as well.
If you begin to have a burning sensation in your stomach please see a doctor. It will almost feel like heartburn, but its not. The faster Acid Reflux disease is caught, the better chance the disease can be neutralized.
