Causes Of Acid Reflux

There are many causes of acid reflux disease which bring on heartburn, stomach pains, and other discomforts.

Some of these causes include smoking, over-salting your food, obesity, poor posture, fried and fatty foods, mint flavorings, eating large meals, eating right before bed, pregnancy, diabetes, hiatal hernias, and even rapid weight gain.

Despite recent controversy, drinking alcohol or teas does NOT increase your risk of developing acid reflux. Although it definitely doesn’t help to prevent the disease it is not a known cause.

Two common causes, smoking and over-salting foods, are said to increase your risk of getting acid reflux disease up to 70%! Fatty foods and mint flavorings are also known to trigger the disease due to the high acid and fat content in the foods. Eating large meals and eating right before bed are two causes that you can completely control.

When you eat right before bed or when you choose to eat large meals your stomach produces an excessive amount of body acid which doesn’t necessarily agree with the foods and can cause severe heartburn and other unpleasant events. But before I explain more about the causes of acid reflux disease it’s important that you understand what exactly is going on when you have acid reflux disease.

As we all know, when you consume anything through your mouth it travels down your esophagus and into your stomach… easy enough. Well, in people who have acid reflux disease the lining of their esophagus and stomach has been damaged due to a lower acidic tolerance.

What does that mean?

The cause of acid reflux disease could easily be related to some acidic food you ate earlier, like spicy Mexican food, tangy citrus drinks, or even a can of soda!

Since the lining of the digestive tract is weak, the stomach will frequently reject those foods causing severe heartburn or even regurgitation. As the lining of the esophagus and stomach continue to become damaged, it makes it harder and harder to continue to eat those foods. The effects of this damage can be life-long and if gone neglected for too long then the damage could need to be repaired.
The cause of acid reflux disease is something that can be treated and we will discuss how you might treat it in future articles, but the key to treating it most effectively is that you must first determine the cause of acid reflux disease.

So… what is your trigger… determine the trigger and you most likely will learn the causes of your acid reflux disease.