Tips for Preventing Heartburn
The best way to avoid heartburn, generally speaking, is to avoid foods that cause it. It’s often brought on by overeating in general (check out the remedies in last week’s post, “Natural Remedies for Indigestion,” if you’re interested), and experts often recommend eating small meals several times a day rather than two or three big ones because of this. But there are also a number of specific foods that are worse culprits than others. These include:
Citrus fruits and juices
Tomatoes (including tomato sauces such as marinara sauces on pizza, etc.)
Coffee and other caffeinated drinks
Spicy foods
Onions and garlic
Fatty foods
Alcohol
Chocolate
Carbonated beverages
These foods and beverages either put pressure on the lower esophageal sphincter muscle (LES) which, when closed up tight, keeps stomach acid where it belongs—or they have the effect of relaxing the LES. The cells lining the esophagus are not as tough as our stomach lining, which carries a pH of an astonishingly acidic 2.0; so when stomach acid sloshes into our esophagus, we get a literal acid burn, which is very painful. Peppermint, although it can soothe some people’s stomach and serve as a digestive aid, can relax the LES in others and make things worse. So if you notice, for example, that an after-dinner mint doesn’t help your heartburn or indigestion, your LES is probably sensitive to mint. Best to avoid it.
And while eating just one of these foods might not trigger heartburn, eating two or more within a short period of time can up the ante considerably. I’ll never forget the time a relative was visiting and we were drinking mimosas (made from champagne and OJ, so we had three offenders in one glass: alcohol, citrus, and carbonation) and then he took an aspirin for his headache. The poor guy ended up with the worst case of heartburn he’d ever experienced.
Aspirin, for those who are sensitive, can be a serious offender. Another problem medication can be calcium-channel blockers, often prescribed for high blood pressure. Smoking cigarettes makes the problem worse, too, affecting the LES like many of the foods mentioned above.
Health experts also recommend that you refrain from lying down shortly after eating a big meal, as this can put pressure on the LES as well; but if you don’t have any choice, lie on your left side. Researchers who found that lying on your left side reduced heartburn symptoms speculate that lying on your right side puts the junction of the stomach and esophagus lower than the gastric pool in the stomach, which makes it easier for acid to leak into the esophagus. I’ve tried this myself and found it to be very helpful.
If you experience one of those terrible acid burps, drink water to wash the acid back down into your stomach, but not so much that you end up distending it even more.
Finally, if you suffer regularly from heartburn, it’s a good idea to keep a food journal so that you can identify which foods or beverages cause you the most trouble. If you have a continuing problem that none of these approaches seems to address, make sure to discuss it with your doctor; don’t just pop a bunch of over-the-counter antacids. Unrelieved, chronic heartburn has been linked to more serious health problems such as ulcers and even cancer of the esophagus.
Above: The dogwood outside of our office.
Monday, November 16, 2009