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Acid reflux seems to be the most common digestive system-related disease. It arises when acid released by the stomach goes to the esophagus, causing a sour taste in the mouth and resulting in bad breath. Nowadays, acid reflux is becoming more and more common in people with several reasons at the basis of this phenomenon, which are obesity, smoking, and excessive alcohol drink. The two determining factors in managing acid reflux include lifestyle habits and dietary aspects.
This article will address the dietary aspects related to acidity and indigestion.
Dietary habits like overeating or no food, eating irregularly, having a long gap between two meals, and late-night snacking often lead to acidity and digestive issues. Also, unhealthy junk and deep-fried foods are a cause of this problem.
1. Stomach Growls- A Sign of Not Eating Enough Food
Stomach growling is an act in which various sounds or noises build up in the stomach. The main reason for this growling is the stomach’s emptiness. People often forget to have food in their busy schedules related to work, study, or other day-to-day activities, resulting in sounds in the stomach.
Furthermore, when people don’t eat food for long hours, the acid in the stomach starts to gather in larger quantities, which causes the stomach’s pH to be imbalanced, causing acidity in the body.
Therefore, people feel burning inside the upper part of the chest and develop nausea because the acid rises to the mouth. This results in the onset of digestive problems, as food doesn’t break down properly in the stomach because of the excessive level of acid, which burns the stomach lining.
2. Connection between Eating and Digestion
Digestion is one of the most crucial functions the body performs. Digesting food means breaking it down into smaller portions and releasing the nutrients. This process enables energy absorption through the nutrients that help build the metabolism.
It is critical to respect the digestion process because neglecting it means worsening the whole body in terms of a person’s immune system or mental health. After that, it is evident that digestion health plays a pivotal role in the body’s overall wellness. Consequently, not getting the proper treatment for it could cause some digestive problems like IBD, GERD, and stomach ulcers.
3. Factors Leading to Acid Reflux from Eating Insufficient Food
Various factors lead to insufficient food on a particular day or even for days or months. These factors are severe issues that are not discussed, and they impact the body’s digestive health.
Some of the factors are discussed below:-
3.1 Being Mentally Disturbed
When people are mentally exhausted or disturbed about many things that don’t go as per their wishes or overthinking the problems or issues they experience, they often tend not to feel hungry, eat food, or drink water. This results in dehydration and other digestive problems from staying hungry for long hours. Moreover, suffering from depression makes people lose their appetite and unable even to enjoy their favourite foods.
Digestive issues like GERD, IBD, and other gastrointestinal problems like bloating, constipation, and frequent nausea are faced with extreme levels of stress.
3.2 Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are often caused by various psychological factors that society creates in the minds of people. As the significant pressure of being slim, fat, or maintaining a moderate weight constantly hampers people’s mental health, they might develop eating disorders when taking huge emphasis on such things by society.
These disorders lead to an enormous impact on the gut health. Some of the disorders are:-
- Anorexia Nervosa- It is the most typical and famously known eating disorder, which is characterized by consuming less and less calories. This implies being slim to the point of reaching the malnourished state. This impacts the body severely and eventually leads to constant weakness and ailments like acid reflux, constipation, and irregular bowel movements.
- Bulimia Nervosa- It is an eating disorder in which people eat every food they want to have for self-satisfaction and happiness and later on vomit the same food consumed. In this disorder, people forcefully have self-induced vomiting to remain in good shape. This is often practised by models to look great. However, in the long run, such disorders even damage the oesophagal muscles, causing heartburn.
3.3 Fasting
Fasting means delaying meals and not eating food for some time. It is usually used in many rituals that people follow for their religion, spirituality, or self-beliefs. This results in an empty stomach and causes acidity as the acid production increases, disrupting the esophagus and causing nausea and burning in the mouth and throat.
3.4 Dieting
To be fit and lose weight, people try different types of diets in which they don’t have enough food required for the body and end up harming their digestive health. Due to irregular food intervals, the acid accumulates in the stomach, disturbing the body’s pH and causing frequent acid reflux.
Some of the types of diet that lead to acid reflux are:-
- Paleo Diet– The Western diet involves fruits and vegetables, low-fat proteins, and nuts but doesn’t allow high-fibrous foods like millet, oats, and brown rice. As a result, the body faces various issues, such as irregular bowel movement and bloating, because of less fibre.
- Vegan Diet—Recently, many celebrities, gym freaks, and almost every other person have decided to go vegan. It helps lose weight and consume foods that are not dairy or animal-related. However, individuals who follow this diet are more likely to get infections because of nutrient deficiency, which causes acidity.
- Intermittent Fasting is a combination of dietary and fasting patterns. It is a meal plan diet in which one can have only food for 8 hours and try not to eat during the remaining 16 hours to eliminate the extra calories.
4. Final Words
It is essential to have food at least in moderate quantities to save oneself from having digestive issues such as acid reflux, GERD, or other health conditions. As mentioned above, food is the most significant source that provides the body with the requisite nourishment, showing that eating food regularly is necessary for survival.
Hence, by managing your diet and lifestyle, acid reflux and other similar problems can be overpowered.
Last Updated on by AnoushkaRoy
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