Causes of Heartburn
Our stomach produces a large amount of highly concentrated acid which is necessary to digest your food. While your stomach is designed to handle this acid, your esophagus that transports food into the stomach certainly is not.
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A muscular valve or lower esophageal sphincter (LES) retains your stomach contents in your stomach preventing them from flowing back into the esophagus. However, occasionally this valve becomes relaxed or weakened so that the contents do spill upwards into esophagus and irritate the delicate lining of the oesophagus causing the burning sensation or Heartburn.
This backflow or acid reflux can be caused by such things as
a) overeating, obesity or pregnancy all of which put too much pressure on the stomach
b) certain foods cause the valve to relax allowing the backflow to occur
c) stress increases acid production
d) smoking causes the valve to relax
e) hiatal hernia
So you see, to treat heartburn effectively you need to do a lot more than simply control the amount of acid that the stomach produces, which is the conventional way to treat heartburn.
When yo can identify the causes of heartburn, you have an effective basis from which to work to control your problem. For more information visit …..
