The Connection Between Acid Reflux and Smoking
Do you know that smoking or using nicotine is actually a contributing factor to your acid reflux and to chronic heartburn? Thus, by using any form of tobacco – cigarettes, cigars, pipes, snuff and chewing tobacco, heartburn patients can only continue to suffer the pain in the chest and keep having disrupt sleep and affecting your daily lifestyle.
Here are the 5 reasons why smoking directly affects acid reflux:
1. It reduces the saliva production.
Cigarette smoking inhibits saliva production, and eats up most of the bicarbonates within the saliva produce. Bicarbonates help neutralize stomach acid, and saliva works to coat the oesophagus to lessen the effects of acid that refluxes up from the stomach. Saliva also helps to wash acid in the oesophagus back to the stomach.
2. Cause the Increase in acidity and Decreased gastric motility.
Nicotine encourages the production of stomach acid. This will increase the acidity in the stomach. Furthermore, studies have shown that people who smoke have reduced gastric motility while they are smoking. With a reduction in gastric movement can lead to poor digestion due to the fact that it takes a longer for the stomach to empty.
3. Bile salt movement.
Smoking appears to encourage the movement of bile salts to the stomach from the intestines. Stomach acids are even more harmful when bile salts are present.
4. Direct injury to the oesophagus
Smoking can cause direct harm to the oesophagus by making it vulnerable to acid reflux injury.
5. Damage LES functioning
Nicotine can lower the pressure in the lower esophageal (LES) which is the valve that resides between the oesophagus and the stomach. This in turn can cause LES to become weak and relaxed. The reducing in pressure can cause the LES to relax inappropriately, allowing stomach acids and enzymes to be thrust back into the oesophagus causing you to suffer the heartburn symptoms.
The best treatment for heartburn patients who smoke is to quit smoking. Well, it is easy to say than done.
If you’ve been smoking for many years, nicotine addiction habit is very hard for you to kick. The only way to quit the smoking habit is when you want to do so. No one can force you.
In fact, there are many various ways to kick your smoking habit nowadays. However, if you encounter difficulties, I suggest that you seek your doctor’s help in quitting. Alternatively, you may want to find support groups to help you to quit.
Question: Does quitting smoking really help your heartburn?
Some medical practitioners believe that stop smoking can only provide some relief, not all. However, many doctors who saw many of their smoking patients quit smoking recovered faster from their heartburn acid reflux problem than those do not quit.
After all, even if you see little change in your experiences with heartburn, quitting smoking greatly reduces your chances of developing serious diseases such as cancer, heart and lung disease. This is something that all medical experts fully agree all.
==>>Learn How to quit smoking once and for all!
In addition, smoking is not the only cause of your heartburn acid reflux. After you quit your smoking habit and do not see any improvement in your heartburn problem, you may want to take a careful look at your diet and lifestyle.
Instead of waiting to see any results, how about incorporate a holistic approach to change your life to more healthy lifestyle. To learn more about it, CLICK HERE:
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Comments
Thanks for the information on axid reflux and smoking. I never knewthey could paossibly be connected!
We recently wrote an article on smoking at Brain Blogger. Recently, a lot of areas across the globe have banned smoking in public areas. Is this right; is smoking really that much of a problem? Is so much of a problem that Brazil must take their ad campaigns to a disturbing level?
We would like to read your comments on our article. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kelly
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