Why are some people more inclined to suffer from bouts of heartburn while others breeze through life without them? There can be a lot of reasons, including heredity, food choices, body size, and lifestyle.
In other words, pretty much anything can cause you to feel the pain of acid reflux, but most of them have something to do with the food you eat.
What you eat, how you eat, and when you eat can all cause you to have heartburn.
The worst foods for you to consume include chocolate, citrus fruits, fatty or fried foods, dishes that contain tomato products (yes, like pizza), garlic, mint, onions, and spicy foods.
This isn't to say that you can never eat these foods, but you need to learn to eat them in moderation and not all during the same day.
In addition to these foods, drinking coffee, tea, carbonated beverages, and alcohol can create the conditions within your body that cause heartburn.
Anything that causes an excess of stomach acid, such as acidic fruits like lemons and limes, can trigger the acid back-up into the esophagus that will cause heartburn.
At least 20% of all Americans have heartburn once a week or more.
Food portion sizes are a big issue here, and if you are in the habit of eating huge meals and then relaxing afterward, you're going to be especially likely to have heartburn.
When your stomach becomes too full, both of food and stomach acid, it's far more likely that some of it is going to start splashing out of your stomach.
The easiest way to control this is by limiting the size of your portions.
Many overweight people have no stop mechanism in their bodies which tells them when to stop eating, so they must take steps to control their portion sizes so they won't overeat.
Obesity is one of the main causes of heartburn.
If you eat more calories than you burn off, the excess is going to be stored as fat.
Once again, controlling the amount you eat will stand you in good stead.
Could it be that heartburn is trying to tell you to lose those extra pounds that could cause real heart problems later on?