One of the first changes doctors usually suggest when they diagnose a patient with acid reflux is to "stop smoking." Although smoking cessation can ease acid reflux symptoms, smoking and other lifestyle choices don't cause acid reflux. Acid reflux has physical causes that are made worse by smoking, drinking alcohol, caffeine and carbonated beverages, and eating certain foods that produce extra stomach acid.
Misconceptions
Many people blame acid reflux on eating acidic, spicy, or fried food, drinking caffeinated, carbonated, or alcoholic beverages, or smoking. While there are foods, drinks and habits that can make reflux symptoms worse, they are not the cause of the disease. Making lifestyle changes is an important part of curing the disease, but lifestyle alone isn't the reason people suffer from acid reflux.
Function
Most people with acid reflux have physical abnormalities in the stomach or esophagus. There is a muscle called the lower esophageal sphincter between the esophagus and the stomach that usually keeps stomach acid in the stomach. Sometimes this LES doesn't work properly and stomach acid backs up into the esophagus. Untreated, this can cause a lot of damage to the esophagus. When the LES isn't working right, smoking weakens the muscle even more, allowing more acid to enter the esophagus.
Features
More than 70% of asthma also have acid reflux disease. Smoking doesn't cause either disease, but it worsens the symptoms of both. While doctors still aren't sure of the connection between asthma and , they do know that eliminating the nicotine habit causes improvement in people with these conditions.
Considerations
Whether you suffer from few of the symptoms of acid reflux or from all of them, damage is done whenever stomach acid enters the esophagus. Smoking allows this to happen far too often. Quitting smoking has many benefits, and preventing esophageal cancer is an important one.
Prevention/Solution
Although you can't prevent an abnormality of the lower muscle, there are many things you can do to prevent complications. Besides eliminating smoking, you can avoid foods and drinks that irritate your stomach, lose weight, drink more water to neutralize stomach acid, sleep on your left side and prop up the head of your bed to keep stomach acid in your stomach. Wear loose clothing, eat smaller meals frequently and don't lie down for three hours after you eat.
Tags: stomach acid, acid reflux, people with, acid reflux, acid reflux, esophageal sphincter