subject: The Horrible Truth About Heartburn And Chocolate [print this page] One of the reason you may be having difficulties with heartburn is because of your love for chocolate. Apparently chocolate is one of the strongest, most common producers of it. Many of us consider chocolate the best stress remedy and a universal cure for bad mood, depression and cases of blues. The relationship between heartburn and chocolate is because of a chemical called serotonin. Our moods, emotions, appetites and sleep behavior is regulated by this neurotransmitter Unfortunately, it is also responsible for relaxing the muscle between the stomach and esophagus, called lower esophageal sphincter or LES. It's job is to prevents acid from the stomach from going into the esophagus and causing it pain. The esophagus is not designed to have stomach acid touching it. We need to find answers to end this heartburn and chocolate problem.
What makes chocolate such strong heartburn trigger is the fact that it not only contains serotonin, but theobromine as well. Theobromine is found on the cacao plant and is a natural flavonoid. It is an important element of chocolate. Theobromide affects the body in many ways. It can act as diuretic, increases the size of veins and arteries and is even involved with heart rate. It is also known to relax LES, the muscle responsible for keeping heartburn from flaring up.
If you come to discover that there is a correlation between your heartburn and chocolate, it may be difficult to do... but you may have to stop eating it. If your a chocoholic that's an unfathomable thought. We love our chocolate, it is one of great life pleasures. A doctor Wei Ming Sun and his team of researchers from the University of Michigan of Internal Medicine did studies to determine how chocolate affected the lower esophageal sphincter. Their research concluded that the LES is indeed effected chocolate. They did find, however, that if you use Granisetron, a common nausea remedy, heartburn is greatly reduces due to chocolate. Not the best answer, but an answer nevertheless.
There some scientists who disagree with the traditional way of thinking which suggests that we don't eat the foods that initiate our heartburn problems. Some of them, like Dr Laura Gerson, gastroenterologist and director of Stanford's Esophageal and Small Disorder Center, came to the conclusion that the prevailing wisdom is wrong: staying away from trigger foods does not help heartburn and we can eat whatever we want.This was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine magazine.
Eating a different type of chocolate may end your heartburn and chocolate issues.
It's nice to think that it's OK to go out and eat all the chocolate we want and not worry about its consequences. However, if you have heartburn from eating it you know better. We know that when it comes to heartburn and chocolate we have to be extra careful and only eat chocolate a little bit at a time.
