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Acid Reflux Disease and Your Diaphram

June 11, 2008 – 1:51 pm

The diaphragm is a tough sheet of muscle attached in an umbrella-shaped circle around the lower margin of the ribs. Above it are the heart and lungs: below it, on the right side, is the liver, and on the left side, the spleen. Nestling up against the rear under-surface of the diaphragm on each side, near the spine, is a kidney.

Acid reflux
Gerd

Under the centre of the diaphragm, towards the front, is the stomach: the fundus lying comfortably up against it. On a straight X-ray of the stomach, the gas bubble that often lies in the fundus is used by radiologists to outline the under-surface of the diaphragm.

Symptoms of gerd

Obviously there have to be holes in the diaphragm to allow essential tubes to pass through it between the chest and the abdomen. One, near the front, accommodates the esophagus. Others, near the back, allow the main artery (the aorta) and vein (the inferior vena cava) to pass through. For the diaphragm to be effective in preventing upwards movement of the stomach contents, the esophageal hole - the hiatus - has to be virtually pressure-tight.  So there are powerful muscles in the diaphragm around the rim of the hiatus that hold it close to the esophagus.

Acid reflux disease
Acid reflux symptoms

These muscles criss-cross around the esophagus as it passes through in the hiatus, so they are called the diaphragmatic crura. Under normal circumstances, nothing can pass between the crural edges and the outer esophageal surface.

This arrangement of muscles around the hiatus is very useful for preventing a hernia (a piece of stomach sliding or rolling up into the chest through the hiatus). It also ensures that the external pressure around the last few centimeters of the esophagus (the part that lies inside the abdomen) is high - at least as high as the pressure inside the rest of the abdomen.

Acid reflux diet
Gerd diet

So even if the cardia is slightly inefficient, and could possibly allow the stomach contents back up into the esophagus, this back-flow is prevented by the high external pressure exerted by the crura.

Symptoms of acid reflux
Gerd symptoms

They effectively keep the esophagus collapsed until the pressure of food and peristalsis from above opens it up. This positive pressure produced by the crura on the lower end of the esophagus is probably the most important mechanism for preventing the back-flow of the stomach contents. If the cardia is pushed up into the chest cavity, as may happen with a hernia, for example, then the effect of the crura is lost, the surrounding pressure is much lower, and back-flow into the esophagus becomes the rule rather than the exception.

Acid reflux remedy
Acid reflux relief

If you have managed to read this far without becoming confused, congratulations. You are beginning to realize that what goes on in the act of swallowing is complex, and that the flow of food downwards from the esophagus is achieved through the combination of a series of mechanisms, any one of which could fail, leading to acid reflux symptoms.

Avoid acid reflux foods
What is gerd 

Health Tips | Acid Reflux | Comments (0)

Bodily Reactions to Anxiety Attacks

May 30, 2008 – 10:40 am

Even though a person might recognize that the muscular pain and difficulties in breathing were simply a response to stress, if the bodily reactions are extreme the experience can be uncomfortable and frightening enough to give rise to a fear of the symptoms of anxiety: a fear of fear. Anticipation of this discomfort, the fear of finding oneself in pain and having difficulty breathing, can then produce the stress that triggers the problem.

Bodily reactions to stress and anxiety attacks can perpetuate problems in other ways. The physical symptoms of shaking, sweating, nausea and faltering voice can indeed impair a person’s performance, particularly in public or social settings. An awareness of this can easily undermine the confidence of an anxious person, increase worries about performance and worsen the physical symptoms.

Consider the person who is afraid of spilling tea as he carries a  cup across a room, or the anxious child who has to recite a poem to his class and is scared that he might falter. In each case the fear of making mistakes  could bring about what the individual most fears: trembling to the point of spilling the tea, and becoming inarticulate.

Health Tips | Anxiety | Comments (0)

What happens if you break your diet occasionally

May 22, 2008 – 6:53 am

Unfortunately, a low-carb / high protein diet is not as forgiving as some others. In a calorie-control diet, you can eat some chocolate cake and make up for the extra calories by eating very little for the rest of the day - but low-calorie diets mess up the body’s chemical balance and don’t work.

In the low-carbohydrate diet, if you consume more than 60 grams of carbohydrate per day, your body will respond by depositing the excess calories as fat. So you can’t have many lapses, or it simply won’t work. A biscuit here and a pastry there and it will all go to fat. Of course, nobody’s perfect (certainly not me!), and no-one can rigidly adhere to all the rules all the time.

The occasional lapse with a sandwich or a piece of fruit will merely cause the diet to fail on that day only, but really this type of quick weight loss diet is so liberal that lapses will be infrequent. So don’t panic if you break your diet occasionally, it’s only human. By satisfying your natural hunger in a natural way, for the first time you have a diet that is working with you, not against you.

Health Tips | Diet, Weight Loss | Comments (0)