People have been drinking orange juice for thousands of years, and scientific research has shown that drinking this natural source of vitamin C can be good for your heart. In fact, orange juice has up to 15 times more vitamin C than white juice. Orange juice is high in pectin, a naturally occurring substance found in fruits.
This natural fiber helps bind ingredients together and helps to reduce the viscosity of juice. Pectin is also present in low concentrations in white juices, so adding more orange juice to your drink will result in higher levels of pectin. This reduces the amount of liquid your glass of juice can hold, making it more difficult to drink. So, yes drinking orange juice will result in some heartburn. However, the research shows that it’s not from the acidity of the juice.
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Why Orange Juice Gives You Heartburn?
Heartburn is the feeling of burning pain in your stomach area when you eat something with acid. It is a condition that can be caused by a number of things, but the most common cause is acidity in your stomach. There are many different types of heartburn, including mixed acidity and eructations.
Types of Heartburn
There are two main types of heartburn: mixed acidity/eructations and sphericity. Sphericity is the most common type and is caused by an excess of acid in your stomach. Although it may sound like sphericity is the cause of all types of heartburn, that is not the case.
The Cause of Heartburn
The cause of heartburn can be found in your stomach, small intestine, or large intestine. It is not clear exactly where the pain and burning sensation coming from in your stomach are originating. Stomach acid is responsible for breaking down food and toxins in your stomach, and it is also responsible for breaking down fat in your body. When your stomach acid is too high, it can irritate your stomach and cause heartburn.
How to Avoid Heartburn
To prevent heartburn, you must know the cause and the symptoms. The following tips should help you identify the problem and give you a better chance of avoiding it:
- Consume a low-fat, complex diet. Fruits and vegetables are great sources of vitamins and minerals.
- Drink plenty of water. Water helps to neutralize the acid in your stomach, making your stomach easier to digest.
- Exercise regularly. Healthy body weight is important, and regular exercise keeps your digestive system working properly.
- Take a multivitamin daily. Vitamins contain nutrients that your body needs, and they can also help to prevent heartburn.
- Take miconazole or Imodium if you have heartburn with abdominal spasms.
- Eat small meals frequently. Eating frequently can help to keep your stomach and digestive system working at their best.
- Maintain a healthy weight. A healthy body weight helps to prevent heartburn.
- Get enough sleep. Lack of sleep can lead to an overgrowth of acid in your stomach.
The Link Between Orange Juice and Heartburn
The link between orange juice and heartburn can be traced back to the 19th century when obtuse researchers tried to purify the juice. Then, they discovered that the natural pectin present in oranges could substitute for gelatin in baking. However, this leaves out the wealth of health benefits that orange juice has to offer. A study was done on mice to understand the mechanism by which orange juice prevents heart disease.
The researchers found that high levels of pectin in the mice’s stomachs caused them to produce more bile in response to meals, and this was accompanied by a raised level of pancreatic lipase in the mice’s stomachs. The excess bile in the stomachs of the mice was thought to be the cause of their inability to tolerate high levels of cholesterol in the diet.
This prompted the scientists to wonder if adding orange juice to the diet could lower the cholesterol of the mice, making them more suitable for the orange juice diet. To test this, the researchers fed the mice powdered orange juice and found that it caused a decrease in the cholesterol in their blood vessels, allowing the mice to eat more orange juice without getting sick.
The Link Between Orange Juice and Heartburn (Part 2)
This is the part of the article about the link between orange juice and heartburn. The researchers fed the mice a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet for five weeks, and then decreased the cholesterol in the mice’s blood vessels to normal levels by routinely giving them orange juice.
The researchers then assessed the mice’s bodies’ response to the natural substances present in orange juice and found that the orange juice consumption resulted in the production of antioxidant enzymes in the mice’s stomachs, making the mice more suitable to consume more orange juice. In short, adding orange juice to your daily diet can help to lower your cholesterol and make you more suitable to consume more of this natural source of vitamin C.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that consuming some orange juice each day will not only help to maintain your health, but it will also improve your mood and make you less likely to develop heart disease. The acidity of the juice probably isn’t the cause of heartburn, but rather the fiber that prevents your glass of orange juice from becoming too dilute. So, the next time you begin to feel that stomachache coming on, try to hold your tongue so you don’t accidentally swallow some acid.
