Heartburn: Foods to avoid

You wake in the night, your chest burning. Sometimes the pain is so intense you think it's a heart attack.

For the 10% to 20% of people in the UK who get heartburn at least once a week, the pain isn't just a small inconvenience. Heartburn can affect almost everything you do, keeping you from sleeping at night and functioning well during the day.

Heartburn: Why it happens

A muscular ring between the end of the oesophagus and the beginning of the stomach normally keeps stomach acid where it belongs - in the stomach. However, in people with frequent heartburn, this area - the lower oesophageal sphincter muscle (LOS) - may not prevent stomach acid from splashing up into the oesophagus.

Does this mean you just have to live with heartburn? No! Diet is thought to play an important role in preventing heartburn, according to the NHS.

So if managing what you eat can help you avoid heartburn, which foods should you choose to avoid to help prevent the pain?

Heartburn relief: Food facts

Although heartburn triggers can vary from person to person, certain food and drinks are more prone to allowing stomach acid to splash up into your oesophagus including:

• Meats. Minced beef, marbled sirloin, chicken nugget-style and chicken wings.
• Fats, oils and sweets. Chocolate, crisps, high-fat butter biscuits, brownies, doughnuts, creamy and oily salad dressings, fried or fatty food in general.
• Fruits, vegetables and juice. Orange juice, lemon, lemon juice, grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, tomato, mashed potatoes, chips, raw onion, potato salad.
• Other drinks. Spirits, wine, coffee and tea.
• Grains. Macaroni and cheese, spaghetti with pasta sauce.
• Dairy. Soured cream, milk shake, ice cream, cottage cheese.

Foods and beverages like these contribute to heartburn (and the more serious GORD) by lessening the effectiveness of the LOS to keep stomach contents in the stomach. Smoking also plays a large role, and fizzy drinks should be added to the list as they can put pressure on the stomach, forcing stomach acid back up into the oesophagus.

Avoid the foods and beverages above if you find they trigger heartburn - and eat smaller meals - and you may decrease the amount of reflux from your stomach into the oesophagus.

Yet changing what you eat isn't the only way to avoid the horrors of heartburn; there are simple lifestyle changes you can make as well.

3 heartburn-preventing lifestyle changes

While watching what you eat and drink can help reduce your occurrences of heartburn, there are a few changes you can make in everyday life that can go hand in hand.

Watch portion size. Larger meals and higher-fat meals tend to stay in the stomach longer before moving into the small intestine, so the LOS and oesophagus are potentially exposed to stomach contents/acid for a longer time.