Smoking is one of the most common addictions that negatively affects the functioning of the entire body. Most often you hear about the effects of inhaled smoke on the respiratory system, but cigarettes also disrupt digestion, causing serious pathologies.
According to statistics, nicotine addiction is the second most common cause of gastritis after poor diet.
Let's figure out exactly how cigarettes affect the process of digesting food, whether it is possible to smoke with gastritis, and how to minimize the harm from nicotine to the stomach.
Symptoms of the disease
The acute form of gastritis is characterized by sharp attacks of pain below the chest . It usually starts some time after eating (if you ate something spicy, fried, or fatty).
Associated symptoms are nausea and heartburn . After a certain period of time, the pain attacks stop. It is important to start treatment on time - this guarantees recovery.
But if you ignore the symptoms, put off going to the doctor and do not start treatment, acute gastritis becomes chronic . This form of the disease is characterized by periodic attacks of pain : it either passes or worsens. Pain can occur either immediately after eating or some time after eating.
Smokers are prone to illness with increased levels of acidity. The symptoms of chronic gastritis are not very active, and attacks mainly occur during overeating, alcohol abuse, in case of long breaks between meals, smoking, and also in stressful situations.
Is it possible to smoke with gastritis?
Smoking is strictly prohibited if gastritis is diagnosed or its symptoms appear.
If the patient continues to smoke during the treatment of the disease, this negatively affects the entire process. Treatment may be delayed or may not occur at all.
Smoking, subject to all other indications of the attending physician, neutralizes the results . Smoking reduces the effectiveness of medications ; medications may not work at all.
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The effect of smoking on the gastrointestinal tract
When you inhale tobacco smoke, nicotine enters the human body. It spreads through the blood to all parts of the body. It also gets into the stomach. Nicotine leads to vasoconstriction and spasms . Accordingly, in a section of the digestive system where there is already inflammation, this causes serious damage.
It is worth noting that when smoking, tar enters the oral cavity. Mixing with saliva, they enter the gastrointestinal tract. This leads to irritation of the mucous membranes of the stomach .
Tobacco smoke stimulates the production of hydrochloric acid . It should be in the stomach, as it is involved in the process of digesting food, but exceeding the permissible norm leads to damage to the walls of the organ. This phenomenon is extremely dangerous for people suffering from high acidity. Serious consequences can occur due to increased concentrations of hydrochloric acid.
Why smoking can cause stomach pain
So why does your stomach hurt after smoking for a long time? This symptom may occur for the following reasons:
- The stomach hurts from frequent smoking of cigarettes because nicotine constricts blood vessels, causing them to spasm and this leads to disturbances in the restoration of the walls of the stomach. In addition, its mucous membrane is under constant irritation resulting from exposure to harmful substances.
- As we noted earlier, nicotine increases the production of hydrochloric acid. This leads to increased acidity of gastric juice. With regular irritation of the gastric mucosa, inflammation of its walls occurs. With a constant process of inflammation, it can develop into chronic, which will cause ulcers and erosions. This is one of the reasons why your stomach may hurt, especially if your lower abdomen hurts a lot.
- Due to the entry of toxins and carcinogens into the body, the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract is disrupted. The result of this is problems with digesting food, which stagnates in the stomach and stretches it. This can cause terrible pain in the lower abdomen after eating.
- When disturbances occur in the functioning of the stomach, disordered production of gastric juice occurs, which also leads to disturbances in the digestion of food, for the reason that gastric juice is not produced when food enters the intestines, but independently of this.
Any pain that occurs in the abdomen of a smoker is due to smoking cigarettes. With the combination of all these factors, a pathology of the enzyme system can develop, which will lead to diseases such as ulcers, gastroduodenitis and cancer.
What happens if you smoke with gastritis?
The first symptoms of the disease begin to appear in smokers whose experience is more than 5 years . They are concerned:
- heartburn;
- changes in stool;
- bowel dysfunction;
- attacks of pain at night.
If a person has already suffered several attacks of acute gastritis, then the same symptoms will appear after six months of smoking.
If the experience of using tobacco has exceeded 7 years , then problems with the secretion of gastric juice appear, its volume decreases due to atrophy of the gastric glands. Because of this, the main symptoms of the disease are:
- feeling of heaviness after eating food;
- periodic constipation;
- feeling of nausea.
With further “neighborhood” of nicotine and disease, lack of treatment, the risk of developing ulcers and cancer of the gastrointestinal tract increases.
In most cases, the situation is aggravated by poor nutrition and lack of eating habits. This leads to the development of gastroduodenitis .
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What should a smoker do if gastritis occurs?
Not many people can give up a bad habit right away. In this case, you need to follow the rules :
- Limit tobacco use. The optimal number of cigarettes smoked per day is no more than 10 pieces.
- Do not smoke before meals. In an empty stomach, there is already an excess of hydrochloric acid.
- Do not smoke while eating or drinking. The combustion products of tobacco, together with pieces of food or liquid, enter the body and cause irritation.
- Stop smoking after meals. The reasons are the same as in point 3 of this list. And the idea that using tobacco products improves digestion is a misconception.
- Do not smoke during periods of exacerbation of gastritis.
Consequences
Everyone knows that smoking leads to the development of various diseases.
If, after smoking a cigarette or hookah, you begin to experience sharp pain in the stomach or belching with sourness, you should not wait to go to the doctor. This is definitely the first and very important signal that you should quit smoking. And although each of us has been well aware of the dangers of smoking since childhood, this does not stop anyone. You need to decide for yourself that it is time to quit smoking. You need to get rid of this bad habit forever, and the sooner you resolve this issue, the better. There are people who start smoking less and believe that this has solved their problem. This is the main misconception of any smoker. In fact, a person continues to feed his body with nicotine, that is, he remains addicted to smoking.
Electronic cigarettes and gastritis
You can often hear in advertising that electronic cigarettes (vapes) are much safer than regular ones. The number of smokers who are quitting regular cigarettes and starting to use vapes is growing. Let’s figure out whether marketers are attributing undeserved harmlessness to vapes.
Some types of e-cigarette liquid contain nicotine. The smoker is mistaken in believing that he has protected himself from the influence of tobacco. Using a vape, he continues to receive the same harmful substances as when smoking a regular cigarette.
But there are also e-liquids that do not contain nicotine. But, firstly, it is difficult for most former smokers to immediately switch to nicotine-free mixtures.
Secondly, alcohol, capsaicin, glycerin and aromatics are still added to vape liquids. These components affect the stomach, like nicotine - they stimulate the production of gastric juice .
This means that for people with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, electronic evaporators are harmful .
Effect of nicotine on the stomach
Quit smoking, does your stomach hurt? Many former smokers face this unpleasant problem. This may be due to the development of ulcers, which often occurs in heavy smokers. But even in the absence of a peptic ulcer, cigarettes cause stomach pain, because the chemicals in tobacco smoke have a detrimental effect on the gastric mucosa, causing pain.
Scientists have found through long and careful research that nicotine actually irritates the gastric mucosa.
Nicotine significantly reduces the amount of nitric oxide, which is produced by cells and lines the blood vessels. Nitric oxide protects the stomach by improving blood flow and increasing the secretion of mucus and bicarbonate. In addition, this substance slows down the production of gastric juice, which contains hydrochloric acid. Due to the fact that the protective effect of nitric oxide is dulled, painful sensations in the stomach may occur, in particular when the mucous membrane has some kind of damage or inflammation.
A common cause of stomach pain can be a bacterium called Helicobacter Pylori.
It appears completely suddenly and unexpectedly, without any apparent reason, and significantly irritates the walls of the stomach.
Nicotine, cigarette smoke and harmful chemicals that accompany the smoking process enter the body, causing drowsiness and lethargy.
If, in addition to cigarettes, a smoker is prone to drinking alcoholic beverages and anti-inflammatory drugs, this significantly aggravates the health condition, in particular causing stomach diseases. Drinking several alcoholic drinks irritates the stomach lining, and tobacco smoke can worsen this condition by increasing the amount of stomach acid and reducing blood flow to the stomach.
It is also known that smoking can delay the healing process of existing ulcers.
Some people don't even know they have a peptic ulcer until it causes bleeding or causes a hole in the stomach lining. There is a risk of new ones appearing after the course of treatment, which will either take a very long time to heal or will not heal at all. Impaired blood flow in the gastrointestinal tract can also cause stomach pain.
Scientists have recently discovered that impaired blood flow in the gastrointestinal tract can lead to a disease called pathological ischemia, which can cause acute abdominal pain.
Smokers often experience atherosclerosis, which narrows the arteries and consequently causes ischemia.
But even in people who have normal arteries, splanchnic ischemia can develop due to the harmful effects of nicotine, cigarette smoke and other harmful substances contained in cigarettes.
Thus, to the question “Can smoking cause stomach pain?” we received a very specific affirmative answer. If you really experience pain in the stomach after smoking, you need to visit a specialist. Remember that self-medication or an attempt to heal a disease on your own can lead to very bad consequences, which will be much more difficult to cure than the original disease.
Can smoking cause stomach pain for several reasons? Yes, the stomach can also hurt due to several factors that, when accumulated and layered, cause significant harm to the body and even pose a threat to human life.
Hookahs and gastritis
The second popular analogue of regular cigarettes is hookahs. In every city there are many bars offering to "smoke". This type of service is especially popular among young people. Many hookah lovers believe that their hobby is not as harmful as regular cigarettes.
But the effect of hookah on the body, especially on the gastrointestinal tract, is completely unsafe . If you smoke a hookah while having gastritis, the condition will worsen , this leads to:
- irritation of the gastric mucosa;
- increased release of hydrochloric acid;
- constriction of blood vessels under the influence of nicotine.
Health problems after quitting smoking
Health problems can sometimes arise after quitting smoking. This does not happen often, since after the cessation of any harmful effects on the body, it is cleansed. When combined with a proper diet, overall health indicators improve.
But in rare cases, acute attacks of the disease may appear after quitting smoking.
This happens for the following reasons:
- Stopping the effects of nicotine on blood vessels. Before this they were in a state of spasm, but now they are normalizing their work. This is a kind of stress for the body, leading to the development of gastritis.
- Due to the developed addiction, the former smoker is in a state of constant stress due to his absence.
- During withdrawal symptoms, the volume of gastric juice produced increases. This causes the acute phase of the disease.
- Instead of constant smoking breaks, those who quit smoking start eating. Such frequent and not always healthy snacks are contraindicated for gastritis. They can provoke discomfort.
- Nicotine, regularly introduced into the body, could dull pain caused by gastrointestinal diseases. Now the pain is not masked.
How to quit smoking?
Smoking is primarily a psychological disease. If you want to quit smoking, you need to enlist the support of loved ones with whom you spend a lot of time. Relatives and friends will always be nearby and help you quit such a bad habit as smoking. In this situation, the main thing is support.
Some people who want to suddenly quit smoking are worried that contraindications may arise in the future. But what can happen to a person who has stopped breathing smoke? Gain strength and patience and say goodbye to this bad habit forever. The only thing you may experience after quitting cigarettes or hookah is irritability. Everything can be fixed if you find some new hobby for the soul and completely take your mind off cigarettes. In just a month, this feeling will leave you, and you will again become a free and healthy person.
