8 Things Apart From Food That Make You Bloat
Does your stomach often stick out, feel tight, full and filled with gas? Bloating is a very common condition where the stomach feels distended, especially during the day. Women are more prone to bloating than men.
A lot of people assume that bloating occurs due to poor food habits like consuming indigestible food, overeating or eating at irregular hours. While all these causes are true, they are not the only cause of bloating.
It could be triggered by a number of things, some may be due to the natural process of digestion or sometimes it could be a symptom or side effect of a serious disorder or organ failure.
Common Causes of Bloating
They include:
1) Constipation
When a person is constipated they will usually have fewer bowel movements than usual and a lot of straining is observed during the start or end of bowel movement.
Quite a number of people do not even realize when they are constipated as a person could still be constipated and have a healthy bowel movement. Symptoms of constipation could also be irregular stools in the shape of rocks or pebbles and the lingering uncomfortable sensation even after passing it out.
When stool gets accumulated in the digestive tract, it gets fermented and bacteria starts to build up in your colon. As a reaction to this invading complication, your stomach starts hurting and the abdomen bloats up.
2) IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
IBS is a condition that affects the large intestine due to complications like abnormal contraction of the muscular layer in the digestive tract, infection, inflammation, food intolerance, stress and hormonal changes.
As a result, it causes symptoms like pain, cramping, and gas which leads to the bloating of the stomach.
Sudden bloating, Image Credit: Public domain pictures
3) Acid Reflux
GERD is a condition, wherein the essential acids produced in the body to digest fats, carbohydrates and protein flow back up the tract and disturb the esophagus. This experience is also known as “acid reflux”.
This occurs when the muscular sphincter gardening the acid from backflow starts functioning abnormally. As a result, it causes problems like shortness of breath, chest pain, stomach pain, and bloating.
4) Menstruation
During the menstrual and ovulation phase in the menstrual cycle, the hormone levels in the body are continuously changing, especially the level of progesterone and estrogen.
Due to these changes, the body’s water and salt retention starts to change, and as a result, cells become swollen with water, and the abdomen will start to bloat. This will quite often be followed by pain.
Alarming Causes of Bloating
Most of the following causes will trigger a more prolonged, frequent, regular or even painful bloating. Thus one should contact a doctor if they experience such types of problems.
They include:
Prolonged bloating and pain, Image Credit: pexels
5) Cancer
Sometimes, bloating is a symptom of abnormal formation of tumors in some parts of the body. They include:
Ovarian cancer
Stomach cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Colon cancer
6) Kidney Failure
The nephrons in the kidneys are responsible for filtering out unwanted substances, absorption and reabsorption of essential fluids and ions that the body needs.
However, when the kidneys start to fail, the nephrons start functioning abnormally. It is unable to decide how much fluid should be absorbed or excreted by the cell. As a result, they are unable to get rid of the extra fluid in the body which consequently starts to build up and causes the body to swell up or bloat.
Bloating due to fluid build up., Image Credit: Flickr
7) SIBO
It is also known as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Our body contains some good bacteria especially in the small intestine that help in digestion. As the name suggests, SIBO is a condition in which there is an excessive growth and accumulation of these bacteria.
This causes the stomach to bloat as the overgrowth of bacteria means more bacteria eating and digesting out food and thus producing an excessive amount of undesirable had build up which causes bloating.
8) Gastroparesis
Bloating is a common symptom for gastroparesis, a condition where the muscle contractions or peristaltic movement fails to function properly.
Due to this, the movement of food or bowel in the digestive tract is reduced to a great extent which could lead to delayed stomach emptying, constipation and thus, bloating.