What causes chest pain after drinking soda? this is the reason

Drinking a glass of soft drink with ice cubes does taste very good, especially on hot afternoons. Unfortunately, this pleasure can only last for a moment if afterward there is chest pain. Actually, what causes chest pain after drinking soda, huh?

After drinking soda, how come your chest hurts?

Soda is a group of carbonated drinks, which are not much different from sparkling water. It's just that soda is usually made more attractive because it has a certain color.

Meanwhile, sparkling water, comes without color, aka clear like white water with lots of bubbles. All carbonated drinks, including soda, have been processed in such a way by adding carbon dioxide gas to them.

If drunk in normal portions, it is certainly not a problem and rarely causes side effects afterwards. However, when this soda drink is drunk in too much or even exceeding the limit, usually after that it can make the chest feel sore.

This condition is not without reason. The reason is, too much carbonated drink intake will automatically enter a large amount of carbon dioxide gas into the body.

Well, this gas will later accumulate in the digestive system, then flow and go up to the chest. As a result, you will feel pain and pressure due to the increase in the gas in the body.

Chest pain after drinking the soda is usually described as pain, which is accompanied by a burning or stabbing sensation. Gradually, the taste can spread to the stomach.

Apart from experiencing chest pain after drinking soda, this condition can also be followed by various other uncomfortable symptoms, such as:

Burp constantly
Bloated stomach as if it feels full
Decreased appetite
Nausea and vomiting
Digestive problems

Are there any long-term effects of continuing to drink soda?

The risk of chest pain after drinking soda may rarely or even not be felt, if you are a person who doesn't like to drink soda. Yes, the occasional soda may not cause certain side effects hastily.

However, if drinking this soda seems to have become a routine habit that continues to be done, it is possible that there will be bad effects afterward. Furthermore, a cardiologist from Providence Heart Clinic in the United States, Aly Rahimtoola, M.D, explained this.

According to him, soft drinks, which actually taste sweet, are at risk of causing health problems in the future. A study from the Harvard School of Public Health, published in the journal American Heart Association Circulation, tries to prove it.

The study involved about 43,000 men who over the past 22 years routinely drank 60 milliliters of sweetened soda, sports drinks and energy drinks every day. As a result, all of these men had an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease (CHD) by 20 percent.

That is why chest pain after drinking soda may be one of the signs to watch out for before developing heart disease. It's not just men, the same goes for women.

Drinking soda can make you fat and high blood pressure

Even so, Aly Rahimtoola revealed that soft drinks do not automatically cause coronary heart disease. In fact, the increased risk of coronary heart disease is caused by various interrelated things.

Here's for example, from the daily intake of food or drink which can affect body weight. A study quoted from Healthline in 2017 revealed that carbonated water can increase the hunger hormone, ghrelin, in men.

This causes you to feel hungry often which results in an increase in appetite to excess body weight. Excess weight gain, especially if it is not accompanied by active movement, is one of the risk factors for CHD.

Meanwhile, often drinking soft drinks with a sweet taste, and high in sodium will provide large amounts of sugar intake for the body. Furthermore, it can lead to obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure which are also at risk of causing coronary heart disease.

So, it never hurts to limit drinking more soft drinks. In addition to preventing chest pain after drinking soda, it also aims to reduce the risk of developing various diseases in the future.