Do you have questions about nutrition? Send them to us at comer@lavanguardia.es, our nutritionist Aitor Sánchez will answer all your questions.
Does wearing a belt affect digestion? Or does it complicate it in some way? (Carlos Gómez, reader)
Hi Carlos,
Wearing tight pants or very tight belts can negatively affect digestion. In fact, it is one of the hygienic and postural guidelines that we usually recommend to people who have reflux, heartburn, hiatus hernia or heavy digestion.
The reason is that excessive pressure can compress the abdomen and facilitate all these complications.
If the belt is worn at the appropriate height, that is, at the waist and not higher on the tummy, it should not present any problems. This can sometimes be more problematic in overweight or obese people, where the accumulation of visceral fat, especially abdominal fat, can complicate belt adjustment. In these cases, we should recommend using more elastic garments that fit more naturally to the shape of the body, and not overuse belts that “tighten.”
In any case, it is one of the many guidelines to take into account. It will always be a much higher priority to focus on what we are eating, to avoid very heavy meals or very voluminous intakes. It is also important to check if we are regularly drinking alcoholic beverages, carbonated soft drinks or an excess of stimulating drinks such as coffee, all of which tend to affect our digestion more recurrently.
I would also recommend that you read our previous advice about heartburn.
In recent weeks I have stayed up a couple of times at night and drinking a glass of water suddenly made me dizzy. Is this normal? Why does it happen to me? (Paco Zamora, reader)
Hello Paco,
What happened to you is not very common, unless you drank that glass of water very, very quickly, and it caught your digestive system off guard. It is not something that usually happens, but there are people who are much more susceptible to changes in volume or temperature, and which can be linked to dizziness or vomiting.
It may also be because you got up or sat up too quickly, or because you got startled at night. Many other variables would also need to be reviewed, whether you are eating enough, whether you have been sick recently, whether you have trained too hard… but it is very difficult to attribute the dizziness itself solely to the glass of water.
The recommendation that we usually give in this sense tends to be more linked to the temperature of consumption, especially if we are in very hot months where we recommend not drinking very cold water all at once, since that could cause thermal shock, although far from it. as serious as when we submerge our entire body in cold water.
Check if your dizziness continues to recur, and if so, talk to your doctor.
