One patient who suffers from gastritis hears that eating porridge can nourish the stomach, so he keeps eating porridge every morning and evening for more than six months. However, recently when the patient takes the endoscopy in the hospital, it is found that he has suffered from severe reflux esophagitis, and his esophagus has been completely eroded.

Experts explain that, because the living condition is very poor in the earlier time, so people can not eat very well and may often suffer from hunger. As a result, there are a lot of people suffering from atrophic gastritis, which makes the body lacks of the secretion of gastric acid. At that time, eating porridge not only can promote the secretion of gastric acid, which is helpful for the digestion of food, but also can increase the level of blood sugar. Therefore, there has been the saying "eating porridge can nourish the stomach".

But in the modern time, because of the substantial improvement in the living standard, people begin to eat very well. This can stimulate the secretion of gastric acid, which significantly increases the number of patient who suffers from reflux esophagitis. Those patients are not suitable for eating porridge to nourish the stomach. This is because the porridge is acidic in nature, which may aggravate the disease.

Experts point out that, porridge is a kind of semi-liquid food, which is not easy to remain in the body. If the gastric acid and other digestive juice have not completely neutralized by the food, they will exert a negative stimulation on the mucous membrance of the empty stomach. What's more, the porridge contains a lot of water, so it will dilute the digestive juice secreted by the mouth and the stomach and intestines, which will weaken the digestive function and increase the burden on the stomach. In addition, if you eat too much porridge for a long-term, your stomach will lack of exercise, which may decrease the protective function of the stomach mucous membrance, and cause damage on the stomach wall.

What's more, many people with stomach illness like to eat porridge at night, thinking that this will not bring burden the stomach or lead to postprandial pain. In fact, for the patients with gastric ulcer or gastritis, eating too much porridge may not be a good thing. Because after the food has entered into the stomach, it will promote the secretion of gastric acid, and cause stimulation on the ulcers, making the condition even worse. For these people, they can add in some sodium bicarbonate when making porridge.

In a word, patients with stomach illness should form correct eating habits and lifestyles, to eat some soft rice and eat porridge properly.