In life, we often hear the saying: don’t drink milk on an empty stomach, don’t eat bananas on an empty stomach… and so on. So is there any scientific reason for these claims? Can these foods really not be eaten on an empty stomach?
First of all, we are talking about the problem of “cannot drink milk on an empty stomach.” Some people say that milk contains a lot of water. If you drink it on an empty stomach, it will cause damage to the stomach, which can easily cause adverse reactions such as diarrhea. At the same time, drinking milk on an empty stomach, milk will “wear through the intestines”, resulting in the loss of protein and other nutrients. Indeed, when people have diarrhea when they drink milk on an empty stomach, is it really impossible to drink milk on an empty stomach?
In fact, drinking milk on an empty stomach, fat and lactose in milk can provide energy without causing protein waste. In addition, drinking milk on an empty stomach will not harm the stomach, but will be beneficial to the health of the stomach, because the whey protein in milk has anti-microbial infection and control of mucosal inflammation. Due to individual differences in humans, for those who are intolerant to lactose, drinking milk on an empty stomach tends to aggravate the symptoms of lactose intolerance. Therefore, it is prone to discomfort such as bloating and diarrhea after drinking milk on an empty stomach. But this does not mean that drinking milk on an empty stomach is harmful to people’s health. For this type of person, it is recommended to mix breakfast or other foods when drinking milk, so that the nutrient absorption will be more and more balanced.
Secondly, it is a long-standing saying that you can’t eat bananas on an empty stomach. Some people say that bananas are rich in potassium. If you eat bananas on an empty stomach, your body will consume too much potassium in a short period of time, resulting in imbalance of potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and other elements in the body, which is prone to hyperkalemia. Even lead to sudden cardiac arrest.
It is unscientific to talk about the harm from the dose. Studies have shown that the daily demand for potassium in humans is very large. A healthy non-pregnant adult needs about 2000 mg of potassium per day. Therefore, the human body develops a set of extremely complicated and extremely precise mechanisms for regulating blood potassium, and the kidney, the most powerful “wastewater treatment plant” of the human body, can filter 33,000 mg of potassium per day. In theory, if healthy people I really want to eat a lot of potassium because I eat bananas. I am afraid I have to eat a lot.
Therefore, for normal people, the idea that eating bananas on an empty stomach is harmful to health is too much to worry about. On the one hand, the value of potassium absorbed by the body in bananas is far behind the value of the kidneys. On the other hand, if you worry that potassium in your bananas is harmful to your health, you might as well worry about whether our stomach can withstand the amount of dozens of bananas. However, for people with impaired kidney function, do not eat more bananas, whether on an empty stomach or not, in order to prevent hyperkalemia due to impaired potassium excretion.
Of course, some things should not be eaten on an empty stomach. Such as hawthorn, orange and other fruits containing a lot of organic acids, fruit acids. Hawthorn can cause irritation to the human stomach. If it is eaten on an empty stomach, it may cause more gastric acid secretion and even cause unnecessary pain in the stomach. People with stomach problems, such as hyperacidity, gastritis, gastric ulcer, reflux gastritis, reflux esophagitis, are less suitable for eating hawthorn on an empty stomach.