About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffThere are many possible causes of indigestion. Some are related to lifestyle and what you're eating and drinking. Indigestion can also be caused by other digestive conditions.
Common causes include:
- Overeating
- Eating too quickly
- Fatty or greasy foods
- Spicy foods
- Too much caffeine
- Too much alcohol
- Too much chocolate
- Too many carbonated beverages
- Smoking
- Nervousness
- Emotional trauma
- Medications, including antibiotics, and some pain relievers
- Pancreas inflammation (pancreatitis)
- Peptic ulcers
- Gallstones
- Stomach cancer
When a cause for indigestion can't be found after a thorough evaluation, a person may have functional dyspepsia. Functional dyspepsia is a type of indigestion that occurs because of an impairment in the stomach's ability to accept and digest food and then pass that food to the small intestine.
- Longstreth GF. Approach to the patient with dyspepsia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- Indigestion. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/indigestion/Indigestion.pdf. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- McQuaid KR. Gastrointestinal disorders. In: McPhee SJ, et al . Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2011. 50th ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2011. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=6395. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- Hasler WL. Nausea, vomiting, and indigestion, In: Fauci AS, et al. Harrison's Online. 17th ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2008. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=2863966. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- Dyspepsia. The Merck Manuals: The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals. http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/print/sec02/ch007/ch007c.html. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- Graham DY, et al. Clinical practice: Diagnosis and evaluation of dyspepsia. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology. 2010;44:167.
- Camilleri M, et al. Current medical treatments of dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome. Gastroenterology Clinic of North America. 2010;39:481.
- FDA drug safety communication: Possible increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine with the use of proton pump inhibitors. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/ucm213206.htm. Accessed March 9, 2011.
- Longstreth GF. Functional dyspepsia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 9, 2011.
- Picco MF (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Fla. March 14, 2011.
Find Mayo Clinic on