Risk Factors
The following are risk factors that can result in a hiatus hernia.
- Increased pressure within the abdomen caused by:
- Heavy lifting or bending over
- Frequent or hard coughing
- Hard sneezing
- Pregnancy and delivery
- Violent vomiting
- Straining with constipation
- Obesity (extra weight pushes down on the abdomen increasing the pressure)
- Use of the sitting position for defecation (See epidemiology below)
- Heredity
- Smoking
- Drug use, such as cocaine
- Stress
- Diaphragm weakness
Read more about this topic: Hiatus Hernia
Famous quotes containing the words risk and/or factors:
“Men’s hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“Girls tend to attribute their failures to factors such as lack of ability, while boys tend to attribute failure to specific factors, including teachers’ attitudes. Moreover, girls avoid situations in which failure is likely, whereas boys approach such situations as a challenge, indicating that failure differentially affects self-esteem.”
—Michael Lewis (late–20th-century)