A doctor has said that 7-up, in small amounts, is good for nausea because the carbonation “settles the stomach.”
This strikes me as rather 19th century phraseology, and when I check online, no medical site mentions carbonation as being in any way beneficial for nausea–and one even says to make sure to let it lose its fizz first if you’re going to try 7-up sprite or ginger ale while nauseous.
But hey, he’s a doctor. So I’m not sure what to think here, exactly.
I’d go with the med sites, except that someone with whom I must deal closely at all times during the day is insisting I ought to follow the doctor’s advice. The internet, you see, is not reliable.
This may be more of an MPSIMS than a GQ but hey if anyone can find a question to answer here and has an answer for it, please procede.
The theory (not really proven) is that some cases of nausea or abdominal bloating, are caused by retained air in the stomach. Adding carbonated fluids increases the air, and may help achieve a critical level of volume to induce belching out that extra air, reducing stomach size, easing the bloat, etc.
Adverse consequences may include reflux, vomiting, or increased symptoms.
I generally don’t recommend this approach to my patients.
1 : causing nausea or disgust : nauseating
2 : affected with nausea or disgust
— nau·seous·ly adverb
— nau·seous·ness noun
Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2."
Hey, just because Merriam is willing to slouch along with the “frequent usage” justification for bending word meanings doesn’t mean I have to follow along.
i prefer flat gingerale when i am having stomach issues …
but then i dont like carbonation when i am healthy so feel free to take it with a grain of salt…
I’ve had good luck with carbonated soda for nausea, even when it wasn’t entirely caused by bloating.
That said, however, I’ve got some old child-care books that recommend cola syrup for tummyaches, and ginger specifically helps with nausea. For me, anyway, I don’t feel much better if I drink diet soda, so I’m thinking it may be the sugar having a soothing effect on a roiling stomach.
Every time I’ve been in the hospital (more times than I’d like to admit) and was experiencing mild nausea (severe nausea received pharmaceutical treatement), ginger ale specifically was recommended by the nurses. I’ve also personally found that ginger tea, and just plain ginger from the spice rack, helps at home.
Ginger is at least anecdotally believed to ease nausea although I’m not sure about any scientific studies.
I haven’t heard about 7-up or Sprite working for nausea but I know that “Coke Syrup” (as in “Coca Cola”, not cocaine) was at one time (and maybe still is) sold over the counter in pharmacies for treatment of nausea. Supposedly ginger is one of the ingredients in Coke’s secret recipe.
