If you're about to throw up or get acid reflux, you may feel a burning sensation when acid from your stomach escpes into the esophagus. But if stomach acid is harsh enough to irritate the inside of your throat, why doesn't it burn through your stomach?
The human stomach evolved to create and withstand extremely corrosive conditions. "Its role is to break down the components of physical food into smaller pieces, with the idea being that, by the time the preparation reaches the small bowel, it's in small enough components that we can absorb it," Dr. Sally Bell, a gastroenterologist at Monash University in Australia, told Live Science.
