![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/92/content_g-cancer2.jpg)
Your food pipe (called the oesophagus) is a tube that runs from your mouth to your stomach.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/93/content_g-cancer1.jpg)
Your stomach is where your food is digested.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/95/content_gord1.jpg)
There is a ring of muscle between your food pipe and your stomach.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/96/content_gord2.jpg)
When you eat, food travels down your food pipe. The ring of muscle between the food pipe and your stomach opens to let the food go into the stomach.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/97/content_gord3.jpg)
The ring of muscle then closes again – so that food or acid from your stomach cannot go back up into your food pipe.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/101/content_gord3.5.jpg)
Sometimes this ring of muscle is not able to close properly. Some food and acid from your stomach can then flow back up into your food pipe towards your throat.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/98/content_gord4.jpg)
This causes heartburn – a painful burning feeling in your chest.
If you have heartburn every now and then, this isn’t dangerous.
![](https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/easy-health/redactor2_assets/images/99/content_gord5.jpg)
If you keep getting a lot of heartburn, it is called gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD).
This can cause more serious problems.
Download our easy read guide to GORD (pdf)
Read more about the link between GORD and learning disability