Digestive health centre

This article is from the WebMD Feature Archive

Embarrassing symptoms

Managing embarrassing symptoms: burping, intestinal wind and a rumbling stomach, may be as simple as changing your diet.

By R. Morgan Griffin
WebMD Feature

Medically Reviewed by Dr Rob Hicks

It has happened to everyone at least once. In an awkward silence on a date, or during a school clarinet solo, or in the middle of a business presentation, your body suddenly betrays you. You burp, or your stomach begins to rumble, or worst of all, you have, to put it delicately, an outburst of intestinal wind.

But what causes these noisy, embarrassing, and sometimes foul-smelling eruptions? Is there a way to prevent them?

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How common is flatulence?

Wind is a great leveller. From the pauper to the king, from the slovenly student to the prim grandmother, everyone has intestinal wind.

According to NHS Choices, flatulence is incredibly common. In the UK, most men will pass wind 14 to 25 times a day and most women seven to 12 times a day. Anything up to 40 times in one day is considered normal. That may be more than you expect. Many people who believe that they produce excessive wind actually have perfectly ordinary amounts, says Dr Steven Edmundowicz, chief of endoscopy at Washington University School of Medicine in the US. However, it may be that it's just more distressing, both emotionally and physically, to some people than it is to others.

So where does intestinal wind come from? There are two major sources: some comes from air that you swallow and the rest is a by-product of digestion.

Eating the air

For the most part, burping is caused by air that you swallow. Aside from teenage boys engaging in belching contests, most of us don't swallow air on purpose. However, eating air is easier to do than you might think. You can increase the chances of swallowing air by:

Smoking
Chewing gum
Drinking through a straw
Sucking on boiled sweets
Drinking a lot of fizzy drinks
Eating or drinking too quickly
Wearing loose dentures

In addition, any medical condition that might cause you to swallow frequently can increase the amount of air you get into your stomach. For instance, allergies or sinus infections that cause postnasal drip can make you swallow more often, and that may increase the amount of stomach gas in your system.

Edmundowicz says that people with severe heartburn are also likely to swallow air. The natural reaction to the backwash of stomach acid into the oesophagus is to swallow in order to force the acid back down. The more you swallow, the more air gets into your stomach.

Some people develop an unconscious nervous habit of swallowing. "There are a lot of closet air swallowers out there who don't realise that they're doing it", says Dr C Mel Wilcox, spokesman for the American Gastroenterological Association.

Bacterial fermentation

Some of the air that you swallow goes through the intestinal tract and out the other end. The major source of intestinal gas derives from the action of harmless, naturally occurring bacteria in your intestine.