9 Fart-Filled Health Facts

Mass Report – by Josh Paniagua

Farts. Some find them gross, others (including myself) find them hilarious. While they can be embarrassing to some and even inappropriate at times, there’s a lot more to a booty burp than clearing rooms and timeless jokes.

The average human farts an average of 10-20 times a day. So it’s a pretty frequent bodily function, so one can’t help but wonder why they seem to have a generally negative rap. But I guess making little things like that taboo just kind of add to the fun of being alive. I mean, could you imagine a world without fart jokes? I’d rather die.  

Joking aside, there are actually very interesting things behind the fart function. And after researching the microbiome (an ecosystem of bacteria in the body), more interesting things have been found. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1. The average person farts 10-20 times a day, producing anywhere between 500-1500 milliliters of gas.

Yes, that’s a whole lot of fart. But believe it or not, it’s true. This build up of gas is the product of bacteria consuming undigested carbohydrates. Purna C. Kashyap, MBBS, states:

“There are a lot of carbohydrates that we consume — mainly present in vegetables, grains, and fruits — that our bodies don’t have the enzymes necessary to digest,” he says. “These end up in large intestine, where microbes chew them apart and use them for energy, through the process of fermentation. As a byproduct, they produce gas.”

Most of the food we eat contains these undigestible carbohydrates including beans, grains, and veggies.

2. 99 percent of farts are odorless

“Yeah right.” That’s what I said too. But this explains the seemingly uneven “gas to actual fart” ratio. Most of the gases produced and released by our bodies is just hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane.

The other one percent is believed to be compounds containing sulfur, making farts stink the way that they do. But how did they find this out? Well, it’s simple. Researchers fed 16 people pinto beans and lactulose while 2 other people essentially smelled their farts until researchers concluded that the worst farts had higher levels of sulfur compounds. Gotta love science.

3) Soda and gum=fart ammunition

Every once in a while you might let one go but notice that it’s odorless. This is simply your body expelling swallowed air. This happens naturally (often while sleeping), chewing gum and drinking carbonated beverages can increase the amounts of air you swallow.

4) Farting means your body is doing its job well

As mentioned earlier, though farts can be the basis of a joke or clear a room, there are actually pretty amazing things going on during the production of these gases. Within you, a vast ecosystem of bacteria operates together in not only breaking down undigested carbohydrates, but in feeding each other.

It’s an internal food chain, really. When one type of bacteria breaks down a carbohydrate, some of its byproducts become food for other bacteria, and so on. So you can think of your farts as that ecosystem of bacteria’s way of reminding you that they’re working hard and eating well.

Although studies on the microbiome are still ongoing, it has been found that gas-producing bacteria also produces vitamins and fatty acids that keep the colon maintained.

5. Why you may not be phased by the smell of your own farts

There’s a very simple explanation to this. It’s the same reason other peoples’ cars, clothes, and houses smell different; because you’ve become accustom to smells that surround you.

Long story short: people become acclimated to the odors that they constantly produce and therefore typically find their own farts less “offensive” than others.

6. It’s not a myth. Farts can be lit on fire

Farts contain flammable gases such as methane and hydrogen. I don’t think we need a rocket scientist to figure this one out. However, regardless of how interested you may be in trying it, I’d recommend otherwise. Just for the sake of not turning your rectum into Freddy Krueger. But if you must see this happen (and I don’t blame you) here ya go.

7. Holding in farts does not make them disappear

No surprise here. I wouldn’t imagine holding in a fart would make it just dissipate. Now some of you might be thinking, “But wait, I hold my farts in until they disappear all the time.” Sorry, bud. That’s not the case. In reality what’s happening is you’re farting extremely slowly. It’s a bubble of gas and there’s only one available exit. It’s coming out whether you like it or not. So just surrender to your farts.

8. There is a way to cut back on farting

It’s an over-the-counter product called Beano, and surprisingly, it seems to work quite well.

Beano contains the enzyme alpha-galactosidase. This targets the carbohydrates that are difficult to digest and breaks them down further in the small intestine. Since these carbs don’t make it to the large intestine, the gas-producing bacteria feeding on them is starved. Now this may seem like a dream pill for some people, BUT…

9. Starving these bacteria is a bad idea

According to Kashyap, it’s not often necessary for people to consciously try to reduce gas production.

“The knee-jerk reaction, for many people, is to stop eating things that produce gas,” Kashyap says. “But these foods, which have complex carbohydrates, are nutrition for the bacteria in our gut. You don’t want to starve them unless there’s a good reason.”

These “good reasons” being obvious problems like excessive gas or painful bloating. In these cases, it may be wise to seek medical attention. Though in some cases, bloating could simply be the flow of gases being obstructed from things like constipation.

Sources: nature.com ncbi.nlm.nih.gov mayo.edu sciencedirect.com mentalfloss.com ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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