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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey, brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Laur and vocal Bomb. Here. The human body is pretty

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Speaker 1: amazing and pretty weird. Even if you don't always hear it,

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Speaker 1: your body is making all kinds of sounds while it

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Speaker 1: works hard to keep you well. We're talking about noises

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Speaker 1: like your joints popping or your stomach growling. Speaking of

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Speaker 1: what exactly is going on there, everybody's belly chimes in

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Speaker 1: from time to time. Whether you call it grumbling, gurgling,

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Speaker 1: or growling, These low rumbling noises sound like a pot

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Speaker 1: of bubbling stew inside your guts. This sound happens as

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Speaker 1: your body digests food. The medical term for this kind

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Speaker 1: of intestinal rumbling is borberignus. This is thought to be

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Speaker 1: based on an ancient Greek ono monopoia, you know, like

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Speaker 1: meow or wolf, but for stomach rumbling. But the question

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Speaker 1: is why do our stomachs growl in the first place?

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Speaker 1: What's it trying to tell us? Let's start with a

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Speaker 1: look at how the digestive system works. Our digestive system is,

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Speaker 1: in essence, a long, single tube that starts at our

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Speaker 1: mouth and ends at our anus. This tube connects the

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Speaker 1: various organs and passages that play important roles in digestion.

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Speaker 1: One of the most important things to know here is

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Speaker 1: how the digestive system propels food. Waves of muscle contractions

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Speaker 1: push the food that we eat down our small intestines

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Speaker 1: into our bowels in a process called peristalsis. These contractions

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Speaker 1: help churn food, liquids and different digestive juices together, are

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Speaker 1: rendering them into a gooey mix known as chime. The

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Speaker 1: sounds we hear our stomach growling are from moving around

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Speaker 1: those solid and liquid ingredients plus bodily gas and air.

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Speaker 1: Your stomach can growl at any time, but when there's

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Speaker 1: food in your stomach or small intestine, the growling is

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Speaker 1: less obvious. It's like when you put a pair of

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Speaker 1: sneakers in the dryer by themselves versus with a load

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Speaker 1: of towels. The towels muffle the noise of the shoes

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Speaker 1: as they bounce around. But if you're hungry and your

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Speaker 1: stomach and guts are both empty, that's when you probably

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Speaker 1: notice your stomach growling the most. The same contractions are

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Speaker 1: at work even though there isn't much food in there.

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Speaker 1: That's because when your stomach is empty, your brain releases

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Speaker 1: an appetite stimulating hormone called grellin. This signals the digestive

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Speaker 1: muscles to restart the process of peristalsis, so they start

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Speaker 1: contracting again. This is the rubbling that you hear. But

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Speaker 1: why two reasons. A First, those contractions are sweeping up

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Speaker 1: any food bits that they might have missed the first

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Speaker 1: time around. A second, those vibrations and rumblings of your

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Speaker 1: empty stomach are designed to make you hungry. The muscle

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Speaker 1: contractions will come and go about once an hour until

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Speaker 1: you eat again. In some cases, of course, excessive grumbling

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Speaker 1: could be a sign of an upset stomach, but you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be too concerned unless the sounds are accompanied by cramping, nausea,

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Speaker 1: or constipation. So, now that we know what causes stomach growling,

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Speaker 1: is there any way to control it? The one tip

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Speaker 1: to mute a noisy belly is to eat many small

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Speaker 1: meals in a day instead of a few large ones.

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Speaker 1: Your digestive system will have less opportunity to create those

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Speaker 1: paristols as rumbles if your tube has something in it. Also,

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Speaker 1: eating pure foods that make you gassy may help decrease

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Speaker 1: the growling. Today's episode is based on the article why

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Speaker 1: do our stomachs Growl? On how stuffworks dot Com written

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Speaker 1: by Jessica Toooth Mean brain Stuff is production of Eye

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and

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Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts myheart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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