Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Laur and vocal Bomb. Here. The human body is pretty
Speaker 1: amazing and pretty weird. Even if you don't always hear it,
Speaker 1: your body is making all kinds of sounds while it
Speaker 1: works hard to keep you well. We're talking about noises
Speaker 1: like your joints popping or your stomach growling. Speaking of
Speaker 1: what exactly is going on there, everybody's belly chimes in
Speaker 1: from time to time. Whether you call it grumbling, gurgling,
Speaker 1: or growling, These low rumbling noises sound like a pot
Speaker 1: of bubbling stew inside your guts. This sound happens as
Speaker 1: your body digests food. The medical term for this kind
Speaker 1: of intestinal rumbling is borberignus. This is thought to be
Speaker 1: based on an ancient Greek ono monopoia, you know, like
Speaker 1: meow or wolf, but for stomach rumbling. But the question
Speaker 1: is why do our stomachs growl in the first place?
Speaker 1: What's it trying to tell us? Let's start with a
Speaker 1: look at how the digestive system works. Our digestive system is,
Speaker 1: in essence, a long, single tube that starts at our
Speaker 1: mouth and ends at our anus. This tube connects the
Speaker 1: various organs and passages that play important roles in digestion.
Speaker 1: One of the most important things to know here is
Speaker 1: how the digestive system propels food. Waves of muscle contractions
Speaker 1: push the food that we eat down our small intestines
Speaker 1: into our bowels in a process called peristalsis. These contractions
Speaker 1: help churn food, liquids and different digestive juices together, are
Speaker 1: rendering them into a gooey mix known as chime. The
Speaker 1: sounds we hear our stomach growling are from moving around
Speaker 1: those solid and liquid ingredients plus bodily gas and air.
Speaker 1: Your stomach can growl at any time, but when there's
Speaker 1: food in your stomach or small intestine, the growling is
Speaker 1: less obvious. It's like when you put a pair of
Speaker 1: sneakers in the dryer by themselves versus with a load
Speaker 1: of towels. The towels muffle the noise of the shoes
Speaker 1: as they bounce around. But if you're hungry and your
Speaker 1: stomach and guts are both empty, that's when you probably
Speaker 1: notice your stomach growling the most. The same contractions are
Speaker 1: at work even though there isn't much food in there.
Speaker 1: That's because when your stomach is empty, your brain releases
Speaker 1: an appetite stimulating hormone called grellin. This signals the digestive
Speaker 1: muscles to restart the process of peristalsis, so they start
Speaker 1: contracting again. This is the rubbling that you hear. But
Speaker 1: why two reasons. A First, those contractions are sweeping up
Speaker 1: any food bits that they might have missed the first
Speaker 1: time around. A second, those vibrations and rumblings of your
Speaker 1: empty stomach are designed to make you hungry. The muscle
Speaker 1: contractions will come and go about once an hour until
Speaker 1: you eat again. In some cases, of course, excessive grumbling
Speaker 1: could be a sign of an upset stomach, but you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be too concerned unless the sounds are accompanied by cramping, nausea,
Speaker 1: or constipation. So, now that we know what causes stomach growling,
Speaker 1: is there any way to control it? The one tip
Speaker 1: to mute a noisy belly is to eat many small
Speaker 1: meals in a day instead of a few large ones.
Speaker 1: Your digestive system will have less opportunity to create those
Speaker 1: paristols as rumbles if your tube has something in it. Also,
Speaker 1: eating pure foods that make you gassy may help decrease
Speaker 1: the growling. Today's episode is based on the article why
Speaker 1: do our stomachs Growl? On how stuffworks dot Com written
Speaker 1: by Jessica Toooth Mean brain Stuff is production of Eye
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts myheart Radio,
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