Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey rain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's episode is
Speaker 1: another classic. In this one, we go into the widely
Speaker 1: annoying but surprisingly confounding causes and hears of hiccups. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's question is how
Speaker 1: do we get hiccups? Science isn't sure, actually, but it's
Speaker 1: not that medical science has been ignoring hiccups. When these
Speaker 1: spasms are frequent or persistent in adults, they can indicate
Speaker 1: over a hundred different diseases and disorders, from multiple sclerosis
Speaker 1: to cancer to appendicitis, and hiccups themselves can get serious
Speaker 1: and what's called intractable cases. Hiccups don't stop for more
Speaker 1: than a month and can go on for years without relief,
Speaker 1: leading to complications like a regular heartbeat, weight loss, insomnia,
Speaker 1: and emotional distress. Understandably, but okay, science isn't totally ignorant here.
Speaker 1: We know the basics. Hiccups are reflexive spasms of the
Speaker 1: diaphragm and glottis and more on both of those in
Speaker 1: a second caused by irritation to any of several nerves.
Speaker 1: Throughout your body. During normal, non hiccuppy breathing, you move
Speaker 1: air into and out of your lungs, partially thanks to
Speaker 1: contractions of your diaphragm. It contracts pulling downward as you inhale,
Speaker 1: giving your lungs room to expand, then releases, relaxing upward
Speaker 1: and letting your lungs contract as you exhale, and all
Speaker 1: that air moves through your throat and importantly through your glottis,
Speaker 1: which is the opening between your vocal cords. But during
Speaker 1: a hiccup, at least half of your diaphragm for some
Speaker 1: reason contracts sharply about eighty percent of the time, it's
Speaker 1: just the left half. Go figure that contraction starts pulling
Speaker 1: in a deep breath, but that breath gets cut short
Speaker 1: by the glottis snapping shut about three hundreds of a
Speaker 1: second later. The hicck sound comes from that sudden closure.
Speaker 1: In most cases, hiccups are caused by irritation of the
Speaker 1: fhrenic nerves, which control the motion of the diaphragm and
Speaker 1: send your brain sensory information about what's going on in
Speaker 1: various parts of your neck and body. That irritation is
Speaker 1: usually from your stomach distending when you accidentally swallow air,
Speaker 1: or when you eat or drink too much too fast,
Speaker 1: especially carbonated beverages like soda or beer. In rarer cases,
Speaker 1: lots of other irritations can be at fault more serious
Speaker 1: than having over drank soda or beer, such as infections
Speaker 1: of or trauma to anything that the fhrenic nerves touch,
Speaker 1: like a tumor pressing against them in your neck, or pericarditis,
Speaker 1: which is the swelling of the membrane around your heart.
Speaker 1: Irritations of the vagus nerve can also be hiccup culprits,
Speaker 1: possibly due to its connection to the larynx, along with
Speaker 1: everything from your small intestine to the inside of your ear,
Speaker 1: and lots of stuff in between. If you're looking to
Speaker 1: get rid of hiccups, some of the most common home
Speaker 1: remedies really are worthwhile. They work by either overloading the
Speaker 1: frenic or vagus nerves or by interrupting your involuntary breathing cycle.
Speaker 1: For nerve overload, try biting into a lemon, placing a
Speaker 1: spoonful of sugar on the back of your tongue, pulling
Speaker 1: on your tongue, or having a friend tickler scare you
Speaker 1: on the respiratory and try holding your breath, gulping down
Speaker 1: a glass of water, or breathing into a paper bag
Speaker 1: and if nothing works, hiccups generally go away on their own.
Speaker 1: If they do stick around for more than forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: see a doctor just in case. The purpose behind this
Speaker 1: reflex is still a mystery. Some researchers say that they
Speaker 1: could be vestigial spasms related to how our amphibian ancestors
Speaker 1: controlled their gills. Others postulate that they help with breastfeeding.
Speaker 1: Hiccups can release small amounts of air from the stomach
Speaker 1: into the esophagus, where it can be exhaled, so hiccups
Speaker 1: might serve to get air out of baby stomachs, making
Speaker 1: more space for milk. Today's episode is based on a
Speaker 1: script that I wrote for a brain stuff video for
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com. The brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more
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