The disgusting reason you should never pass on passing gas
A fart a day keeps the doctor away.
Breaking wind while in the company of others might seem like the height of rudeness — it was even ranked one of the worst house guest behaviors by a UK survey — but one enterprising TikTok doctor suggests that letting it rip is absolutely essential because, otherwise, the farts could come out of your mouth.
NHS surgeon Dr. Karan Rajan’s video describing the flatulent factoid currently boasts over 2.5 million views on TikTok thanks to its shocking reason.
“If you hold in a fart too long, it can be reabsorbed into your bloodstream and breathed out when you exhale,” @Dr.karanr explained in the revolting clip, in which he rattled off various fart facts in response to a viewer’s request.
Therefore, in order to prevent a ca-gas-trophic buildup, it is necessary to cut the cheese as much as possible.
Rajan’s not blowing hot air either. A 2018 study by Clare Collins, a professor in nutrition and dietetics at Australia’s University of Newcastle, found that gas can indeed be absorbed by the blood.
“Trying to hold it in leads to a buildup of pressure and major discomfort,” she wrote in the essay published in “The Conversation.” “A buildup of intestinal gas can trigger abdominal distension, with some gas reabsorbed into the circulation and exhaled in your breath.”
Collins prescribes breaking wind at one’s discretion to prevent an oral gas leak, writing: “The next time you feel a large volume of intestinal gas getting ready to do what it does, try to move to a more convenient location. Whether you make it there or not, the best thing for your digestive health is to just let it go.”
In fact, by keeping a toot at the station, you’re only delaying the inevitable as the “buildup of intestinal gas will eventually escape via an uncontrollable fart,” the nutritionist describes.
Rajan says that you shouldn’t be afraid of people passing judgment on gas passage. “On average, people fart 14 times a day,” the doctor explained to his 4.3 million TikTok followers. “If someone tells you they don’t fart, they are lying and you should disown them immediately. Or they’ve got a bowel obstruction, which is a medical emergency.”
One odiferous opportunist even sold his fart as an NFT for $85.
The medical practitioner further normalizes flatulence by detailing the scientific process behind letting it rip:
“75 percent of farts are produced by bacteria in the large intestine,” he explained. “Digested food that isn’t broken down is chewed up by bacteria that produce microscopic farts that accumulate and become one of your regular farts.
“25 percent of farts are swallowed air that you don’t burp and dissolved gases from the blood making its way into your intestines.”
Other fun bits of toot trivia include the fact that the first fart of the day is usually the biggest, the average daily fart volume is enough to “fill up a medium sized balloon” and that “hydrogen and methane are flammable, which is why you can light a fart on fire” — a practice Rajan doesn’t recommend.
In related revolting news, doctors say you should never sleep in the nude as this can cause one to inadvertently soil their bed. They explain that underpants help prevent the a-poo-calypse by catching fecal particles that are released during nocturnal farts.
