When we eat food how powerful is the acid in our stomach, is it powerful enough to kill a life? For example, if someone ate goldfish or shrimp alive. How does it work, do the acid kill them immediately or they die slowly.
In: Biology
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Not the most in depth explanation, but Tardigrades are a really small organism known to survive almost anything… but they cannot survive our stomach acid. If we eat them, they will be pretty easily disintegrated. 🙂
> is it powerful enough to kill a life
Stomach acid can kill bacteria and some parasites, so yes. Also, oysters are often eaten alive and they die in the stomach.
I havent read any comment yet but as funny note that most people dont know: you stomach is full of acid most of the time, actually when you haven’t eaten is the time you have more acid in the stomach because your body wants to be ready for your “next meal” and that why when you go long hours without eating you can get “heartburn”, the acid our body produces is hydrochloric acid so no it would not kill a fish the way you think it would die, it would die because of lack of oxygen not because it got burned by hcl.
i ate a fish live. seemed like it died after less than 2 seconds if squirmin down there. it might’ve just given up and also it might’ve been crushed by my lower throat on the way down. no idea. i imagine the acid killed it pretty damn quick
I believe stomach acid is about as strong as hydrochloric acid, which is really funny because it sounds like it should melt right through you. The stomach actually regenerates faster than it dissolves, so that’s why that doesn’t happen.
The acid itself isn’t what breaks down the food. We have enzymes in our stomachs to break down fats, proteins, carbohydrates. Due to chemistry these enzymes function best in an acidic environment, so the acid is just there to make the enzymes work.
It’s a bit like how your biological detergent doesn’t work well if you run the washing machine too hot.
It’s quite dilute but aids in digestion of food and control of harmful bacteria.
Parietal cells (Proton pumps) activate pepsin. Pepsin is used to digest proteins and if you have heartburn, regular oesophageal exposure to pepsin can cause Barrett’s oesophagus (esophagus -US). This change in the cells can lead to oesophageal cancer. Cell membranes have cell proteins and so pepsin can damage them.
Proton pump inhibitors (H2 receptor antagonists) are sometimes used to reduce the activation of pepsin. A better way to protect would be to use an ARFOS (alginate rafting forming oral suspension) that can coat and protect. Gaviscon is a popular choice in the U.K. to prevent or reduce heartburn. Others are available.
In movies a little bit of strong acid dissolves metal or flesh in seconds. In shows they have different chemical reactions that look dramatic, like water-soluble foams carefully painted as props.
In real life, a strong acid will react, make lots of bubbles, foam, and gradually dissolve things. Highly concentrated strong acids can quickly cause permanent damage to sensitive tissues like eyes and skin, but that’s very different from death. Even something that breaks apart quite quickly, like gold into aqua regia, generally takes about a day when accelerated with heat and agitation when dissolving a very small bar. Vultures have extremely powerful acids in their stomach and it takes more than a day to break down things like sheep ribs.
Stomach acid by itself I can’t do that much. It’s partly just to reduce the amount of bacteria and other organisms. If you take heavy doses of antacid medication, you can still digest your food just fine.
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