How does our stomach produce sounds when we are hungry, and how does it increase/decrease length and volume of the sound as we become more/less hungry, respectively?
In: Biology
Your stomach and small intestine actually always produce sounds, commonly known as “growling”. This is a normal part of your digestion.
When there’s little food in your stomach, there’s isn’t anything to muffle these noises. Thus being more audible to us.
This is literally my favorite medical term: borborygmus! That’s the technical name for stomach sounds!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stomach_rumble
When your stomach growls, its result of your brain sending a signal to it, releasing a chemical within the walls of the stomach triggering a muscular contraction (the stomach is nothing more than just a hollow sack of muscle.). When your brain thinks it’s time to eat, itll tell your stomach to start cleaning itself out via contractions in preperation for the meal, since it’s a hollow organ, its naturally filled with air. That tightening feeling you feel before your stomach growls is the air being compressed as its contracting, and the rumble comes from the movement of air between the walls once the air finally has nowhere else to go, causing vibrations (like the end of a balloon having the air drained) and you can physically feel the growl because your stomach is literally vibrating as its forcing the air inside it between its walls. These so called hunger pangs increase in intensity as time goes on without food because your body’s physical need for food increases.
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