How does the stomach work in space? Do astronauts feel constant need to throw up since the contents are bouncing around inside?
In: Biology
Our intestines are actually kept together by a membrane called peritoneum, so even on Earth they’re not moving around that freely. In space, due to the absence of gravity, organs do tend to go slightly upward.. however nausea isn’t caused by the “organs moving around”, but by the brain that has to adapt to the no-gravity condition and causes us to have balance and coordination problems. And honestly the major problem for astronauts is that if they don’t do workouts while in space, they’d weaken their bones and muscles.
Edit: I realized that my answer was not pertinent, hope this answers your question.
When we ingest food, the muscle force that on Earth pushes food down to our stomach is strong enough to do it when we’re upside-down or even in space. After that, food reaches the stomach: processes that transform food into a sort of fluid (while breaking up fats and proteins in their simple forms) actually works the same even without gravity and the food they eat is full of nutrients but is pretty light, to prevent nausea…
English is not my first language, I apologize in advance for any mistakes…
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