This one is kind of gross but we were dealing with an instance of food poisoning recently and it got me wondering… If I understand correctly, both diarrhea and vomiting are mechanisms the body uses to combat infection. If you ingest something that your body deems dangerous, is there a reason your brain might trigger diarrhea instead of vomiting, or vice versa, for any given situation?
In: Biology
Diarrhea can be the body’s response to encourage the passage of some irritant, but it can also just be a symptom that has no use. Some toxins created by pathological bacteria simply cause diarrhea, sometimes to the point that it’s fatal. That’s the bacteria’s attempt to spread to new hosts, not your body’s response to something dangerous.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiga_toxin
At the end of the day your body isn’t making a wise decision either way, it’s just inflammation, irritation, or specific chemical receptors activating a chain of events that causes vomiting/diarrhea. Sadly those same receptors can fall victim to outside interference. At the end of the day both vomiting and diarrhea serve the same purpose those, they seek to reduce the exposure time to something harmful.
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