Why can really bad odors induce vomit?
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Vomiting is a defense mechanism to get bad potentially poisonous stuff out of your stomach before it has a chance to actually enter your body and make you sick.
Because the consequences of *not* vomiting when you’ve eaten poison is possible death, vomiting has evolved to be over-cautions. If there’s any chance you’ve consumed something toxic, it’s better to err on the side of caution and vomit just in case.
In the case of bad smells: A lot of toxic things smell awful, and a lot of awful-smelling things are toxic. So when you smell a bad smell (particularly the smells of things that *are* toxic, like feces or rotting meat), your brain goes “whoa, toxins close by! Better throw up in case I’ve somehow eaten any!”.
Motion sickness in cars is the same mechanism. Brain goes “eyes and ears report different, conflicting info on whether we’re moving or not. There’s a chance this is a symptom of poison, better throw up to get rid of the poison if there is any!”
Getting nauseous from seeing others vomiting is the same too: “Oh that person beside me is throwing up. That means they think they’re poisoned. And they’re right there, which means *I* might be poisoned! Better throw up too just in case!”
It’s your bodies way of saying “You are NOT eating that, and if you did, you’re not keeping it”
Your body assumes its poison and your go to defense for being poisoned is to assume its something you ate and throw up
Your body believes it is being poisoned. Look up sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous responses.
I think the answer has been pretty well covered, but I’d like to add a remedy for nausea is smelling rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol). You can use alcohol wipes (not bleach wipes!) or even hand sanitizer. It’s much faster than anti-nausea pills and is evidence-based to be very effective! I don’t think we understand the mechanism behind it, but it’s a good hack if you’re feeling nauseous, sea sick/car sick, etc.
Yesterday I threw up and passed out, no Alkohol included. But bad smell was present.
And years ago i was on a festival (drunk) and passed out because of bestial smell of the nearby toilets …
Is it possible to pass out from bad smell?
This question also yields what I would consider to be a more important question:
***Why do some things smell awful?*** Evaluating the pleasure of sights and sounds is highly subjective, as it is with many smells. There are some smells, however, like some sounds and sights that everyone (well, nearly everyone) reacts negatively to.
It isn’t just that we vomit because something smells bad, it’s that we vomit ***AND*** it smells bad. Our body is producing two physiological responses to this stimulus. One may preclude and even trigger the other, but ultimately our most basic brain functions have evolved over time to avoid risk, and those that can ‘smell danger’ live to procreate.
In turn, this has given some other flora and fauna biological advantage in that through happenstance, a creature that produces an odor repulsive to another will not fall prey to that creature. Durian, for example, is highly successful at warding off creatures that would consume its fruit. Skunks have taken advantage of this mechanism as well. Two things that aren’t even remotely deadly to Humans but have successfully co-opted the danger mechanisms of many mammals in order to thrive by mimicking other dangerous events.
Stagnant water with rotten crawfish floating in it. Yep – that smell will never leave me.
-Circa 1995
People who did *not* have a tendency to vomit from really bad odors would’ve been more likely to eat bad food and get sick, which means they would’ve been less likely to survive long enough to have children.
Fast forward a couple hundred thousand years, and you are the descendant of the people who *were* more sensitive to bad smells, and you’ve inherited rhat survival mechanism – even if it goes unfortunately overboard sometimes.
The fourth ventricle in the brain has a region called the emetic centre which controls the vomiting response. It can be triggered by many things, including blood-chemical changes at the medulla’s chemoreceptor trigger zone, but also by external stimuli like scent which stimulates olfactory receptors that transmit signals to the emetic centre of the brain.
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