Skip to main content

Why Do We Hiccup?

   



     If you’ve ever chugged a carbonated drink, felt overwhelmed by fear, or experienced a bloated stomach, you might have hiccuped soon after.  These and other actions and conditions can trigger hiccups, and sometimes they start for no clear reason at all. Hiccups—singultus in the medical world— occurs during the breathing process when the diaphragm breaks out of its normal rhythm of moving up and down and suddenly contracts involuntarily. When this happens, air rushes down the throat and hits the vocal cords as they shut, creating the “hic” sound.
 
    Although hiccups are a common occurrence, they don’t seem to have any real biological purpose. As to why they happen, one theory is that the nerves that control the vocal cords and the diaphragm get out of whack, for some reason scientists don’t understand. The malfunction could result from damage or irritation to those nerves. From an evolutionary standpoint, hiccups may have once been helpful in swallowing food or dislodging a stuck morsel.
  
    Humans start hiccuping very early: A fetus may hiccup in the womb. Some scientists think hiccups could help developing infants prepare for breathing once they leave the womb. Whatever their purpose, fetal hiccups are common. Hiccups be a sign of illness or hurt us on their own. Although most outbreaks last for only seconds or minutes, some people have endured nonstop hiccups for days or weeks. In those extreme cases, a person could develop problems with eating, sleeping, or breathing, and doctors recommend seeking treatment if hiccups last more than 48 hours. In 2007, a Florida teenager made the news when she hiccuped for more than five weeks straight, sometimes 50 times per minute. She couldn’t go to school and had trouble sleeping, and doctors couldn’t explain what caused this severe hiccuping bout. The girl received various medical treatments, including acupuncture, but it isn’t clear whether the hiccups responded to the treatment or finally just stopped on their own.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Causes Volcanic Lightning?

      On March 10, 2010, Eyjafjallajökull volcano, a caldera in Iceland covered by an ice cap, erupted. It sent plumes of clouds across most of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. Photos of the eruption show lightning originating and ending in the cloud of ash that hovered over the volcanic opening.    The largest volcanic storms are similar to supercell thunderstorms that spread across the American Midwest. But while those thunderstorms are fairly well understood, volcanic lightning still remains mysterious. The remote location of volcanoes and infrequent eruptions make volcanic lightning difficult to study. In general, lightning occurs through the separation of positively and negatively charged particles. Differences in the aerodynamics of the particles separate the positive and negative. When the difference in charge is great, electrons flow between the positive and negative regions. A lightning bolt is a natural way of correcting the charge distributi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Will Disease Drive Us All to Extinction ?

      Virulent infectious diseases and parasites have long been shown to be a significant cause of decline in biological populations. But can disease lead to the actual extinction of the host species—such as humankind?    Scientists attempt to determine the extinction-threatening effects of disease by first studying its role in historical extinctions. But proving that infectious disease is responsible for past extinctions is tricky business. After all, the extinct species is not around for scientific investigation. Even if a pathogen or parasite were discovered in a disappearing population, it would not prove that the pathogen itself was responsible for the decline.      However, reasonable evidence exists that historical extinctions and extirpations—local extinctions in which a speciesc eases to exist in the specific geographic area of study—are at least partlya ttributable to infectious disease. Avian malaria and bird pox are believe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is the Y Chromosome Doomed?

     Humans store their genes in 23 pairs of chromosomes, 22 of which are identically matched. The 23rd is a two-sided biological coin—twin Xs mean you’re female; an X and a Y, male. Chromosome pairs often trade bits of DNA in a process called recombination, the purpose of which is to keep genes functioning properly. Talk of men’s path toward extinction began in the late 1990s, when it was discovered that the human Y chromosome, which is stumpy compared with the X, does not share enough genetic material with the X to practice recombination. Left without a way to renew damaged genes, the Y would continue to degrade and would eventually disappear, geneticists announced. They slapped an expiration date on the male half of the species of sometime in the next 5 to 10 million years. To get a perspective on this prediction, scientists looked to our closest genetic relatives—the chimps. Because humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor 6 million years ago, genet...
Post a Comment
Read more