We fart more on planes

A study seems to confirm that

During a flight to New Zealand, Jacob Rosenberg, a Danish scientist, noticed something interesting: there was a change in the air of his water bottle but he also felt a bit bloated after the journey. Then he started theorizing about what may happen to the human body, specifically why it seems we fart more on planes.

On that voyage to New Zealand, Rosenberg noticed alterations to his water bottle. It had expanded during the low pressure, crumpled back up as the plane landed, and then been “squeezed”.

“When we landed, my belly had grown. That led me to speculate what had happened. When I got back to work I discussed with two of my students, and we simply came up with the idea for the paper”.

According to this article, in 2013, Rosenberg collaborated with a few other researchers to publish a study titled “Flatulence on airplanes: Just let it go” in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

The South China Morning Post and the BBC were both interested in learning more, and other international media outlets followed suit. The interest was “quite extreme”, according to Rosenberg, who is currently employed by the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Clinical Medicine.

“I was interviewed by numerous radio and TV stations and many individual web pages cited and discussed the work. Thus, a few months after publication my name and flatulence were mentioned in more than 2 million web pages according to Google”, said Rosenberg.

“I have never seen anything like this with other publications. So we must have hit something of common interest and relevance”.

We fart because our intestines need to release some gas, but different things may affect how the gas accumulates.

We breathe in the air while performing everyday tasks like chewing food or drinking throughout the day. Exogenous air is the term for the air that has been swallowed. Exogenous air contains oxygen and nitrogen that enters the bloodstream from the small intestine, but any excess must be ejected.

Additionally, the colon contains a large number of bacteria that are working to break down food and produce endogenous air. The majority of this will be hydrogen, depending on what you have been consuming, but it may also contain methane and hydrogen sulfide, which gives it a bad smell. However, of the approximately 1.5 liters of gas we produce each day, barely 1% of it smells.

Of course, certain foods you eat tend to affect how much flatus you have for the day. These foods include those high in fiber, undigested carbohydrates found in sugars like fructose and sorbitol, starchy foods like potatoes, high-sulfur foods like garlic and onions, and cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli.

The typical person completes 10 farts every day, however, some studies place the number closer to 25. Men and women fart at roughly the same rates, except for the fact that one gender may brag about accomplishing more tasks than the other. There is one exception, though, since women typically outperform males in terms of smell with a study that supports that.

Talking about planes, it comes down to physics. The air inside of you is being affected by the pressurized cabins on aircraft; as the cabin pressure lowers, the air in the intestine expands by up to 30% more than usual, and that air needs to be expelled.

“Since there is only limited space in the large bowel, it is a natural consequence to fart”, Rosenberg told the South China Morning Post.

Modern airplanes have extremely silent cabins, which increases the risk of farting. You may hesitate to fart because a significant percentage of the air is constantly recycled, but doing so has health hazards.

In addition to bloating, holding them in may cause dyspepsia, upper abdominal pain, or even heartburn.

If odors are a concern, the majority of commercial aircraft today are equipped with HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) filters, which can collect approximately 99.97% of airborne particles larger than 0.3 microns. The charcoal within aids in odor removal. The HEPA filtration process removes about 40% of the air in a cabin, with the remainder being pumped in from outside the aircraft. The air is totally replaced roughly every five minutes.

If it’s not enough, allow the coverings to do the work since your seat will absorb a lot of your gas.

If you have frequent gas, you might want to consider buying underwear or a tool that reduces flatulence and collects gasses before they exit your underpants.