Images CSA-Archive / Getty
The farts are funny and sometimes smelly. But are they a subject of legitimate research?
It is estimated that more than 40% of people in the world suffer from a kind of functional intestinal disorder, such as acid reflux, stomach burns, indigestion, constipation, irritable colon syndrome and inflammatory disease of inflammatory disease The intestine.
So, yes, the freelance scientific writer Claire Ainsworth thinks. Ainsworth recently sat with Short wave co-host Emily Kwong To speak of two teams of scientists who study intestinal gases, which she profiled in an article in New scientist.
“The gases are so cool because they have sort of allowed to listen to the conversations that take place in this ecosystem and how it relates to our health,” said Ainsworth.
If scientists can find a profitable way to take standardized measures swirling gases around people’s guts, this image could one day become much clearer. And understand our intestinal microbiome through a FET -shaped window can help treat these conditions at the source.
Check Claire’s complete reports for New scientist.
Do you have another body function that you want us to explore or just want to report to a funny moment that you have spent gas? Send us an email to shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to a short wave on Spotify,, Apple podcasts And Google podcasts.
Listen to each episode of Short Wave Sponsor-Free and support our work at NPR by registering for Short Wave + plus.npr.org/Shortwave.
This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn. It was published by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer.