Category: In the News

easy cure for gas

Someone forwarded me an e-mail from “Everyday Health”, talking about Digestive Health.   This particular e-mail was called “Easy Cure for Gas”.  (I don’t know why this was sent to me…)   It was written by Dr. Eugene Filiburton of the Massachusetts Institute of Gastrointestinal Disorders and Research Center, Inc.

Troubled by gas pain and bloating?  Try this simple exercise that can be discretely done in your home or office space – even your cube.

Simply lie on your back, knees bent, and press in on your abdomen while exhaling.  For particularly stubborn gas bubbles, it can be helpful to lift your hips with your legs – with your knees still bent – and bounce up and down on your buttocks.   Alternate this bouncing with rolling on your side – first one side, then the other, until you expel significant amounts of gas.

It is important not to clinch your buttocks while doing this exercise as it can precipitate bowel leakage of fluids and fecal matter and, or be very noisy.

If you’re doing this in your cubicle at work, you’d better hope co-workers don’t walk by while you’re lying in the floor and bouncing your butt around.  That doesn’t seem discrete to me.   I reckon you could say you’re doing push-ups or crunches, but they may not believe that.  Plus there’s the issue of potential odor.  You probably don’t want repugnant odors emanating from your cubicle.

If you’re at home, you can just let it rip, instead of doing some exercise to pass gas.

It seems odd to me that clinching your buttocks while doing that bouncing around could lead to leakage.  It seems like clinching would help prevent leakage.   But I don’t know, because I haven’t researched this, nor do I plan to.  If anyone wants to try it and let me know how it works out for them, please leave a comment.

Anyway, now you know how to easily and discretely pass gas, and knowing is half the battle.

a side-effect of sugarless gum

Surely chewing gum is harmless, right?  Recent studies have revealed something unusual about sugarless chewing gum.  The first ingredient in most sugarless gums is a laxative : sweet-tasting sorbitol.  So it helps people who are, well, gummed up.  🙂  Apparently you have to chew a whole pack a day to get the stool-loosening effect.  But if you chew this gum too much each day, it can lead to chronic diarrhea and dangerous weight loss.  And you don’t want that, particularly the chronic diarrhea — that could leave an indelible mark on your daily routine.  But if you’re constipated, perhaps you should try some sugarless gum…

studying gas from cows

In an effort to reduce global warming, scientists are now studying flatulence produced by cows.  This is from an actual news article:

Argentine scientists are taking a novel approach to studying global warming — strapping plastic tanks to the backs of cows to collect their burps and farts. … Scientists at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology in Castelar, Argentina, will analyze the gas collected from cows. Scientists around the world are studying the amount of methane in gas expelled by cows and Argentine researchers have come up with a unique way to collect and analyze it. …

“When we got the first results, we were surprised. Thirty percent of Argentina’s (total greenhouse) emissions could be generated by cows,” said Guillermo Berra, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology. Berra said the researchers “never thought” a cow weighing 550 kg (1,210 lb) could produce 800 to 1,000 litres (28 to 35 cubic feet) of emissions each day.

Notice that these scientists are studying and analyzing gas from cows.  How would you like that job?  I bet it stinks to have to do that every day!  (Pun very much intended.)

But maybe these scientists are onto something.  If a cow is producing more than its fair share of methane, then that’s not fair to the rest of us.  Likewise, I know some people who produce more methane than a normal human should.  Perhaps the government should require them to add Beano to their food…

Earth’s dominance in the Miss Universe pageant

I don’t keep up with beauty pageants and such foolishness, but I recently saw a headline about it.  A woman from Earth won yet again in the Miss Universe pageant.  That’s 56 straight years an earthling has won.  That’s complete dominance.  But it makes me wonder if people / aliens in the other parts of the universe are even invited to that competition.  If not, it should be renamed.

In semi-related news, Miss USA tripped in the evening gown competition, for the second year in a row.  I’m not going to poke fun at that, though.  I know, it’s easy to laugh because that makes her look clumsy and it’s certainly not going to help her score.  But look at it from her perspective.  There’s all that pressure of walking in front of people, and these models surely have to do a lot of preparation for walking in a dress and high heels.  I have no idea how difficult that is.  Surely it must be tough, if she’s going to trip and fall down a couple of times…

For next year’s competitions, one of the requirements in preliminary competitions might be that you can walk in front of people without tripping.  Considering how difficult it obviously must be in those circumstances, maybe she could do that in the talent part of the competition.  “Here is Miss USA, walking across the stage without falling down.”