Why Do We Hiccup?😦

Morning Hiccup!

Meet Charles Osborne.

After a hog fell on him in 1922, he didn't stop hiccuping for 68 YEARS…

Making him the Guinness world record holder for the longest hiccupper ever…

Sounds awful, right?

But what actually are hiccups??

Let's take a look inside Durd’s body to see what's going on.

So, when you hiccup the big muscle under your lungs called the diaphragm does a weird spasm thing.

Like this:

And for some reason, this is then IMMEDIATELY followed by the vocal cords closing up.

But remember the diaphragm spasm?

Well, that causes a very sudden intake of air.

However, because the vocal cords have closed, it stops that air from entering the lungs.

This is what creates that “Hic!” sound.

Hiccuping like this tends to happen following times when your stomach gets stretched for whatever reason.

Think, swallowing too much air, or food, or drink in too little time.

Ok but WHY do we have them?

Well… we don't know for sure, but here's one leading theory:

It's thought that many millions of years ago, lungs as we know them first evolved as a way for early fish to take advantage of the abundance of oxygen just out of the water.

Hey, now, you’re an Amphibian!

You can breathe through air… AND water!

But that causes a problem…

As an amphibian, you don't want to suck in water through your gills and into your lungs cause you’d drown…

This is where the hiccup mechanism comes in.

Think about it, when these fish dudes would inhale and move water over their gills, a rapid closure of the vocal cords, just like when we hiccup, would prevent water from entering their lungs.

This idea is also supported by evidence which shows that the same part of the brain responsible for hiccups in humans is almost identical to the part of the brain responsible for breathing in amphibians!

So your hiccups probably came from an ancient mechanism to protect amphibians from drowning themselves!

Awesome! Lol.

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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