Why Do We Hiccup

Just after the muscles start to move the glottis shuts off the windpipe to produce the characteristic hic sound.

Why do we hiccup. Hiccups can happen for a lot of reasons -- some of them are physical and some emotional. One of the most common causes of hiccups he said is a distended stomach which sits just under the diaphragm. There are over 100 physiological reasons as to what sets hiccups off the most common being expansion of the stomach and movement of stomach acid into the oesophagus.

In some cases hiccups may be a sign of an underlying medical condition. If your stomach gets too full either with food or gas bubbles it can stimulate the. A sudden change in temperature.

Hiccups often come after eating or drinking too much or too quickly. The jerk makes you inhale suddenly and you hiccup because your voice-box cannot open quickly enough to let the air pass. The longest recorded case of hiccups lasted for 68 years.

But what causes these hics in the first place. The reason why humans hiccup has baffled scientists for hundreds of years not least because it does not seem to serve any useful purpose. Hiccups arise when the diaphragm a dome-shaped.

While that level of severity is extremely uncommon most of us are no stranger to an occasional case of the hiccups. This will cause thediaphragm to contract as it does when we breathe in. It is also the reason that a sudden shock can sometimes abolish an attack.

By How It Works Team 30032010. For most people a bout of hiccups usually lasts only a few minutes. Hiccups may result from a large meal alcoholic or carbonated beverages or sudden excitement.