Can you hold so much food that you die? We used to joke about Americans' overeating problems, but what's wrong with that? After all, no one died from eating three Big Macs. People were dying rather from eating three Big Macs twice a week for thirty years. But each of us found ourselves in a situation where after three servings of salad, chicken, potatoes, bread, snacks, sausages, mayonnaise, fish, another salad … "this dessert" didn't fit. Would you fit in?
Gizmodo interviewed professional doctors who are seriously concerned about overeating and regularly experience bursting stomachs in their practice.
Chief Physician John O. Clark, Stanford University School of Medicine:
“Feeding yourself to death is extremely difficult, but in theory it is possible. The stomachs seem to burst frequently, but in reality this is a rare event - the stomach is much stronger than any other segment of the intestine and is able to expand. It does a great job with large meals, but if you stretch your stomach too much, it will induce vomiting. Therefore, although there have indeed been cases of stomach rupture, overeating to such an extent is extremely rare, because the stomach expands quickly and simply manages to escape from the critical pressure of food. The stomach of an ordinary person expands by about a liter after any meal, but of course it can expand further. People who can eat fifty to sixty hot dogs usually have extremely expandable stomachs and, amazingly, they actually slow down stomach emptying. It is not yet clear why this is so. It may be that slow stomach emptying relieves hunger to some extent, so they can continue to eat. In such situations, despite the massive amounts of food they consume, none of them have ever had stomach rupture.
Vomiting from overeating is much more common. There is, for example, Boerhaave's syndrome, in which vomiting and strong movements of the esophagus can cause a rupture of the esophagus. In my career, I have never seen a ruptured stomach, but I have seen a couple with Boerhaave syndrome.
There is another option, not quite similar to a rupture - the Mallory-Weiss rupture, when the esophagus ruptures at the gastroesophageal junction. It can cause significant bleeding, although not such that the person will die on the spot from bleeding. But if it happened away from medical care, theoretically it could be deadly.
In theory, if you overeat something high in a metal or mineral that could overdose, you will be in trouble. Personally, I have not seen this in practice, but a friend told me that someone ate a huge amount of lobsters - three kilograms - and ended up in the hospital with iodine poisoning. But you would have to eat a lot of foods that are high in mercury or iodine or whatever is usually in trace amounts."
Chief Physician Barbara Jung of the University of Illinois:
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“Over the long haul - definitely: you can feed yourself to death. The rise in obesity among the population of developed countries is an obvious sign. The high mortality rate in our USA is associated with obesity directly, either from complications caused by obesity, or from concomitant problems - cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and so on.
If people are worried about not dying from the festive feast: you must understand that the body wants to live, so it will tell you when there is enough and when nothing else can be eaten. Very few will be able to overpower themselves and continue to eat, because it is difficult.
You could die from overeating if the temperature of the food was too low and you would simply be overcooled by ingesting a large amount of cold food. Or if you have eaten much more than your stomach can hold. Food is sent to the stomach, passing through the intestines, and if the stomach is clogged, it can only move upward, that is, in the opposite direction. Complications from vomiting can include choking (when food enters the airways) or bleeding associated with a ruptured esophagus. But this happens very rarely, because the body regulates itself and does not want to overeat."
Merlin Butler, Professor of Psychiatry, Behavior and Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center:
“Feeding ourselves to death is a phenomenon we see in Prader Syndrome -
Willie, which is the most common known cause of morbid obesity in humans. It is a rare disease - perhaps 400,000 people worldwide suffer from it.
Individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome go through two main clinical stages. The first stage is the inability to develop normally: they are born very weak, with reduced fetal activity. They are also hypotensive, which leads to different feeding.
This continues for several months, up to a year, maybe longer, and then their appetite begins to grow. It grows extremely - hyperphasia develops. The body gets fat quickly. Everything that comes to hand goes into food until a person falls asleep or his stomach bursts. Stomach rupture is a common cause of death in Prader-Willi syndrome. This is the main feature.
They are often placed in a controlled environment with a strict diet so that they don't have access to food and their stomachs become smaller. And then it can happen that they overeat, and their stomach will look like a shriveled prune: they overeat, and the stomach bursts.
They know they are overeating because they have been limited in food, but they continue to eat and do not feel full. The brain says, "I am hungry, I am hungry, I am hungry," but it does not say, "I am full, I cannot eat anymore." Patients with Prader-Willie are also unable to vomit. It even happened that the children with Prader - Willie could jump out the window when they heard the whistle of the ice cream van. They can even eat what is unsuitable for food. It can be very life threatening."
Ilya Khel
