• Question: What is the average amount of farts that a human does in one day?

    Asked by Matthew to Ahmed, Francesca, George, James, Nitheen on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Francesca Paradisi

      Francesca Paradisi answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      Oh I don’t know, I think the range varies a lot depending on what you eat and if you are shy or not when you are among people!

    • Photo: James Sullivan

      James Sullivan answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      an average person – about 500 mL a day (half a liter), but as Francesca says it depends on diet and metabolism.

    • Photo: George Dowson

      George Dowson answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      One interesting fact about farts (scientific name for them is “flatus”) is that they’re mostly hydrogen not methane.

    • Photo: Ahmed Osman

      Ahmed Osman answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Dear Matthew,
      thanks for this very good questions
      first of all the funny thing about fart that is composed of hydrogen and methane so actually human produce natural gas.
      What is fart gas made of?
      Most of the air we swallow, especially the oxygen component, is absorbed by the body before the gas gets into the intestines. By the time the air reaches the large intestine, most of what is left is nitrogen. Chemical reactions between stomach acid and intestinal fluids may produce carbon dioxide, which is also a component of air and a product of bacterial action. Bacteria also produce hydrogen and methane.
      But the relative proportions of these gases that emerge from our anal opening depend on several factors: what we ate, how much air we swallowed, what kinds of bacteria we have in our intestines, and how long we hold in the fart.
      The longer a fart is held in, the larger the proportion of inert nitrogen it contains, because the other gases tend to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the walls of the intestine.
      A nervous person who swallows a lot of air and who moves stuff through his digestive system rapidly may have a lot of oxygen in his farts, because his body didn’t have time to absorb the oxygen.
      On average, a person produces about half a liter of fart gas per day, distributed over an average of about fourteen daily farts.

      hopefully this clear answer
      thanks
      Ahmed

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