Tausi Insider

Illustration : Sam Woolley Breaking wind. Cutting the cheese. Thunder from down under. I could go on, but whatever you call it , farting is a part of life. Farting is usually caused either by swallowing air , which has to get come out somehow, or by bacteria in your guts releasing gas during the digestive process. Everything animal (human or otherwise) farts, but how you fart can actually tell you something about your health. “Passing gas is normal,” said Eamonn Quigley , a gastroenterologist at Houston Methodist Hospital . “Everyone passes flatulence on a daily basis. We pass more after meals, and we even pass through the night.” But what do your farts mean, and what might they be trying to tell you? For starters, “when a patient complains of excessive gas, one of the first things we look at is the patient’s diet,” Quigley said . Bloating doesn’t mean more gas   One important thing to understand about farting is that “there is a big distinction between flatulence and bloating,” a...