Fun Fact About Hiccups

Fun Facts About Hiccups
Hiccups can be embarrassing and surprisingly loud. Typically, the diaphragm (a sheet of muscle below the chest cavity), spasms and pulls down the lungs with a quick jerk. Suddenly, a gulp of air is inhaled and abruptly stopped by the vocal cords—and the classic “hiccup” sound is produced.

If you eat too much or too fast, you may make your stomach so full that it rubs against the diaphragm and the irritation makes you hiccup. Other reasons include drinking too quickly through a straw and swallowing too much air. In addition, a sudden change of temperature, such as drinking a hot beverage and then consuming an ice cold drink can cause the diaphragm to contract and create a hiccup.

A bout of hiccups usually lasts a few minutes, but may last for a few hours. Although hiccups are common and happen to people every day, there are some interesting facts about hiccups.

1. A bout of hiccups, if not stopped by other means, will average about 63 times before resolved.

2. The “gulp” of air takes approximately 35 milliseconds to hit the vocal cords and produce the familiar “hiccup” sound.

3. The medical name for hiccups is synchronous diaphragm flutter (SDF). Also known as singultus, from the Latin word “singult,” which means “the act of catching one’s breath while sobbing.”

4. It is a common for a fetus to begin hiccupping in the late first or early second
trimester. The phenomenon was first discovered in 1899, when ultrasound
technology became available in a women’s health clinic.

5. Animals with diaphragms similar to humans also experience hiccups. Cats and dogs have hiccups as a sign of a growth spurt. Animals with different breathing mechanisms demonstrate hiccup reflexes, but don’t have the vocal cords and don’t produce the classic “hiccup” sound.

6. The amazing speed of a hiccup can be produced at 4 to 60 hiccups per minute. At the higher rate of speed, a person would experience an unbelievable hiccup per second!

7. Charles Osborne, a pig farmer from Anton, Iowa, holds the record for the longest bout of hiccups in the Guinness World Book of Records. His hiccups began in 1922, and continued until 1990, when he was 68 years old. Initially, he would hiccup 40 times a minute, and then decreased to 20 per minute over the years. It is estimated that Osborne had hiccupped over 430 million times in his life. Although he suffered an annoying and embarrassing ordeal most of his life, he managed to father 8 children and was married twice.

8. According to an Eastern European superstition, hiccups are caused by someone who dislikes you complaining to someone else. The only way to stop the hiccups is to guess the name of the person maligning you.

9. Hiccups that occur over days to years are very rare and are described as a condition called “chronic hiccups.”

10. Some superstitious people believe that horseshoes bring not only good luck, but can cure hiccups.

11. In 2007, Jennifer Mee became famous the Today Show and other social media with her hiccupping over 50 times per minute for 5 weeks straight.

12. In India, hiccupping means that you are being remembered somewhere by a family member.

13. Hiccup was first coined sometime between 1570 and 1580 C.E. The word “hocket” was used before that time as a Medieval English term.

14. One of the first recorded hiccup cures was written a book by Plato: “Hold your breath, and if after you have done so for some time the hiccup is no better, then gargle with a little water, and if it still continues, tickle your nose with something and sneeze, and if you sneeze once or twice, even the most violent hiccup is sure to go.” – Eriximachus, the physician to Aristophanes, in Plato’s Symposium