Hunger Pangs

This question and answer were printed in the March 2008 issue of Men's Health magazine.

Q: Why do our stomachs rumble loudly when we're hungry?

A: You're referring to borborygmus. That's the medical term for the gurgling in your gut, which usually isn't a sign of hunger. Rather, it's your gastrointestinal system's housekeeping after your previous meal, says Sita Chokhavatia, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. A few hours after you eat, a 90-minute cycle of contractions -- the interdigestive phase -- moves any remaining bits of food from your stomach and your small intestine. Then the "migrating motor complex" noisily shuttles the mostly gas-and-fluid mixture onward. "It's like squeezing and shaking a balloon filled with water and air, " says Dr. Chokhavatia. If you need to stifle the sound in your stomach because of, say, a meeting or a date, munch some popcorn (for the insoluble fiber) or a piece of chocolate, which will immediately shift your GI system back into its quieter initial digestion mode.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true. In that case, I always thought I was hungry again three hours after eating my oatmeal for breakfast. Then I'd wait another hour for my protein bar, so I could eat halfway between breakfast and lunch. (Eight hours is a long time.)

Then, last week, I had a big lunch. I told Worker Bee that I'd have just a salad for dinner. When I got home, though, I thought I'd wait to see how long before I felt hungry again. It wasn't until 7 p.m., over six hours since I had eaten. Note: since that was less than my self-imposed deadline of not eating less than three hours before I go to bed, all I had was a handful of almonds and a glass of milk. I could have eaten that salad within my deadline but before lunch had left my stomach.

That got me pondering. We have been indoctrinated to think that, when your stomach rumbles, you are hungry, and you look for something to eat, when it is merely a signal that your stomach is empty. That means we have been conditioned always to have food in our stomachs, even if we don't need it. No wonder American society is so overweight.