When eating, we can often hear some restraint girls say “can not eat, or stomach to be propped up!”
Yes, many people believe that our stomach is like a poor quality balloon, often blowing larger and larger, it will become more and more loose, and even the risk of bursting; and if you always do not blow it, the rubber will age, and the stomach will gradually shrink.
Is our stomach really as fragile as a balloon? First of all, we need to understand the structure of the stomach.
Will prolonged eating or starvation change the volume of the stomach?
Our stomach is a muscular organ, meaning that it is a house made of muscles, and several layers of muscles.
In the innermost layer of the stomach wall are various gastric glandular cells that secrete gastric acid, proteasome and some gastrointestinal hormones. There is an intermuscular plexus between several layers of smooth muscle in the stomach wall, which has been periodically issuing electrical impulses to maintain the contraction of the stomach wall, so that the stomach is in a mildly contracted state at ordinary times. The stomach is slightly tubular when completely empty, with a capacity of about 50mL, and balloon-like when highly filled, with a capacity of up to 2L.
The stomach is divided from top to bottom into pylorus, sinus, body, cardia, and stomach bottom, but in fact, when we eat, even if we eat more food, most of it is only confined to the sinus and lower part of the stomach body, the other parts are free of food and mainly play a role in relieving pressure.
When we eat, the stomach will be tolerated diastolic, that is, the volume of the stomach becomes larger, ready to accommodate food, while the secretion of glands in the stomach increases, the emptying is delayed, peristalsis is enhanced, in order to let the food in the stomach fully mixed with gastric juice, the formation of food chyme, a certain degree of digestion of protein, ready for the next step in the intestinal absorption. Foods containing more carbohydrates stay in the stomach for a shorter time, while foods containing more protein and fat stay longer, and mixed foods generally have a gastric emptying time of 4 hours to 5 hours. This also determines the interval between our three meals.
When the food is emptied, the stomach returns to its original form, and the intermuscular plexus in the stomach wall continuously issues basic electrical impulses to maintain the stomach in a state of slight contraction.
So no matter how often you eat or starve, there is no question of stretching or shrinking the capacity of the stomach, because the shape of the stomach is different according to whether or not there is food, how much food there is, and our stomach has a very good ability to stretch.
Frequent eating or hunger hurts the stomach
Even regardless of eating or starving, the stomach capacity will neither be stretched out nor starved to shrink. But this does not mean that we can indulge in our own diet and eat as much as we want and be hungry as much as we want.
We should be more concerned about the gastric mucosa than the shape of the stomach itself. Long-term eating or hunger has a clear impact on the gastric mucosa and the function of the stomach.
One of the main stimuli for our stomach to secrete gastric acid and pepsinogen is food. Long-term hunger and lack of food stimulation will lead to insufficient secretion of gastric acid and affect the digestion of food, while the mucosal glands may atrophy due to disuse, note that here is the atrophy of the mucosal glands, not the atrophy of the stomach itself.
At the same time, long-term hunger, due to the lack of food stimulation, bile long-term retention of the gallbladder does not discharge, resulting in increased water absorption, over time, easy to trigger gallstones.
When eating propped up for a long time, it will obviously affect the emptying function of the stomach, bloating, in the long run, leading to chronic gastritis, causing a decline in digestive function.
In addition, if you eat too much at once, there may be vomiting, acute gastric dilatation and even gastric perforation, imagine the scene after the balloon is blown to the limit, you know how terrible the consequences!
In short, our stomach does not eat more or hunger and lead to changes in capacity, but we should also try to avoid long-term eating or hunger, to maintain a regular meal, you are good for the stomach, the stomach is good for you.
