Article on “Science of Speed Eating”
SPTimes.com has an article about Sunday’s “Science of Speed Eating” documentary.
The second half of the show follows gastroenterologist Dr. David Metz as he tries to figure out if there’s anything qualitatively different about how competitive eaters digest. To this end, Janus eats 36 hot dogs and radioactive scrambled eggs with a sidecar of barium smoothie.
The conclusion? Competitive eaters seem to relax their muscles in such a way that postpones peristalsis (waves of muscular contraction in the stomach that break down food into smaller pieces). Their stomachs become, as Dr. Metz notes, “giant flaccid bags,” four times their normal size. Their stomachs remain inert, their brains don’t experience satiation, and the eating machines keep eating.
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Steakbellie said (Registered August 11, 2006)
July 3, 2007 @ 9:47 am
thats hot.
carey poehlmann said
July 3, 2007 @ 9:49 am
I’m hungry
Philly Guy said
July 3, 2007 @ 10:08 am
I was originally in contact with Dr. Metz, because I live 2 blocks from his office. This is what he wanted to do for his study.
Dear Peter:
Sorry I took so long to get back with you but it took this long for the
major players in our division to all get together and discuss options.
We have a few questions and suggestions regarding studies in competitive
eaters to understand the physiology. After your and my discussion it
appears as if you would be willing to undergo non-invasive studies only.
We are wondering whether you and your other members would be willing to
have any or all of the following tests which will need to be done on
different days:
1) Upper GI Xray. Swallowing liquid barium and having Xrays (about 2
hrs)
2) Gastric emptying scan. Eating radioactive eggs and measuring emptying
times from the stomach (up to 4 hrs)
3) Waterload tests. Seeing how much water you can drink in 5 minutes
and/or drinking 100ml per minute until you feel full
4) Possibly MRI or PET scans
5) Blood tests at repeated intervals during a gastric emptying scan (one
indwelling catheter in a vein and multiple draws over the first 2 hours)
We would compare you guys with normals (although we may also try and get
some real dyspeptics for comparison as well). It will be important to
ensure the competitive eaters are all real so it would be great to get
the higher ranking members AND also to have documentation of a baseline
test which you guys believe is enough to qualify as a competitive eater
expert. This will need to clearly be more than the average guy can
manage.
We are interested in how people become competitive eaters to see if we
would need to do additional studies. For example, do you think it is
something that can be learned or is it an innate ability present from
childhood?
All this will depend on funding. So, please let me know how this flies
amongst your group and if you are still interested we will need to start
finding ways to get the money to do it. We can also set up a time to meet in
person if you like and I can have my colleague Jim Lewis join us too.
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you.
Dave Metz