Why does your stomach growl?

The noises people call stomach growling are usually normal bowel sounds made as the gastrointestinal tract moves gas, fluid, and food. The stomach and intestines keep contracting whether you have eaten or not, and the rumbling can be easier to notice when there is less material in the tract to muffle it. The medical term for these rumbling sounds is borborygmi.

Your stomach is a small angry animal living inside your body, and it has decided to announce its feelings to everyone in the conference room. You have no control over when it speaks, and it always chooses the quietest moment possible to lodge its complaint.

Editorial cartoon of an embarrassed meeting participant whose stomach growls while three coworkers glance over in a quiet conference room.

The noise becomes interesting mainly when the room is quiet enough for everyone else to hear it. Because growling often happens around hunger, it is easy to assume an empty stomach is the whole mechanism even though normal gut movement continues all the time.

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