In fact, by holding a fart in, there is a chance you may instead breathe it through your mouth instead.
While breaking wind may be the sort of thing you prefer to do without an audience, this isn’t always practical or possible. We’re not suggesting you make a point of letting rip during a job interview or your gran’s 90th birthday party, but holding a fart in could be doing you more harm than good.
According to Professor Clare Collins, a nutrition and dietetics expert at the University of Newcastle, holding in trapped wind may cause abdominal distension, “with some gas reabsorbed into the circulation and exhaled in your breath”.
Not only this, but you could end up with a condition called diverticulitis, which is where small pouches develop in the gut lining and become inflamed.
However, she did point out that more research was needed into this. What’s important to remember is that breaking wind is completely normal and natural. Our farts also come courtesy of different sources.
