- People fart horn anywhere between two to seven times a day.
- Men logged about 5.2 farts per day, while women reported 4.8 daily episodes. While the reason for the difference was not explored, the researchers suggest it could because of food and less social stigma among guys.
- In the study, people between the ages of 14 to 25 passed gas less often than older groups. Farting frequency also peaked in the morning, after lunchtime, and near bedtime.
WHEN YOU’VE LET one rip yet again, you might start to wonder if your gas is normal. Well, there really wasn’t a way to see how your fart frequency compares to others—until now.
“There was no clear answer to the simple question of, ‘How much does the average person fart?’” says Emily Brindal, PhD, lead study author and team leader of Behavioral Science at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. “Thus began our inaugural project.”
Scientists in Australia wanted a numerical value of how often people fart. (Yes, really.) Their study in JAMA Network Open recruited 6,416 adults in Australia and had them record 360,192 “outputs” to try to determine how often people fart.
Participants logged gassy episodes “as close as possible to discharge” in an app called Chart Your Fart for at least two weekdays and one weekend day. Here’s what they found.
Who Farts More: Men or Women?
AFTER CRUNCHING THE data, the researchers found that most people fart between two to seven times a day. As a whole, men logged about 5.2 farts per day, while women reported 4.8 daily episodes. The youngest group—people aged 14 to 25—had less “daily releases” compared to the other groups. Farting frequency also peaked in the morning, after lunchtime, and near bedtime.
Knowing the farting status of a population might make for a (gross) fun fact at (certain) parties, but the data actually has some real-world health implications. Namely, why do men pass more gas than women?
So let’s clear the air. Because this study used self-reported data, it’s possible that men notice their farts more—or are more willing to own up to them. Or it could be the simple truth that men fart more than women.
“Men do eat more than women, so one would anticipate differences in production,” Brindal says. She also points out that farting is more than a bodily function. “It is also a behavior because it is something over which we hold conscious control—we control its propulsion or otherwise,” she says. “This means sociocultural standards factor in. In other words, the how, when, and where you go about it may be governed by cultural or social expectations.”
Ketan Thanki, MD, colorectal surgeon at the MemorialCare Todd Cancer Institute at Long Beach Medical Center, agrees. “Men face less social stigma around flatulence, especially in male social groups, and may be more likely to pass gas openly and frequently than suppress it,” he explains. “Women, meanwhile, are socialized to suppress or hide flatulence to avoid being perceived as unladylike, prompting them to intentionally pass gas quietly or hold it until a less visible moment when they let more out at once. “
Who Asked For This?
HONESTLY, DOCTORS FIND this information pretty helpful.
“The findings themselves aren’t particularly shocking and don’t go against what’s already known or assumed about flatulence, but confirming these ideas through a large study is useful,” says Aditya Sreenivasan, MD, gastroenterologist at Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital. “I will probably use it to give my patients who are concerned about their flatulence a benchmark for what is considered ‘normal.’”
Dr. Thanki calls the findings a “step up” from the usual method of asking people to try to remember how many times they farted in a day. “What this might actually be useful for is establishing a reference baseline for IBS or dietary intervention studies.”
Bloating and gas are some of the most commonly reported GI symptoms, Brindal points out. “But if we’re not talking about it or measuring it, how do we know what excessive looks like?” she says. “Normative data can be helpful to understand and classify extremes in terms of a population.”
What Farts Can Tell You About Your Health
THE FINDINGS PROVIDE a baseline for what farting frequency looks like on a population level. But Brindal says that doesn’t minimize what’s considered normal for you. So, if you tend to fart more or less often, that’s OK. (Here’s what would happen if you held in all your farts).
“Keeping regular track of your habits can also useful,” she says. “I had people who used the app reach out to me and say that tracking their patterns really helped them better understand some associations between foods and time of day and their habits.”
The context is what really matters, emphasizes Dr. Thanki. The concern starts to arise if you’re gassier than usual but also have other symptoms. These include unexplained weight loss, lack of appetite, rectal bleeding, waking from sleep with GI issues, or worsening abdominal pain. In these situations, Thanki recommends contacting a healthcare provider for an evaluation. “These are classic alarm features that should make you think of cancer or an intestinal blockage,” he says.
Smelly gas—along with diarrhea and bloating—could also suggest some underlying issue like Celiac disease, pancreatic insufficiency, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, Dr. Thanki adds.
Now if it’s just smelly because you indulged in an extra helping of beans, well go ahead and let it rip.
Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a master’s degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.
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