OK, OK, I confess. I've got more natural gas than the kingdoms of Oman, Brunei, and Kuwait combined . . . although my supply, unfortunately for my partner, is in no danger of becoming a depleted world resource.

If you're like me, chronic indigestion is more than a passing discomfort. It means sitting in a somber corporate meeting or a hushed theater performance while your tortured bowels do a rowdy rendition of the New York Philharmonic tuning instruments before the concert. Looking around for the alleged perpetrator can temporarily throw off the sniff detectives, turning an embarrassing and sordid event into a thrilling whodunit. Ultimately, however, one's repeated presence at the scene of the crime begins to attract the undue attention of even the most distracted colleagues.

Would that indigestion was just a medley of raucous "bottom 40" tunes accompanied by a potent dose of anti-aromatherapy! But bad things come in threes, and with the noise and odor there can also be stomachaches and pains, heartburn, or the bloated, uncomfortable feeling of food staying in your stomach long past its scheduled departure date (either that or you swear someone's been surreptitiously slipping a bowling ball into your luncheon sandwiches).

Before you banish yourself to the Siberian wasteland or, worse, OD on Tums, it may be worth your while to learn about the ins and outs of intestinal gas.

From Whither, Willy Nilly Flowing

In ancient times, no one really understood where gas came from. Ancient Etruscans believed that individuals suffering from chronic indigestion had inadvertently swallowed a live frog, which occasionally jumped around the stomach, causing pain and indigestion. At night the frog often started on long croaking sessions. In fact, the Etruscan phrase for "excuse me" means, literally, "please forgive my exuberant, fun-loving frog." There was no known cure, except for swallowing a live bullsnake, which would then, in theory, eat the frog. Given a choice, most Estruscans opted for chronic indigestion.

Modern science has largely dispelled this ancient myth, however (which was quite easy to do, since I just made it up).

As usual, though, the truth is funkier than fiction. A modern gastroenterology textbook [1] reveals that at any given moment, the normal human intestine contains something less than 200 ml of gas. That's only about a half a can of soda, which really doesn't seem all that much, at least not for the person innocently toting around the bubbly. But not to worry. Mother Nature supplies more where that came from. Researchers observe that "the rate of excretion of gas per rectum is highly variable, ranging from 476 to 1,491 ml/day." That puts even the most conservative tooter among us at over a full can of soda per day - and others of us dangerously close to a daily sixpack. Moral of the story? Each of us breaks wind to the beat of a different tuba player.

The study also found that, in a single day, "the number of passages of gas per rectum averaged 13.6 +/- 6 (1 SD)." That's about one toot every two hours, if you're steady at the wheel. This rate, however, was determined using "a small group of male, young adult control subjects," and for the sake of scientific accuracy, one can only hope that they weren't all from the same college fraternity.

The researchers also cite a windbreaking study that shows - surprise, surprise, surprise - "a diet containing 51 percent of its calories as pork and beans increased flatus elimination from a basal level of 15 to 176 ml/hour." One may ponder which of these is more repelling (or propelling) - the reported tenfold increase in flatus excretion, the money spent on the study, or the thought of being forced to consume half of one's daily calories in the form of pork and beans!

Classifying Gases

Ordinary gas passed from the rectum is comprised mainly of five constituent gases, (N₂, O₂, CO₂, H₂, and CH₄), falling within the following ranges:

Two of these gases, hydrogen and methane, are combustible and potentially explosive. In fact, they can trigger what's known as a "colonic explosion" during severe intestinal trauma, which can be induced by certain surgical procedures.

Now you know why surgeons wear face masks.

What Caused the Big Bang

The intestinal gases described above come from three sources: air swallowing, diffusion from blood, or intraluminal production (made inside the gut). Air swallowing can increase the air in the stomach by a rate of 200 ml/min.

Luckily, most of us don't make a point of swallowing air in our spare time. Researchers observe that "virtually every patient who complains of excessive flatus is producing this gas (hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane) in the colon.

Periods of rapid flatus excretion (known informally as "flubbering" or "machine gunning") are associated with high hydrogen and carbon dioxide levels. "Flatus CO₂ concentrations can be as high as 50 to 60 percent, and such levels usually are associated with high concentrations of H₂. Because the only bowel source of H₂ is bacterial metabolism, it seems likely that flatus CO₂ is similarly derived from fermentation reactions."

Interestingly enough, newborn babies, despite looking like creepy little aliens, initially produce no hydrogen gas because their tiny little guts are completely free of bacteria. But they're soon corrupted by this bacteria-laden world and they start producing hydrogen gases in their intestine (and chanting Snoop Doggy Dog lyrics) within hours after being contaminated by H₂. But such production is detected within hours of bacterial contamination of the gut. Thus bacterial metabolism is the sole source of this gas in the gut.

So what does all this mean? It means that if you just can't stop tooting your own horn, there's a good chance that the bacteria in your gut are spewing out hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide gases like mad because a natural digestive process called fermentation is running a bit amok. Fermentation is an integral part of healthy digestion but, like everything else, balance is the key. Too much stewing in your own juices and you're more prone to jet propulsion.

Many times what's fermenting is a mess of complex carbohydrates that your body just cannot break down for absorption. So colonic bacteria, those gutsy little bastards, try to tackle the job, releasing mucho gasso in the process.

In fact, the next time you approach a stranger at a party, you might want to break the ice by noting that there are over 500 species of bacteria in your gut, and that your colon alone has between one million and one trillion microorganisms per milliliter of contents. That makes real estate prices for microbes in the GI tract very expensive. Besides malabsorption, flatulence can be caused by an imbalance between gas-producing and gas-consuming bacteria in the gastrointestine.

A Historic Moment in the Annals of Flatulence

Some are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them, and still others expel their greatness upon innocent bystanders. Consider the case of the 28-year-old man who averaged 34 gas passages per day, and a volume of 1,380 ml every four hours. No, this patient's name wasn't Van Camp. It turns out this unfortunate soul was severely deficient in lactase, an enzyme the body needs to digest the milk sugar lactose found in dairy products.

Researchers have discovered that consumption of lactose can increase the rate of hydrogen flatus by more than sevenfold in some individuals.

Pass the Digestive Juice, Please

Another source of indigestion (and God gave us many) are imbalances in levels of natural digestive juices. Chymotrypsin, which rhymes with "I'm a hip Finn," is one of those.

Your body is generally pretty smart, but it doesn't have a clue what to do with a Big Mac in all its full-splendored glory. Before anything can happen, the two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and sesame-seed bun must be carefully broken down into components your body can absorb. That's a complex, funky, multifactorial process that includes chewing, muscle contraction, bacterial consumption, and the carefully orchestrated release of stomach acids and digestive enzymes - but don't worry, we're not going there now.

The main point is that chronic imbalances of digestive enzymes and stomach acids can give you the feeling that the Big Mac is still sitting in your gut, in its original styrofoam container, long after the thrill is gone. Stomachaches, gas pains, and other sundry goodies may be waiting behind the corner to sabotage your dessert.

Unfortunately, the older we get, the lower our stomach acidity becomes. In fact, researchers have called low stomach acidity "the most striking change associated with aging" (and here I thought it was all the new hair follicles growing in my nostrils and ears). Without enough stomach acids to stimulate digestive enzymes, proteins in our food sit around in the colon like good-for-nothings.

Despite what actors in TV commercials imply, normally you do have more stomach acid as a young whippersnapper, but you also have a thicker gut lining that prevents the acid from leaking through, and more intact reflexes that prevent it from bursting up into your esophagus (acid reflux) like Old Faithful.

Popping a tummy tablet every time you feel a desire to eructate - while providing temporary relief - can trap you in a vicious paradox in which your gastronintestinal imbalances gradually become worse through suppressing your natural gastric acid secretions . . . making you lunge desperately for more dum-da-da-dum. Like many quick-fix solutions, it actually exacerbates the problem it's supposed to solve.

So what should you do? Just like grandma said, chew slowly. And ask to be excused.