Women: The stinkier sex?

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Women: Silent but Deadly!

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uploaded by Barry ORegan

Opinion

Barry Artiste, Now Pubic Contributor

In the case of "Farty Pants" Women normally diet, eat healthier and eat more Fart producing vegatables and little fatty meats. The result in my Scientitian opinion, Women are definitely the stinkier sex. Women just hide it well, why else to they do bathroom runs every 5 minutes?

I feel men get more of the blame because let's face it, we go for quantity over quality and frequency.  To us, it's a game, no, more of an olympic sport boys and men, particularly Fathers enjoy playing with sons and on each other with resounding laughter, male bonding and comraderie.  A sport, unmatched when combined with a lighter and enough beer performed by most males the world over. Hence, Comraderie Women will never understand or want to..  

Never have I ever witnessed a woman try an impress a man on a first date by saying  "Hey, pull my finger"?

On the other hand, one of the Worlds greatest mysteries is why women take regular bathroom breaks, and always bring a friend with them?  My theory,  Women   "Lighters in Hand" practice in secret groups.  Why? Because that's a Mans domain, Women never cross, but may be curious as to why Men hold it with such reverence, normally reserved for Sports Idols !

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Last year, I was fortunate enough to co-host a live program with Kari Byron and Grant Imahara on the Discovery Channel's TV show MythBusters.

To illustrate how much fun she has at work, Byron screened a completed but never-aired segment addressing the burning question: Do pretty girls pass gas?

Although deemed too racy for family viewing, it's actually a pretty tame science experiment.

Men may have an undeserved rep as the stinkier sex, a new study suggests.

Men may have an undeserved rep as the stinkier sex, a new study suggests.

Outfitted with a special pair of knickers containing sound and hydrogen sulphide detectors, Byron went about her daily activities.

After more than six hours, Byron lets out a whopper that registers on both the instruments. (Now that you know the precise title, it won't be hard to find this gem on YouTube or similar sites.)

All of which begs the question: Do men fart more than women?

There's an answer to almost anything in the medical literature, and for this we turn to researchers at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minn., and their study, Factors Influencing Frequency of Flatus Emission by Healthy Subjects.

Authors J.K. Furne and M.D. Levitt got grants from both the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to do what may be the definitive study on farting.

And, no, they didn't fit their 25 healthy subjects with flatulence-measuring underwear. Instead, "subjects scrupulously recorded the time of each passage of flatus by making a check mark at the appropriate time on a 24-hour scale."

Here's what they found: On average, subjects passed gas about 10 times per day, though some were hitting the 20-plus mark.

"Gender, age and the ability of an individual's colonic flora to produce methane had no significant influence on flatus frequency," the researchers reported.

Diet was the key in farting frequency.

The researchers could virtually double the tooting rate by feeding subjects 10 grams per day of disaccharide lactulose, a non-absorbable sugar.

Which begs the question: If men don't fart more than women, why is this a men's health issue? Perhaps because we guys make it one.

Case in point: Women rarely announce their farts, and almost never light them on fire.

Passing gas is enough of an issue that the current Harvard Health Letter devotes an entire article to it. It's just bursting with good advice including slowing down your eating and quitting smoking -- both to take in less air. Beer, soda and, get this, sponge cake are also airy culprits.

The Harvard folks list "sulphur-rich foods like eggs, meat and cauliflower," as the smell makers. And, not surprisingly, beans, the so-called "musical fruit" made the list, too.

To silence the bean-induced reverberations, they suggest boiling the legumes briefly, letting them sit, then cooking normally.

They also discuss Beano, a food supplement with an enzyme that breaks down sugars the human gut can't handle. It may or may not help.

In extreme cases, there are medical treatments for excessive flatulence. These include probiotics which are dietary supplements that contain live bacteria or yeasts to tune up your intestinal flora. Antibiotics may also be warranted, in some cases.

Excessive flatulence can be a symptom of more serious conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome. So if it's bothering you, a visit to the doctor is in order.

In what must be a triumph of capitalist ingenuity, a Colorado-based company has invented underwear that smothers farts.

The manufacturer sells it for $25 a pair at under-tec.com.

The company resisted what must have been great temptation to call the product Fartypants.

Instead, it opted for the safer (and more boring) option and called its gas-eating undies Under-Ease protective underwear. The high-tech undies are made of wool felt, non-woven polypropylene and spun glass, with some activated carbon thrown in for good measure.

Tom Keenan, I.S.P., is an award-winning science writer, professional speaker and professor at the University of Calgary.

CanWest News Service

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