Yes . Marc Levine , the chief of gastrointestinal radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania , has found that a free-enterprise eater ’s stomach work more like an expanding balloon than a squeezing sac .
For his study , Levine recruited a professional feeder , then ranked among the top 10 in the world , and a man who was 45 pound heavy and four inches taller . He pitted the two against each other in a hot - dog - eating contest and used fluoroscopy , a real - fourth dimension x - ray , to check the two men ’s stomach . Levine at once observe something unmatched . Even when empty , our breadbasket - our entire digestive piece of ground , in fact - pull in a wavelike muscular contraction predict peristalsis that helps move food through the body ( scientist also call this anal propagation ) .
The competitive eater displayed almost no vermiculation . The regular guy stopped eat after just seven dogs - his venter was full . The pro , however , was still going secure . After 10 minutes and 36 live dogs , Levine asked him to block up . The pro ’s venter had stretched to the point that it took up most of his upper abdomen , and still there was n’t much peristalsis .
By regularly forcing his trunk to consume past the point of comprehensiveness , Levine say , the pro ’s tum had adapted to expand . He never feel full , and by never feeling full his stomach showed very piffling muscle muscle contraction . Experts still do n’t understand this phenomenon .
icon : David Handschuh / NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
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