Turns out our mothers were right: why we should eat slowly and fully chew our food

In talking with gastroenterologist friends about being on call this holiday season, they humorously note the number of times they inevitably are called by the Emergency Room to see patients in whom food has become lodged in their esophagus.

Swallowing

In the normal act of eating, after chewing our food, a bolus is transferred from the back of our mouth to our pharynx and then to our esophagus. Once in our esophagus the food is pushed along to our stomach by peristalsis, organized contractions of the muscles of the esophagus. (a graphic illustration of the swallowing process, www.hopkins-gi.org/multimedia/database/intro_250_Swallow.swf)

Holiday hiccups

In our holiday zeal on seeing all the delicious, prepared goodies (after starving all day in anticipation), we inhale our holiday meals, but several unlucky individuals among us will get a large piece of food stuck in their esophagus (the size of the food bolus overwhelming the muscles of the esophagus) and be found by a gasroenterologist uncomfortable, lying on a stretcher in the ER in search of relief.

The remedy

The patients are brought to the Endoscopy Suite where the gastroenterologist passes a flexible tube with a camera at its end (an endoscope) through the mouth and down the esophagus to where the food is lodged. Once there, typically, the gastroenterologist simply pushes the food through the rest of the esophagus to the stomach where digestion will aid it's transit through the remainder of the digestive tract...

Not always a laughing matter

On a more serious note the procedure, an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), like any other procedure has its own risks, including the potential for rupture of the esophagus – a steep price to pay for time otherwise spent eating slowly and enjoying a meal.