can eating too much make your stomach burst?

i came across an article with the question, can eating too much make your stomach burst?

this is an interesting question because the holiday season is just around the corner and school's already out for most of our youngsters and for them, it's a very long stretch of holidays till the start of the new year.

with shopping and dining being the most favourite of activities here in our tiny red dot nation, i thought this article may be of interest to everyone.

and do u wish to hazard a guess as to the answer to the question?

the aweful truth and answer is yes, u can rupture your stomach if u eat too much.

on this, i believe u must have heard someone saying or even yourself say, "i ate so much, i feel my stomach is about to burst."

my comments:

amongst those with higher risk are anorexics and bulimics. in rare cases, the person can eat so much during a binge that the stomach bursts and or the esophagus tears and if this happnes, can be life threatening.

ditto for individuals with prader-willi syndrome, which is a congenital disease characterised by a kind of disorderly eating and an intense craving for food where there have been reported cases of spontaneous stomach rupture.

there have also been well documented cases of people who literally ate themselves to death, although these are extremely rare.

the stomach can actually hold approximately one or one and a half liters and pathologists' reports seem to suggest the stomach is able to do ok to handling up to about three liters but most cases of rupture seem to occur when a person has attempted to stuff their stomach with about five liters of food or fluid.

and thank God, the body's natural response to over-eating is to vommit or throw-up. but in some people, their bodies' reflexes have been ignored or abused for so long that they no longer vomit at the appropriate time.

when this happens, the increasing volume of stuff in the gut extends pressure on the stomach's walls causing the tissue to weaken and tear which in turn sends the contents of the stomach into the body resulting in infection and pain. at this point, the person needs surgical intervention to repair the stomach and save that person's life.

on over-eating, our former pm and mm, mr lee kuan yew dishes out pretty good advice because he eats only up to being 80% full which will never put him in a position of overstuffing himself.

so during this holiday season which will probably stretch to the lunar new year holidays next year, just another reminder that life is ever so fragile and death may occur from over-eating.

therefore, before your next 'buffet' or foodie adventure, now is as good a time as any to review your wealth protection portfolio because nobody knows what tomorrow may bring,