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Is there any relation between age and the frequency of flatus? I often have this feeling that older people f*** more often than younger ones. Is this feeling scientifically correct?

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Hi :) Medical questions here should be explaining how a treatment works rather than what it would be so I removed your last point :) –  Rory M Mar 16 '12 at 9:12

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up vote 4 down vote accepted

I do not have access to journals, but there is this paper claiming in its abstract that age DOES NOT play a role in flatus frequency.

Reference: Furne JK, Levitt MD. 1996. Factors influencing frequency of flatus emission by healthy subjects. Digestive diseases and sciences 41: 1631–5.

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Could be that age has an effect. As humans age three important factors, with respect to this question, change:

  1. Diet.

  2. Immune system flexibility and its response to even minor disturbances and infections.

  3. Gut microbiota composition.

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This seems to be going on the right track. Could you expand and maybe reference some studies? For instance, how does the gut microbial composition change (and same for the diet)? –  nico Mar 16 '12 at 17:19
I really can't take the time to reference any studies because these are easily found by searching the proper repositories. I have to spend my efforts analyzing our microbiome data to see how that is affected by diet - some very interesting results need to be published. Knowing what to look for should be enough assistance to Shyam to succeed in this quest. –  Larry_Parnell Mar 16 '12 at 21:26
Thanks @Larry_Parnell. I have posted an answer with a link to a paper on this. –  Bravo Mar 17 '12 at 7:05
@Larry_Parnell: no problems if you do not have time to reference it (I absolutely understand), but then this should be a comment rather than an answer. –  nico Mar 17 '12 at 7:55
Agree this is really a comment. –  Richard Smith-Unna Aug 29 '12 at 15:03

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