What happens to your stomach in a hot dog eating contest?

Competitive eating champ Joey Chestnut gulps down dozens of blistery dogs each Fourth of July astatine the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest — and comes backmost bash it again twelvemonth aft year. But nary 1 truly knows what semipermanent impacts it mightiness person connected his assemblage oregon the bodies of different competitory eaters. 

Chestnut has eaten arsenic galore arsenic 83 blistery dogs and buns successful 10 minutes, surpassing the satellite grounds helium acceptable successful 2021 erstwhile helium ate 76 blistery dogs and buns. He downed 62 to triumph the Nathan's contention successful 2023 but did not vie successful 2024. Chestnut returned this twelvemonth and ate 70.5 blistery dogs and buns, taking the title erstwhile again. In the women's competition, defending champion Miki Sudo wolfed down 33 blistery dogs and buns this twelvemonth aft eating a record 51 dogs successful 2024. Contestants tin devour upwards of 22,000 calories successful a azygous repast portion competing.

Long-term consequences are not good known due to the fact that competitory eating is simply a comparatively caller athletics with a comparatively tiny fig of participants, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics spokesperson Debbie Petitpain said. 

But wellness experts accidental the signifier does rise immoderate imaginable wellness concerns.

The stomach, which usually contracts aft radical eat, could extremity up permanently stretched out, Dr. Rajeev Jain with Texas Digestive Disease Consultants said. It could besides interaction gastric emptying, the process by which nutrient moves from the tummy into the duodenum.

"Nobody is going to get funded for a randomized, controlled proceedings wherever you say, 'Hey, I'm going to quadruple your tummy size and spot what happens to you,' due to the fact that there's nary crushed to bash that benignant of happening from a aesculapian perspective," Jain said. 

Competitive eating champion Joey "Jaws" Chestnut wins the 2021 Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest with 76 blistery dogs, astatine Coney Island successful New York City, connected July 4, 2021. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Still, gastroenterologists person immoderate thought of what happens erstwhile a trained rival speed-eats dozens of blistery dogs. A 2007 University of Pennsylvania study published successful the American Journal of Roentgenology offers immoderate clues.  

What happens to the tummy of competitory eaters?

In the study, a power taxable and a competitory velocity eater — a 29-year-old antheral who was ranked successful the apical 10 worldwide — were asked to devour arsenic galore blistery dogs arsenic they could during a 12-minute period. While astir contests telephone for including the buns, the survey stuck to conscionable blistery dogs. Researchers studied the participants' stomachs beforehand and asked each antheral to ingest an effervescent cause and high-density barium earlier eating the blistery dogs truthful they could ticker the nutrient arsenic it moved done the participants' bodies. 

Based connected fluoroscopy scans during the study, the researchers recovered the competitory eater's tummy was susceptible of expanding to accommodate importantly much food. 

The power taxable ate 7 blistery dogs earlier helium felt sick and needed to stop. At the 10-minute mark, the competitory velocity eater had ingested 36 blistery dogs; researchers asked him to halt due to the fact that they were disquieted for him.

"His tummy present appeared arsenic a massively distended, food-filled sac occupying astir of the precocious abdomen, with small oregon nary gastric peristalsis and emptying of a tiny magnitude of barium into the duodenum," the researchers wrote. 

At the end, they said his abdomen protruded "enough to make the chiseled content of a processing intrauterine pregnancy."

Dr. David Metz, who was 1 of the authors of the survey and has worked arsenic a prof of medicine astatine the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, said velocity eaters person the quality to unbend their stomachs truthful they tin ingest much food. 

The average, bare tummy is astir the size of a fist oregon a fist and a half, helium said. It's made of 2 parts: a receptacle connected apical and a grinder, of sorts, connected the bottom. The tummy muscles volition agelong to accommodate nutrient arsenic radical eat, but each musculus "has its constituent astatine which there's nary return."

"You could perchance extremity up with a large container that doesn't declaration properly," Metz said.

The survey noted that competitory eaters person reported utilizing "varying methods of training" to effort to grow their tummy capacity, including ingesting "vast amounts of cabbage" oregon "water loading," which tin beryllium hazardous.

In the contiguous aftermath of eating contests, participants study feeling highly bloated and tired. They besides study gastrointestinal distress successful the time oregon 2 aft a competition. 

Other broadside effects of competitory eating

Competitive eating impacts much than conscionable the stomach. Participants tin go sweaty, lightheaded and faint successful the aftermath, experts said. Some velocity eaters person noted symptom successful their face, jaw and cervix afterwards due to the fact that of the magnitude of chewing and swallowing involved. 

"Some athletes person reported arthritis successful the jaw, excruciating symptom successful that area," Petitpain said.

It's not conscionable the ample quantity of nutrient that's a problem. It's besides the benignant of food. Hot dogs are precocious successful sodium. According to the nutritional accusation connected Nathan's website, 1 of its Original Coney Island earthy casing beef blistery dogs contains 170 calories, 16 grams of abdominous (including 6 grams of saturated fat), and 480 milligrams of sodium. Other varieties are higher. The USDA's 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines urge that Americans devour little than 2,300 milligrams of sodium each day. It would instrumentality less than 5 blistery dogs to spell implicit the regular limit. 

"If they're absorbing excessively overmuch sodium, their thirst mechanics is going to footwear successful and they're going to portion a batch of h2o afterwards," Jain said. "My interest is, if your tummy is truthful afloat of food, however are you going to get the different compensatory liquids in?"

Hot dogs astir to beryllium eaten astatine the 2004 contest. Bill Tompkins / Getty Images

High-sodium diets are associated with an accrued hazard of developing high humor pressure, which is a major cause of some changeable and bosom disease.

Ingesting excessive sodium tin interaction kidney function. The spike successful sodium tin besides origin humor unit to soar, putting unit connected humor vessels successful the body, Petitpain said.

"If there's a anemic spot successful those humor vessels that gets stressed, that could origin a bosom attack," Petitpain said. "Or if determination is simply a bursting of the vessels successful the brain, a stroke."

The precocious level of abdominous ingested could origin nausea, diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress, Petitpain said.

During the yearly contest, the competitors besides devour the buns, which means a batch of carbs. 

"This ample load of protein, of carbohydrates, of starches, each these things, they're present going to beryllium dumped into the tiny intestine. And portion this is going on, your assemblage has to crank up its insulin," Jain said. 

But each told, if the competitory eater goes backmost to a mean fare erstwhile a contention is over, their assemblage should modulate backmost to normal. 

"Your assemblage is simply a precise adaptive organism," Metz said. "The kidneys flush retired the excess sodium and different micronutrients."

There are inactive dangers, though. Beyond the contiguous tummy pains competitors mightiness feel, determination are overmuch worse possibilities. Competitors who vomit hazard aspirating oregon tearing the lining of their esophagus, Metz said.

People person died during eating competitions. In 2017, a 20-year-old college pupil died aft choking during a pancake-eating contest. That aforesaid year, a 42-year-old antheral asphyxiated during a donut-eating contest. 

"There's a batch of information progressive and galore of america person been precise acrophobic astir this," Metz said. 

Major League Eating, the enactment that oversees nonrecreational competitions, does person safety teams connected manus astatine events, and says it "strongly opposes and discourages location grooming of immoderate kind." In a 2023 connection to CBS News, Major League Eating said that it adheres to "strict safety protocols," including having an exigency aesculapian technician contiguous astatine events and ensuring participants are 18 years of property oregon older.