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2012-02-06

The Purpose Of Hiccups I Have Worked Out

Still not clearly explained why we sometimes get hiccups and for what purpose:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/causes-of-hiccups.html

I suspect that the longitudinal and circular muscles that work inside our throat are to be blamed somehow. These muscles are responsible for swallowing the food in a regular order, so that the food will pass flawless further down with no blockade. If the food bits are to lumpy, there might be somewhat less smooth swallowing that occures, instead of the regular, smoother swallowing usually. The purpose is to protect us from swallowing too big bits of food, I guess.

If the bits of food are too voluminous, the order of contractions of the longitudinal and circular muscles no longer work in the usual way, but there might be some stages that are skipped to cause the swallowing to happen faster. A sort of intertwined muscle group appear and that group tries to get back to normal muscular use by loosen up through spasms just after a big mouthful is swallowed (but there is a fealing of some bits still are left in the throat).
The evolutionary benefit of faster swallowing sometimes by skipping stages is to better be ready for escape from danger caused by enemies or predators. Of course there might be some movements of the diaphragm at the same time (the old explanation with no mentioning of what purpose the hiccups has).

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