HICCUPS may be triggered by the beating of the heart. William Whitelaw and
his team at the University of Calgary in Canada studied 10 people suffering from
long-term hiccups. They found that although the hiccup rate varied from person
to person, hiccups almost always occurred at the point in the heartbeat that the
heart contracts (Journal of Applied Physiology, vol 88, p 2159).
Whitelaw suggests that the firing of nerves that sense a heartbeat, such as
receptors that measure blood pressure or stretch receptors in the heart, somehow
stimulates a “hiccup generator” in the brain, pushing it over a…
