The amateur ran out of room before he ran out of time. After hot dog No. 7, he said that even one more bite might make him sick. At that point, fluoroscopy showed minimal stomach expansion. Janus was going strong, and not feeling full or uncomfortable, after 10 minutes and 36 hot dogs.
At that point, the researchers stopped the test because fluoroscopy showed his stomach had assumed such proportions they feared it might be dangerous.
In general, the stomach tells the brain when it's full and the brain later tells the stomach to squirt its contents into the small intestine. So theoretically, a competitive eater could eat a lot in little time if the stomach could hold all that food without feeling full or if it could keep filling up and emptying very quickly.
Fluoroscopy showed that neither man's stomach had emptied itself much during the test. Indeed, if anything, a preliminary test showed that the amateur's stomach emptied itself faster than Janus'.
Instead, the small study suggests that competitive eaters' stomachs may be much more accepting of food.
It's unclear whether nature, nurture or both determine how accommodating a person's stomach is. "It's partly an innate ability and partly learned," says study coauthor Dr. David Metz, a gastroenterology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He and his colleagues noted that Janus had trained for years, forcing himself to keep eating as his stomach asked him to stop.
Conti trains too -- and this year, he says, he and Janus have both hired a yoga instructor to teach poses and stretches for the stomach to help them achieve at the table. These include Ardha Matsyendrasana (seated spinal twist) and Nauli Kriya (churning of abdomen).
George Shea, chairman of Major League Eating, which oversees 80 competitive eating events a year, believes eaters are born. When he once tried to wolf down hot dogs, "I think I ate six," he says. "Most of our people do not train." Major League Eating is officially opposed to home training involving large quantities of food, advising that, for safety, speed-eating should be done when appropriate rules are observed and an emergency medical technician is on hand, and never by anyone younger than 18.
Mind-set is also crucial, Shea says. "Some people are gamers. When the pressure is on, they do better than other people." Indeed, Conti hopes his yoga lessons won't just make his stomach more flexible but will also make his mind more relaxed.
