Disclosure: I’m doing research for a book I’m writing. I may also have other questions in the future.
Assume that a body has been modified so that it can no longer metabolize food or drinks (energy comes from elsewhere. Ok, it’s a vampire.) Given that digestion is no longer a factor, what length of time would you say it would take for the body to pass food along through the whole system to expel it (in more or less the same condition it went in)? Likewise something to drink. Also, would alcohol burn coming out, if it was still in its original form?
Sorry for the weird questions but you guys know all kinds of crazy things and if you don’t know them you seem to have a knack for finding out quickly. I don’t even know what to Google for to answer this kind of thing.
You think of some really weird shit. I do too, so I tried to do some back-of-the-envelope math. I found a cite that says that esophageal peristalsis (i.e. swallowing speed) moves at around 3 cm/sec, and we have around 30 feet of digestive tract. Assuming nothing slows down in the stomach or the other areas food will take 5 minutes for food to see the light of day if it doesn’t stop to be digested.
As for the booze booty burn, uhm… well let’s say I’ve done field experiments on it and yes it does burn. a lot.
Lemme guess–booze enema? I’m talking more about urethra burning… do you think it would be similar? I have no idea what kind of nerves are in the urethra or how burny alcohol would be. I know that some infections make peeing burn, so I know there are pain receptors in there…
Do you think something as mild as wine would burn?
I’d heard about a booze enema, but before I tried an entire shot through the exit hole, I decided to see if I’d get the alcohol burn. A quick swab with some vodka and a paper towel disabused me of the notion. My theory is any booze that burns on the way down your throat will also burn on the way out if it’s not processed first. I’m at work, so I can’t test the wine enema theory until [del]lunchtime[/del] I get home.
Liquid drink. GoLytely for your colonoscopy preparation passes through in “roughly” 5-6 minutes. That’s after your initial purge with the day-glo green stuff. I couldn’t be arsed to get off the john between glasses toward the end of the experience.
Well, since you’ve removed metabolism from the equation…I’m not sure which exit the alcohol would use! I suppose you can make it either one you like, since it’s your “science”.
But yeah, alcohol coming out or going in the urethra should sting too. It’s got nerve endings, and it’s a mucus membrane just like your mouth.
I think it would depend on the type of food – without digestion, I could see some getting ‘stuck’ and not passing at all. Most of the food we eat is converted by digestion into a semi-liquid porridge-like consistency as it moves through the GI tract. If there was no digestion to do this conversion, would some things we eat (like raw carrots, bites of steak, etc.) be able to pass all the way in their original form?
Kind of agreeing with t-bonham. I’d guess that passing through eaten foods would be really unpleasant, and your vampire would avoid eating solid foods except if he was trying really hard to fool somebody (IE to save his life, or something like that). If I was him, I’d stick to applesauce or pudding
Hmm, vampires have no metabolism, but they are affected by lack of oxygen? It’s a little hard to figure. If they aren’t just totally magical, maybe they have human cells that just won’t die, and don’t need to metabolize. But then their muscles have to work somehow, or all their movements are magical.
How about reversing metabolism for vampires? They can metabolize, but its bad for them. They don’t need oxygen at all, but forced into their blood stream, they have to metabolize it, and that would have the effect of oxygen deprivation on us mortals. For food, they would have to metabolize the food and it gives them the same discomfort and lack of energy that hunger would for the living. Anti-biotics would induce undead bacteria to grow, drinking water makes them thirsty, and so on.
I don’t have any explanation for drinking blood, but I always figured that had some transubstantiational reason to it in the first place.
It might also hurt your plot where oxygen deficiency is concerned. It’s kind of hard to force oxygen into someones blood stream, but maybe an oxygen mask would put them into a stupor.
If they don’t have proper digestion, and instead just “move” the food through the bowels, then in theory they would never pee. The bladder gets filled from the kidneys which take out the extra water, urea, salts, etc… from the blood, which got into the blood in the first place from the intestines. But if nothing is getting absorbed in the intestines, then there won’t be any extra fluid in the blood, so the kidneys would have nothing to do. I suppose on the rare occasion that they got an IV or large bolus of fluid the kidneys could take that out, but barring that, I don’t see why they’d ever make urine.
And I know they’re your vampires and can behave physiologically however you damn well please, but it does seem odd that all the organs seem to be “half-functioning,” for lack of a better term. I mean…the stomach and intestines still move food, but don’t absorb or digest it, the kidneys still remove excess water, but in theory the liver isn’t breaking down alcohol in the blood (which leads to the question of whether or not you’re allowing your vampires to get drunk…if there is no way for alcohol to go from intestine to blood, you’ve got a problem…maybe they can only get drunk from the aforementioned bolus method?)
I suppose they don’t get invited to the really good vampire parties.