• Question: Why can laughing too hard lead to cardiac arrests? Would it happen if you were breathing helium?

    Asked by anawesomepersonlol to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 25 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Kate Husband

      Kate Husband answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      I’m no medical expert but according to wikipedia this can actually happen! As to why I’m not sure but I doubt breathing helium would have much difference apart from reducing the amount of oxygen entering your body. Perhaps ask this question in the cells or blood zone – they might be able to give you a better answer.

    • Photo: Robert Woolfson

      Robert Woolfson answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      So it turns out that if you breath in helium and it’s absorbed into your blood in the wrong way it can form a bubble in your blood. This is called an embolism. If this hits your heart then it causes the heart to effectively misfire and gives you a heart attack.

      The other risk is if you inhale too much too fast you remove all the oxygen from your lungs and replace it with helium. So you temporarily suffocate yourself.

      However, all these effects are temporary and wear off relatively fast. About 24 hours to recover from the heart attack and a few minutes for the suffocation.

    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Breathing helium makes your voice higher because the speed of sound in helium is a little different from that in normal air, so it changes the frequency your vocal chords vibrate. But yeah, breathing too much helium can be dangerous. A small amount is fine, though.

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      Laughing can raise our blood pressure and this puts a strain on our heart. If we have a little blockage in our heart anyway this raise in pressure and strain can lead to a heart attack (or really it’s an angina attack). Not sure what breathing helium would do – but done correctly and safely it is pretty funny – so maybe that’s what causes the laughing in the first place?!

    • Photo: Claire Lee

      Claire Lee answered on 28 Jun 2013:

      Also, if you watch Mary Poppins, laughing too much can cause you to fly too 🙂

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