Why does a corpse bloat

While the rate of human decomposition varies due to several factors, including weather, temperature, moisture, pH and oxygen levels, cause of death, and body position, all human bodies follow the same four stages of human decomposition. According to Dr. Arpad A. Vass, a Senior Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in Forensic Anthropology, human decomposition begins around four minutes after a person dies and follows four stages: autolysis, bloat, active decay, and skeletonization.

The first stage of human decomposition is called autolysis, or self-digestion, and begins immediately after death. As soon as blood circulation and respiration stop, the body has no way of getting oxygen or removing wastes. Excess carbon dioxide causes an acidic environment, causing membranes in cells to rupture. The membranes release enzymes that begin eating the cells from the inside out. Rigor mortis causes muscle stiffening.

Leaked enzymes from the first stage begin producing many gases. The sulfur-containing compounds that the bacteria release also cause skin discoloration. Due to the gases, the human body can double in size. In addition, insect activity can be present. The microorganisms and bacteria produce extremely unpleasant odors called putrefaction. These odors often alert others that a person has died, and can linger long after a body has been removed. Fluids released through orifices indicate the beginning of active decay.

Organs, muscles, and skin become liquefied. The cadaver loses the most mass during this stage. Stage Four: Skeletonization. Because the skeleton has a decomposition rate based on the loss of organic collagen and inorganic components , there is no set timeframe when skeletonization occurs. After a body is properly removed, a professional trauma and crime scene cleanup company should always be called to clean and disinfect the site.

And w hile an unattended death could lead to exposure to dangerous bloodborne pathogens, decomposition itself is a perfectly natural process.

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Decomposition : For a few days after death, some cells such as skin cells are still alive. Because of this, the live bacteria starts to break down and putrefy the body. Smell : The putrefying body gives off a sulphurous gas with a horrific smell, similar to rotten eggs.

Bloating : This gas also builds up inside the body, causing the corpse to expand, the eyes to be pushed out of their sockets and forces the tongue out of the mouth. The body then swells until it bursts open, leaving nothing but the skeleton behind. Poppy Logo. FB house promo. What happens to our bodies when we die? Colour : First the body turns green, then purple, and then eventually black.

A growing number of scientists view a rotting corpse as the cornerstone of a vast and complex ecosystem, which emerges soon after death and flourishes and evolves as decomposition proceeds. Decomposition begins several minutes after death with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion.

Soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen, and their acidity increases as the toxic by-products of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside them. Enzymes start to digest cell membranes and then leak out as the cells break down. This usually begins in the liver, which is rich in enzymes, and in the brain, which has high water content.

Eventually, though, all other tissues and organs begin to break down in this way. Damaged blood cells begin to spill out of broken vessels and, aided by gravity, settle in the capillaries and small veins, discolouring the skin.

Body temperature also begins to drop, until it has acclimatised to its surroundings. In life, muscle cells contract and relax due to the actions of two filamentous proteins actin and myosin , which slide along each other. After death, the cells are depleted of their energy source and the protein filaments become locked in place. This causes the muscles to become rigid and locks the joints. Credit: Science Photo Library.

During these early stages, the cadaveric ecosystem consists mostly of the bacteria that live in and on the living human body. By far the largest of these communities resides in the gut, which is home to trillions of bacteria of hundreds or perhaps thousands of different species.

But we still know little about these microbial passengers while we are alive. We know even less about what happens to them when we die. There are ethical issues [because] we need consent. Most internal organs are devoid of microbes when we are alive. Soon after death, however, the immune system stops working, leaving them to spread throughout the body freely. This usually begins in the gut, at the junction between the small and large intestines. Left unchecked, our gut bacteria begin to digest the intestines — and then the surrounding tissues — from the inside out, using the chemical cocktail that leaks out of damaged cells as a food source.

Then they invade the capillaries of the digestive system and lymph nodes, spreading first to the liver and spleen, then into the heart and brain. Bacteria convert the haemoglobin in blood into sulfhaemoglobin Credit: Science Photo Library.

Javan and her team took samples of liver, spleen, brain, heart and blood from 11 cadavers, at between 20 and hours after death. They used two different state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technologies, combined with bioinformatics, to analyse and compare the bacterial content of each sample. The samples taken from different organs in the same cadaver were very similar to each other but very different from those taken from the same organs in the other bodies. This may be due partly to differences in the composition of the microbiome of each cadaver, or it might be caused by differences in the time elapsed since death.

An earlier study of decomposing mice revealed that although the microbiome changes dramatically after death, it does so in a consistent and measurable way. The researchers were able to estimate time of death to within three days of a nearly two-month period. It showed that the bacteria reached the liver about 20 hours after death and that it took them at least 58 hours to spread to all the organs from which samples were taken.

Thus, after we die, our bacteria may spread through the body in a systematic way, and the timing with which they infiltrate first one internal organ and then another may provide a new way of estimating the amount of time that has elapsed since death. One thing that does seem clear, however, is that a different composition of bacteria is associated with different stages of decomposition. The microbiome of bacteria changes with each hour after death Credit: Getty Images.

Scattered among the pine trees in Huntsville, Texas, lie around half a dozen human cadavers in various stages of decay. The two most recently placed bodies are spread-eagled near the centre of the small enclosure with much of their loose, grey-blue mottled skin still intact, their ribcages and pelvic bones visible between slowly putrefying flesh. A few metres away lies another, fully skeletonised, with its black, hardened skin clinging to the bones, as if it were wearing a shiny latex suit and skullcap.

Further still, beyond other skeletal remains scattered by vultures, lies a third body within a wood and wire cage. It is nearing the end of the death cycle, partly mummified. Several large, brown mushrooms grow from where an abdomen once was. For most of us the sight of a rotting corpse is at best unsettling and at worst repulsive and frightening, the stuff of nightmares.