Question: why do you feel sick

Ross King answered on 16 Nov 2015:

What an amazing question! I don’t do any work on this but the science behind it is really cool.

Basically, you can feel sick for a whole number of reasons. Often, it’s because there’s something inside the body that shouldn’t be there (bugs, viruses or chemicals) that will do us harm. There is a very small area in the brain that can ‘taste’ what chemicals or harmful things are in the blood. If it senses that there is something there that shouldn’t be, it sets off a chain reaction that tells our stomach and our oesophagus (the tube our food goes down) and our mouths to get ready to be sick. Then, it happens! Hopefully after this we have got rid of anything nasty that shouldn’t be there. It’s an amazing thing but I’m glad I’m not sick too often!