Hiccups Have a Curious Connection to Cancer

Colleen Kennedy, a retired medical assistant, was prepared for the annihilation of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for stage-three lung cancer. She hadn’t expected the hiccup fits that started about halfway through her first treatment round. They left her gasping for air and sent pain ricocheting through her already tender body.  At times, they triggered her gag reflex and made her throw up. After they subsided, she felt tired, sore, breathless—as if she’d just finished a tough workout. They were, Kennedy, now 54, told me, “nothing compared to what we would consider normal hiccups at all.” They lasted for nearly a year.

Hiccups are one of the most common bodily experiences that humans (and rats, squirrels, rabbits, cats, dogs, and horses) have; even fetuses get them. When we hiccup, the diaphragm involuntarily contracts and the vocal cords snap closed, producing the eponymous “hic” sound. These spasms usually of cancer patients deal with bouts of hiccups during their illness. For a smaller subset—about —those spells last for more than 48 hours.