Published Jun 05, 2026 | 10:54 AM ⚊ Updated Jun 05, 2026 | 10:54 AM
A person with his hands over his stomach. (iStock)
Synopsis: A large Australian study involving more than 6,400 people has found that most healthy adults pass gas between two and seven times a day, with an average of five episodes daily. Researchers also found flatulence peaks between 6 pm and 10 pm, providing one of the clearest benchmarks yet for normal digestive health.
Most people pass gas between two and seven times a day, and that range now has the weight of one of the largest real-world studies on flatulence ever conducted behind it.
A study published in JAMA Network Open, led by researchers at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), tracked flatulence habits of 6,416 adults across the country. Participants logged 360,192 episodes of passing gas in real time using a smartphone application called Chart Your Fart, built specifically for the study.
The mean was five episodes per day. The median sat lower, at 3.8. Nearly 80 percent of participants recorded between two and seven daily episodes, a range the researchers now propose as a benchmark for what constitutes normal in healthy adults.
“Our study provides a good indication of regular flatulence habits and a starting point for conversations about excess,” the authors wrote.
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For decades, nutrition textbooks have told clinicians and patients that passing gas five to 20 times a day falls within the normal range. That figure, however, rested on limited evidence. Few studies have directly measured how often healthy people actually pass gas in the course of their daily lives.
The CSIRO team set out to fill that gap. They recruited participants through a national communication campaign and asked them to log every episode as close to its occurrence as possible, over at least two weekdays and one weekend day. The app allowed real-time entry and let participants review only their own data, a design choice intended to reduce socially influenced reporting.
“Flatulence research has focused largely on disease and symptomology, yet intestinal gas is part of healthy digestion,” the authors noted. “The value of flatus as an indicator of digestive health has best utility when ‘excessive’ is clearly defined.”
The study ran from November 2024 to February 2025. Of the 19,004 individuals who gave consent, 6,416 met the inclusion criteria after screening.
The data turned up differences across both sex and age.
Men averaged 5.2 episodes per day against 4.8 among women. That gap held up as statistically significant. The authors acknowledged that self-reporting habits may partly explain the difference, since social norms around passing gas vary between men and women.
Age produced more variation. Participants between 14 and 25 years recorded the fewest daily episodes, reporting a mean of 4.4. Those between 26 and 45 years recorded the most, averaging 5.2 per day. Adults between 46 and 65 came in at 5.0, while those aged 66 and above averaged 4.8.
The researchers used Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric tests to assess differences between groups and applied Bonferroni-adjusted pairwise comparisons to identify where those differences lay. The youngest age group recorded fewer daily episodes than every other group, a finding that held up as statistically significant.
The study also mapped flatulence across the hours of the day. Episodes rose gradually from morning and reached a peak between 6 pm and 10 pm. That window aligned closely with periods of higher total energy and dietary fibre intake recorded in national population data.
The pattern reinforces what is already understood about how the gut works. Bacteria in the large intestine break down undigested food, particularly fibre, and produce gases including hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide as by-products. The more fibre consumed throughout the day, the more gas production builds toward the evening.
A notable dip appeared in flatulence recordings during the middle of the day, tracking the period when many people eat less or eat differently.
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The authors situated their findings within the limited body of existing work. A large American study tracking individuals who experienced gas or bloating, involving more than 16,000 people, produced retrospective frequency reports that broadly aligned with the CSIRO data.
A smaller laboratory study, which collected gas directly over 24 hours, recorded a median of eight emissions. Even Benjamin Franklin, the authors noted, once documented passing gas seven times a day in a personal account.
One outlier was a study using physical diaries with a sample of 25 participants, which recorded a mean of ten episodes per day over a week. The researchers suggested that differences in method and sample size likely account for the higher figure.
The team was transparent about what the study could not capture. Because participants self-reported through a mobile application, episodes during sleep almost certainly went unrecorded. The app also did not allow participants to log a day with zero flatulence, meaning null-flatulence days, which may occur, could not be distinguished from days when participants simply forgot to enter data. If such days existed but went uncaptured, the study’s figures may slightly overestimate typical frequency.
Selection bias also could not be ruled out. People who downloaded and used an app called Chart Your Fart may have a particular interest in gastrointestinal health or a willingness to engage with the subject, which may not reflect the broader population.
The researchers also acknowledged that the oldest age group was undersampled relative to their share of the Australian population.
Despite those limitations, the study delivers something the field has not previously had: A large-scale, real-time dataset on everyday flatulence in a general population.
For clinicians, it offers a more evidence-grounded reference point when assessing whether a patient’s gas production warrants investigation. For patients, it provides reassurance. A few daily episodes of passing gas reflect a digestive system that is doing its job, not one that is failing.
“High participation and sustained engagement also indicate flatulence is an area of interest in the population and warrants greater discussion,” the authors wrote.
The study recorded participants for a mean of ten days each, with some logging episodes for as long as 97 days, a depth of engagement the researchers described as evidence that people take the subject more seriously than public discourse might suggest.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
