CURIOUS ABOUT COCKROACHES

Dear HIW,

Do cockroaches ever get indigestion? Stephen Conn

Although we don’t know the exact feelings of a cockroach to understand when their digestive system irritates them, there is a lot we can deduce from their anatomy. A cockroach digests food in a similar way to humans, as food is broken down by enzymes, but the shape and composition of their digestive tract is different to ours. We experience indigestion when the acid in our stomach irritates the lining of the stomach and throat. The fluid in a human stomach is acidic, with a ph between 1.5 and 3.5. Cockroaches, on the other hand, hold food in an area of their digestive system that has a ph level between 5.9 and 9.0. This covers the neutral area of the ph scale, between acidic and alkaline. As high acidity is crucial to the experience of indigestion, it’s unlikely that cockroaches will experience this same feeling.