A few months ago, I started burping. Not in a funny, show-off-for-the-kids way, but in a constant, uncomfortable, what-is-happening-to-my-body kind of way.
I started counting: 30, 40 times a day. And like any adult in 2026, I immediately turned to Google to ask whether that was a normal amount of belching.
From the obvious offenders (sparkling water and speed-eating) to more serious underlying conditions like ulcers, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) or, in rare cases, cancer, I spoke with gastroenterologists to break down when burping is harmless, and when it’s a signal that something else is going on.
What counts as ‘normal’ burping?
“Burping is normal,” Dr. Samantha Nazareth, a board-certified gastroenterologist and chief medical officer at metaME in New York, reassured me. “It’s air moving up from the food pipe (oesophagus) or the stomach.”
That said, “normal” isn’t exactly a fixed number. What feels like a lot to one person might barely register for someone else, and the...
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