Poop

Put simply, your poop is a window to your health—even if you don’t consider the view all that appealing - Markham Heid

Poop

image by: Becky Striepe

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You Asked: What Is My Poo Telling Me?

Some say you are what you eat. But really, you are what you poop. “Not only does stool tell you about the health of your diet, but it shows you how your body’s digestive system is handling the foods you eat,” says Dr. Anish Sheth, a Princeton-based gastroenterologist and author of What’s Your Poo Telling You?

From hemorrhoids to cancer, diseases grave and small often show up first in your feces, Sheth says. And in recent years, health experts have learned your excrement also contains a wealth of information about your microbiome, the world of microscopic organisms that live and support your body’s many internal systems.

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Featured

 Everybody poops. But here are 9 surprising facts about feces you may not know.

Poop is not just a laughing matter. The scientists and doctors who study feces have found that it's the byproduct of a diverse community of bacteria in your gut that impacts your health in all sorts of ways. Paying closer attention to your stool can tell you about the condition of these vital bacteria — and your overall health.

 Here's what your poo says about your health (and it's really quite fascinating)

Let's not beat around the bush here, folks. It's time to talk about poop so leave your prudishness at the door.

 You cannot escape poop bacteria

The fact remains, however, that poopy microorganisms are all around you all the time and there’s just not much you can do about that except to embrace them. They are the tiny pathogens that help bolster your immune system and create colonies of organisms that make your body the beautiful, diverse place that it is. Celebrate them! And wash your hands.

Articles of Interest

Going through the motions: the rise and rise of stool-gazing

Stool-gazing has history in the west, as well as India and China. It was only at the end of the middle ages that our current squeamishness started to develop, according to Prof David Inglis, author of the winningly named A Sociological History of Excretory Experience: Defacatory Manners and Toiletry Technology. Previously, he says, “human waste was all over the place – we were much more relaxed about it”.

What Should Baby Poop Look Like, Anyway?

A range of colors, textures, frequencies and volumes are considered normal. But there are some things to watch out for.

Ancient poop proves that humans have always loved beer and cheese

2,700 years ago, a human ate blue cheese, drank a pint, and pooped in a salt mine. Paleofecal samples live to tell the tale.

Artificial Intelligence Can Now Accurately Describe Your Poop

AI app now better at categorizing poop than humans are, scientists find.

California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’

Lawmakers ban plastic straws as a far worse kind of waste covers the streets of San Francisco and L.A.

Here’s Why ‘Period Poop’ Is the Worst and How to Deal With It

Certain aspects of having a period are talked about more frequently than others, like dealing with menstural cramps, sore boobs, and bloating. But there’s one common symptom that, for whatever reason, gets less buzz: period poop.

How do bowel movements work?

During a bowel movement, the indigestible parts of our food leave our body. Several parts of the end of the gastrointestinal tract control bowel movements: the rectum and anal canal, the sphincters (circular muscles), and hemorrhoids. These are embedded in the pelvic floor muscles.

People bank blood. Why not faeces?

Storing your stools when you are young may help you later in life.

The healthy poop chart: What your stool says about your health

Your poop can tell you if you’re eating enough fiber and drinking enough water, or if your digestive system is processing food too slowly or too quickly. Also, lasting changes in your bowel habits or the appearance of your poop can be a sign of a medical condition that requires treatment.

The Planet Has a Human Poop Problem

Our waste kills coastal marshes and fuels algal blooms. We need to harness it as a resource.

The Poop on Poop: Constipation in Kids

A lot of parents worry about their child’s bowel movements: Is it normal? Is it not normal? Is the stool too hard or too soft? How many days can a child go between bowel movements? Pediatrician Dr. Cindy Gellner tells you the difference between regular and irregular bowel movements in children—which is more common than you might think—and how to help your child avoid constipation.

The Poop Palette: What Do All of Those Colors Mean?

Imagine the shock a parent must feel when their child says his poop is pink! Surprisingly, it can be common. While normal stools are usually brown, green, or yellow, there are reports from around the world of oddly colored poops due to uniquely colored foods.

The Power Of Poop: A Whale Story

Smetacek proposed that because baleen whales prowl the seas consuming immense quantities of krill, they might, during digestion, concentrate their food into iron-rich deposits which, when the time comes, they eject back into the ocean. Nobody had looked closely at whale poop, but following Smetacek's article, marine biologist Stephen Nicol found, to quote him, "huge amounts of iron in whale poo."

The study of poop finally gets a name

Researchers have coined a new scientific term that means “excrement examined experimentally,” or, in simpler terms, the study of poop: in fimo.

To get by in a changing climate, plants need animal poop to carry them to safety

Poop – or more specifically the digestion time of animals – is crucial to the survival of plants around the globe, especially as the climate gets hotter. That's because many plants, rooted firmly in the ground, rely on animals to eat and spread their seeds to new locations through their excrement.

What Your Poop Says About Your Health

Let’s face it, talking about poop and anything having to do with your bowels can be slightly uncomfortable. To allay these concerns, just remember what the decades-old children's book tells us: Everyone poops.

Why Does My Poop Smell So Bad?

Experts explain the possible causes of next-level stench.

Why is my poop brown?

Once it exits the digestive system, poop is usually a shade of brown, regardless of the appearance of whatever you’ve had to eat and drink, because it contains a chemical your body makes. That chemical, stercobilin, is a product of the breakdown of hemoglobin – an iron-containing protein in red blood cells that allows oxygen to be transported around the body.

Your poo is (mostly) alive. Here’s what’s in it

If you’ve ever thought your poo is just a bunch of dead cells, think again. Most of it is alive, teeming with billions of microbes.

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