What can be behind people’s poos

April 21, 2014  22:14

Tamara Duker Freuman, MS, RD, CDN,  is a NYC-based registered dietitian whose clinical practice specializes in digestive disorders, Celiac Disease, and food intolerances. On Health USNews.com she tells what dietary factors may be behind people's bathroom woes.

• Strangely-colored poos: Green or yellow poos generally hint at rapid transit, or poos passing abnormally fast through your intestines. Poo gets its typical brown color from bile, a greenish emulsifier that's secreted by your liver and gallbladder to aid in the digestion of fats. Bile needs to spend several hours in the colon to develop this color, which means that poos passing through too quickly may retain the greenish hue. Furthermore, if you've recently eaten green veggies—like spinach—that green poo may also result from chlorophyll, due to incomplete digestion from rapid transit. If you've eaten beets in the past few days, your normal brown poo may be tinted magenta from the beet pigments; totally normal and harmless. Other shades of red—or even blue—can result from food dyes. Black poos may often result from high intake of supplemental iron. However, if yours is black and you haven't used iron, it could suggest bleeding in the GI tract that's worth checking out.

• Undigested food particles in the poo: Fragments of fibrous foods, like corn kernels, tomato skins, quinoa grains, whole flaxseeds, raw leafy greens, or fruit seeds often show up recognizably intact in a poo. This is normal, and it shows that your high-fiber diet is doing its job of providing indigestible material to bulk up the poo and feed the beneficial bacteria that live in your colon. 

• Poos with a strange consistency: Loose, poorly-formed poos that resemble Shredded Wheat generally suggest rapid transit. In other words, the poo is moving too quickly through the colon to allow for the excess water to be re-absorbed by the body. One dietary strategy to correct this is to go easy on the raw veggies, and choose foods at each meal that will help slow down transit time while contributing to fecal bulk. The best foods for the job are those high in gummy, soluble fibers, like oats or oat bran, rice, barley, root vegetables (including carrots and potatoes), applesauce or peeled apples, banana and papaya. 

Poos that are visibly oily tend to hint at malabsorption—or, abnormally poor absorption, of fat—and this can have multiple underlying causes. Often, such oily poos will be unusually stinky as well. Dietary causes of this condition include consumption of a type of fish called escolar (often improperly labeled as "white tuna" on sushi menus) or oilfish (often mislabeled as "butterfish," or even cod!), or the fat replacer Olestra in a reduced-fat product. If diet is the cause, the problem should resolve itself once the offending ingredient leaves your system within a day or so. Otherwise, the cause may be medical, and you should consult a gastroenterologist.

 

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter


 
  • Video
 
 
  • Event calendar
 
 
  • Archive
 
  • Most read
 
  • Find us on Facebook
 
  • Poll
Are you aware that in 2027 medical insurance will become mandatory for all Armenian citizens?
I’m aware, and I'm in favor
I’m not aware, and I'm against
I'm aware, but I'm still undecided
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm in favor
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm against
It doesn't matter to me