Your pooping habits tells you a lot about your health

How often do you poop?

It may not be a subject we like to talk about, but the number of times a day we go to the toilet is an indicator of our overall health and can even affect our wellbeing.

Researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology asked a group of healthy people about their toilet habits.  Bowel movements were categorised into four groups: constipation (one or two bowel movements a week); low-normal (between three and six bowel movements a week); high-normal (one to three bowel movements a day), and diarrhea.

Age, sex and BMI (body-mass index) had a big part in shaping our toilet habits.  Younger people, women and those with a lower BMI had less frequent bowel movements, and this can impact our overall health.  “If stools stick around too long in the gut, the ecosystem switches to fermentation of proteins, and this produces several toxins that can make their way into the bloodstream,” explained Johannes Johnson-Martiniz, one of the researchers.

Healthy gut bacteria thrive in the ‘Goldilocks’ poop zone of one to two bowel movements a day, and this can be achieved by eating a healthy diet, good hydration and regular exercise, the researchers say.

Those who were constipated or suffered diarrhea were more likely to have protein fermentation, and its byproducts can cause kidney damage.

Of the two extremes, chronic constipation is the worst.  It’s been linked to neuro-degenerative disorders and chronic kidney disease, the researchers say.

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