How do you poo?

I know I know, not the most romantic thing to talk about on a Monday morning...
You may have noticed recently a lot of FB posts about it and probably dismissed them...

It is, however, a very serious matter that we need to address: how to poo!!

You may think - I don't need to know, I'm fairly regular!

But did you know that constipation is defined as experiencing at least 2 of the following symptoms over the preceding 3 months:

• Fewer than 3 bowel movements per week
• Straining
• Lumpy or hard stools
• Sensation of anorectal obstruction
• Sensation of incomplete defecation
• Manual maneuvering required to defecate

I'm 100% sure 100% of us have been constipated at some point in our lives. So no need to be shy about it... Constipation may be one symptom but it can have multiple causes; one might simply be the lack of fibres in one's diet (come over here if you'd like to know more about fibres and diet).

If you are also wondering what your poo is supposed to look like, don't worry, there is a chart for that (I know, right!!!)

Are you a Sausage type 3/4?

But how can I get a perfect 3, or even a 4?

And as a picture is worth a thousand words, here are four:

Picture 1: the puborectalis muscle (A)

E and F are your bottom, poo comes through B, C, and D. Why the hell is there an A there that just cuts the flow... Well I will let you guess why...

Picture 2: a garden hose

Remember using one of those, the frustration when it was all twisted...

Picture 3: the solution

By elevating your knees, the puborectalis muscle relaxes allowing for a no-need-to-strain poo to go through

Picture 4: A stool for perfect type 3/4 stools

A potty training essential for toddlers... and adults!

Have you seen similar topics on FB recently? Have you adopted the correct way to poo?

Let me know (or not) in the comments section

See you next Monday,
The garden hose and the potty training step are affiliate links - thank you

Irreversible impact of a low fibre diet on gut flora

Any diet and health book, blog, advice will tell us to increase our intake of fibres. Fibres are essential for a variety of reasons including helping digestion, regulating our metabolism (avoid obesity and diabetes), avoid cardiovascular issues (lowering cholesterol), etc.

But did you know there are two types of fibres? Solubles and insolubles?
Both types behave differently in the gut, but they all end up being munched by our lovely gut flora species.

Those insoluble fibres are essential food for our little bugs. Without them, they are not doing too well. As the diversity in species is key to a healthy you, starving some species off simply results in an unhappy and unhealthy gut. The consequences of which can range from allergies to cancer.

Unfortunately, a recent study on mice showed that by being on a low-fibre highly-processed Western diet, entire species of friendly gut bacteria are starved off and never fully recover - even once back on a healthy high fibre diet.*

What was more worrying though was that this newly balanced gut flora with unhealthy species of bugs was passed on to new generations of mice (mainly from mum to baby as he gets born), and this with even less chance of recovery through healthy eating: some species were in fact completely extinct by generation number four!

This finding, combined with knowing that our Western lifestyle habits such as C-sections, formula feeding, and the overuse of antibiotics results in a poor gut flora diversity, should help us make a definite move towards a healthy life if we don't wish to affect future generations.

Where can I find good fibres, I hear you say: wholemeal bread, nuts, seeds, skin of fruit (apple, grapes, tomato), prunes, dates, popcorn, brown rice, bell peppers, cabbage, onions, lettuce, beans, peas, potato skin, cucumber skin, courgette, cauliflower, celery, avocado, unripe banana.

How do you take your fibres? Do you eat your recommended 30g/day?

Feel free to share your stories in the comments section, I'd love to read them.

See you next Monday1

The study can be found here

Is calorie counting over?

We are not all equal when it comes to food. We’ve known this for a few years now, some people are just not equipped with the best genes. However, it seems that we may have missed a major player in the digestion equation, namely our microbiota.

Our gut microbiota have a formidable secondary role in extracting energy from food that ends up undigested in our gut.

Having passed through the small intestine, it is then our microbes’ turn to chew leftovers and extract as many calories as possible from them for their, as well as for our, benefit.

But, knowing that microbiota species identities are different from person to person, is extracting calories from food a unique and tailored process for each one of us?



Indeed, some of these micro-organisms are just better than others. Peter Turnbaugh was a PhD student when he conducted an experiment on mice that would change the way scientists think of calories-in/calories-out:

What he did was simple enough, he transferred the gut germs of obese mice into lean germ-free mice (let’s call them Batch O), he also transferred the gut germs of normal lean mice into lean germ-free mice (Batch L). He then fed Batch O and L with exactly the same food. Two weeks later, Batch O had gained a lot more weight than Batch L. Since he used recipient mice with no germs that could influence the results, the effect was directly linked to the germs from obese mice (see figure, excuse the mice's coat colours please).

Turnbaugh's experiment in 2006

Turnbaugh calculated that Batch O was getting 2% more calories from food because the germs from obese mice were better at extracting energy. For each 100 calories Batch L would get, Batch O would get 102 calories. Not much of a difference but think about it in the long-term: it all adds up!

Other experiments have been conducted in humans that reach the same conclusion:

It is our gut microbial content that determines how much energy we extract from food – Do you want to tweet this? 

This has some serious implications, imagine food labels for example: a 145 calories chocolate cookie may mean 148 for someone with an unfortunate set of gut bacteria super good at extracting energy.

This said, the set of microbiota that we are hosting is directly influenced by our day-to-day dietary habits. For example, someone who is not used to eating fats will not harbour the germs that are good at extracting energy from it, so the fat will go through undigested; whereas someone who’s used to a high fat diet, has the ‘right’ set of germs to deal with fat and get the most out of it.

Effectively, it means that the odd cookie won’t affect a no-cookie diet person the way it will affect a cookie lover who indulges frequently in cookie eating.

But this is only the first step, calories in. Calories out is the next step.  All that energy that has been kindly extracted by our microbiota needs to have a purpose: either it is used immediately, or it is stored away for later use.

But that is another story…

Are you a calorie counter? Will you change your attitude towards food labels?

I’d love to read your thoughts, feel free to leave me a comment, I’d love to read them.

The fascinating results from Peter Turnbaugh were published in the famous Nature paper in 2006 (yep, and we’re only catching up now!). Although it is unfairly hidden behind a pay wall, you can read its abstract here.