How Perfect Is Your Poop?

A new online tool helps analyze your stool using information you input about its shape, color, size and more. Once you learn if your stool needs improving, dietary changes are offered to improve your bowel health.



July 23, 2016 

Story at-a-glance

• The appearance and frequency of your stool gives you clues about how your gastrointestinal tract is functioning and can even signal serious disease processes that could be occurring
• StoolAnalyzer is an online tool to help you analyze your stool and make dietary changes to improve the health of your bowel movements
• Healthy stool should be torpedo shaped, soft and easy to pass, not hard, dry or overly loose

By Dr. Mercola

The size, shape and color of your bowel movements can tell you a lot about your health. This is why you should take a minute to observe what's in the toilet bowl before flushing it away.

The "perfect" stool should be shaped like a torpedo. It should be smooth, soft and easy to pass, as opposed to small and hard (pellet-like) or overly loose.

The appearance and frequency of your stool gives you clues about how your gastrointestinal tract is functioning and can even signal serious disease processes that could be occurring, like infections, digestive problems and even cancer.

Further, making dietary changes will often lead to significant changes in your stool, which you can use as a visual tool to monitor your underlying health.

Analyze Your Stool Online Using StoolAnalyzer

Because you're living in the 21st century, it's no longer necessary to make guestimates about what type of changes you should make to improve your health and, thereby, the condition of your stool. You can instead use an online tool called StoolAnalyzer to make these suggestions for you.1

As it says on StoolAnalyzer.com, "This program is designed to help you analyze your feces and change your diet so that you can achieve the 'perfect stool.'"2 The program takes just a few minutes to complete and includes visual images to help you analyze your poop, asking questions regarding your poop's:

• Shape
• Color
• Size
• Frequency
• Behavior (floating versus sinking)

You'll receive a score based on a 100-point scale (with 100 being a perfect score) along with dietary recommendations to improve the health of your stool.

This is not a substitute for an ongoing relationship with a holistic health care provider, but it can give you an idea of what's healthy and what's not when it comes to your stool.

The Bristol Stool Chart

Another handy tool for gauging the health of your digestive tract and stool is the Bristol Stool Chart. Like StoolAnalyzer, this chart takes into account shape and texture of your stool, as well as how difficult or easy it is to pass.

Normal stool is shown in types 3, 4 and 5, "like a sausage or a snake, smooth and soft" to "soft blobs that pass easily." Type 4, however, is ideal.3

Signs of Healthy Vs. Unhealthy Stool

The next time you have a bowel movement, compare what you see in the toilet with the information in the chart below. You should be able to accurately gauge whether your stool is healthy or unhealthy.

If yours is the latter, it's time to make some dietary changes and consult with a holistic health professional to figure out what's gone awry in your digestive tract.

Healthy Stool	Unhealthy Stool
Medium to light brown	Stool that is hard to pass, painful, or requires straining
Smooth and soft, formed into one long shape and not a bunch of pieces	Hard lumps and pieces, or mushy and watery, or even pasty and difficult to clean off
About 1 to 2 inches in diameter and up to 18 inches long	Narrow, pencil-like or ribbon-like stools: can indicate a bowel obstruction or tumor; narrow stools on an infrequent basis are not so concerning, but if they persist, definitely make a call to your physician
S-shaped, which comes from the shape of your lower intestine	Black, tarry stools or bright red stools may indicate bleeding in the GI tract; black stools can also come from certain medications, supplements or consuming black licorice. If you have black, tarry stools, it's best to be evaluated by your health care provider
Quiet and gentle dive into the water; it should fall into the bowl with the slightest little "whoosh" sound — not a loud, wet cannonball splash that leaves your toosh in need of a shower	White, pale or gray stools may indicate a lack of bile, which may suggest a serious problem (hepatitis, cirrhosis, pancreatic disorders, or possibly a blocked bile duct), so this warrants a call to your physician. Antacids may also produce white stool.
Natural smell, not repulsive (I'm not saying it will smell good)	Yellow stools may indicate giardia infection, a gallbladder problem, or a condition known as Gilbert's syndrome. If you see this, call your doctor.
Uniform texture	Presence of undigested food (more of a concern if accompanied by diarrhea, weight loss, or other changes in bowel habits)
Sinks slowly	Floaters or splashers
	Increased mucus in stool: This can be associated with inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn's disease, or ulcerative colitis, or even colon cancer, especially if accompanied by blood or abdominal pain
	Very bad odor: If your stool has an extraordinarily bad odor, it should not be ignored. I am referring to an odor above and beyond the normally objectionable stool odor. Stinky stool can be associated with a number of health problems, such as a malabsorptive disorder, Celiac disease, Crohn's disease and chronic pancreatitis.

How Often Should You Poop?

There is a wide variation in what's considered normal bowel-movement frequency. Specifically, three bowel movements per day to three per week may be normal for you, and the frequency may change from day to day or week to week. This is because many factors influence your bowel habits, including:

Diet	Travel
Medications	Hormonal fluctuations
Sleep patterns	Exercise

What's most important is to monitor how you feel and how easily your bowel movements occur. If you're not moving your bowels often enough, you may need to push or strain, and you may feel uncomfortably bloated or gassy. When you do go, the stool may be dry and hard or pellet-like, which are signs of constipation.

Straining is not normal during a bowel movement, nor is experiencing feelings of incomplete elimination, bloating, crampiness or sluggishness after going number two. If you're over the age of 65, your risk of becoming constipated increases significantly.

Chronic, untreated constipation can lead to fecal impaction, which can be a serious medical condition. Laxatives should be avoided at all cost and used only as a last resort, not only due to the potential side effects but also because your body may become dependent on them.

Laxatives may decrease your colon's ability to contract and can even eventually damage your large intestine's nerves, muscles, and other tissues. Fortunately, although constipation is very common, it is also usually temporary and relatively easy to resolve — without resorting to laxatives — by using the natural strategies at the end of this article.

You're Probably Missing Out on These Two Pooping Principles

If you're an adult, you may think you know all there is to know about moving your bowels. However, if you live in the developed world you may be missing out on a key strategy that could make pooping much easier: squatting.

Your body is designed to eliminate while squatting, while modern-day toilets put your body in an unnatural position. Sitting on a modern toilet is designed to place your knees at a 90-degree angle to your abdomen while squatting places your knees much closer to your torso.

This changes the spatial relationships of your intestinal organs and musculature, optimizing the forces involved in defecation. Squatting straightens your rectum, relaxes your puborectalis muscle and allows for complete emptying of your cecum and appendix without straining, which prevents fecal stagnation and the accumulation of toxins in your intestinal tract.

Non-westernized societies, in which people squat, do not have the high prevalence of bowel disease seen in developed nations; in some cultures with traditional lifestyles, these diseases are uncommon or almost unknown. Special toilets and stools that get your body into a more "squatty" position can help you get closer to the ideal even if you've been sitting for decades. What's the other pooping principle you may be missing out on?

A bidet! Bidets provide superior hygiene, are gentler on your skin and are better for the environment than toilet paper; with a bidet seat, you can even install one right on your existing toilet. Bidets are common in certain parts of Europe, South America, the Middle East and Japan; they haven't caught on widely in the U.S., but their use does appear to be increasing.4

Tips to Optimize Your Bowel Movements

The strategies that follow will help to optimize your digestive health, reverse and prevent constipation and support healthy bowel movements. They're safe for children and adults alike.

Remove all sources of gluten from your diet (the most common sources are wheat, barley, rye, spelt and other grains)	Eat a diet that includes whole foods, rich in fresh, organic vegetables and fruits that provide good nutrients and fiber; most of your fiber should come from vegetables, not from grains	Avoid artificial sweeteners, excess sugar (especially fructose), chemical additives, MSG, excessive amounts of caffeine and processed foods as they are all detrimental to your gastrointestinal (and immune) function
Boost your intestinal flora by adding naturally fermented foods into your diet, such as sauerkraut, pickles, and kefir (if you tolerate dairy); add a probiotic supplement if you suspect you're not getting enough beneficial bacteria from your diet alone	Increase your fiber intake; good options include psyllium and freshly ground organic flax seed (shoot for about 50 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories consumed daily)	Make sure you stay well hydrated with fresh, pure water
Get plenty of exercise daily	Avoid pharmaceutical drugs, such as painkillers like codeine or hydrocodone, which will slow your bowel function. Antidepressants, and antibiotics can also cause a variety of GI disruptions	Address emotional challenges with tools like the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
As mentioned, consider squatting instead of sitting to move your bowels, which has been scientifically shown to relieve constipation and hemorrhoids

[+] Sources and References

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/07/23/healthy-stool.aspx?

Do you ever cook food in tinfoil? There's an important reason you should stop

Scientists have issued a warning about cooking and storing food in aluminium foil for prolonged periods

• 14:40, 12 Jul 2016
• Updated 15:30, 18 Jul 2016
• By Nicola Oakley

If you're a dab hand in the kitchen - or even if you're not - the chances are you'll have wrapped something in tin foil before cooking it.

Whether it's to keep your Christmas turkey moist or making parcels to roast fish, tinfoil is handy to have around.

But scientists at a university in Egypt say that wrapping food in the foil to cook it is bad for us - and even storing cold food in foil could be harmful.

Ghada Bassioni, head of the chemistry department at Ain Shams University, revealed why it could be damaging our health in a piece for The Conversation .

She explained that pots and pans are also lined with aluminium but these tend to be 'oxidised' - i.e. they have a layer which prevents aluminium finding its way into our food.

Getty

Tin foil

Ghada writes : "While cooking your food in aluminium pots or pans isn’t a bad thing, placing it in foil and putting it in the oven is problematic.

"This is especially true with acidic or spicy food that’s prepared at high temperatures."

"Aluminium foil is disposable and you will not be able to create that inert layer prior to using it.

"My research found that the migration of aluminium into food during the cooking process of food wrapped in aluminium foil is above the permissible limit set by the World Health Organisation."

Our bodies can excrete aluminium efficiently, but only in small amounts.

The WHO lists 40mg per kilogram of body weight as a safe intake.

If you weigh about 9.5 stone (around 60kg) then your 'safe' intake would be 2400mg.

But given all the other ways aluminium can sneak into our diets (existing in small amounts in yellow cheese, salt, herbs, tea and spices as well as cooking utensils) it's best to avoid unnecessary risks.

What damage can it do?

Scientists are currently exploring the link between Alzheimer's patients and high levels of aluminium found in their brain tissue.

Other health studies have suggested high aluminium intake could reduce the growth of brain cells or be harmful to people with bone diseases.

The important reason you shouldn't cook food in tinfoil 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/you-ever-cook-food-tinfoil-8404617

Domini Kemp: Managing my diet helped me to take control of my cancer diagnosis

Domini Kemp describes how diet and exercise help empower her to manage her health after being diagnosed with breast cancer

Jun 24th 2016, 7:00 AM 

Domini Kemp

I FOUND A small lump in my breast.

I went to the GP and was sent to get the triple assessment done the following week. During this wait, our Mum unexpectedly passed away.

Then the results came back positive. I had breast cancer at 41 years of age.

Hearing it wasn’t the toughest part. It was seeing my husband, children, sister, friends and colleagues reacting to this news that tore me apart.

As only friends and loved ones can rally around you when the chips are down, a whole conveyor-belt thing fell into place – first with my mother’s funeral, then with the oncology team at St. Vincent’s and my treatment plan, and even work; thanks to my sister Peaches and the brilliant team there, that whole side of things just kept on trucking.

What to eat?

I’d always been into healthy food – or so I thought – but honestly I felt a bit lost when it came to the subject of what I should eat to support my system through chemo and radiation.

Unfortunately you find yourself staring into endless pages on the Internet: what to eat when you have breast cancer? Drink this! Smoke that! There was a never ending list of suggestions and hard to navigate information. Everywhere you looked, something else seemed to contradict what was said before.

Mutual friends suggested I meet Patricia Daly, the co-author of my book, and although I was initially a bit reluctant, her knowledge, her research and her clinical practice impressed me. I wanted an evidence-based approach that made sense, and that’s just what she gave me.

Finding a diet that worked

Patricia follows the ketogenic diet full-time, but my needs weren’t quite the same. Based on her advice and the latest evidence, I chose a simpler low-carb approach that also involved some moderate fasting and as much exercise as I could do. I upped my intake of plants in my diet, and cut down radically on carbs of all varieties, but especially processed carbs – and of course sugar.

Source: Joanna Alderson/Flickr Creative Commons

Treatment is tough – but I certainly feel that the regime I chose really helped me stay as well as possible through treatment and beyond. In fact, I still follow it now, but 80% of the time. I run food businesses, many of which sell an abundance of carbs. So I allow myself to eat a low carb diet 80-90% of the time and the rest of the time, I relax and enjoy all types of food.

Every patient is different

One thing became clear as we started writing this book: there is no one perfect diet for everyone.

Some recommendations and guidelines to healthy eating are stuck in the past and as new evidence emerges, the conversation needs to open up.

Patients need to feel hope and feel empowered. They should be able to contribute to their well-being through exercise and nutrition that suits them. Once you start conventional treatment, you realise it’s a train you need to stay on.

I found out things about diet and exercise by chance, through hours of research and then had the confidence to make changes based on Patricia’s recommendations. This forced me to really focus on keeping a healthy BMI, exercising as much as I could bear to – including during radiation – and eating food that helped support me during chemo and surgery.

For patients who are struggling to keep weight on during treatment, they clearly have different needs. Although it would not be safe for them to go on a low-carb or ketogenic diet, there are plenty of recipes in the ketogenic section that are incredibly energy dense, and full of good fats, but low in carbohydrates.

Coming to terms

Sometimes I look back and simply think of it as a bad year. More often, I look back and think how grateful I am to have had all the help and support that I did.

I remember my wonderful surgeon telling me that it was going to take a year from start to finish and that was when I burst into hot, frustrated tears. I was so reluctant to accept this notion and angry at the thought that this wretched disease was going to take a year put of my life. It seemed like forever.

But of course, it’s not and life tends to keep on trucking, with or without you. But that in itself became a challenge for me to get over (beat a year, beat a year).

You have to find whatever works for you. For me that was having some control about what I ate and how I exercised. It also meant that on my 2013 bucket list, I put down that I wanted to write a book with Patricia that was the exact type of book I wished I could have had, when I was diagnosed.

Domini Kemp’s lastest book, The Ketogenic Kitchen, is out now priced at €29.99

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/ketogenic-diet-exercise-helped-breast-cancer-2838784-Jun2016/