Do you sometimes wonder about the nature of your excretions?
When feces float to the top, gas-forming bacteria are to blame, US researchers say.
What we eat and drink determines the composition of our feces and urine.
But many metabolic processes in the body also influence the consistency and color of our excretions.
Sometimes hard and dark, sometimes thin and light brown: stool can take many different forms.
Regular, pain-free bowel movements that are “soft” are considered the healthiest, says Professor Heiner Wedemeyer, Director of the Gastroenterology Clinic at Hannover Medical School.
"Healthy stool is brown," he explains in an interview with the German press agency dpa.
According to Wedemeyer, very light to white color, watery stool or breaks lasting longer than three days between the “big” business should lead to a doctor.
"Floating" feces can also be a sign that something is wrong in the body.
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Doctors can use fecal and urine samples to deduce a number of things about a patient's health.
© Michael Bihlmayer/Imago
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Intestinal flora makes “the stool swim”
In a study published on the Nature
portal in October 2022, American researchers
investigated why feces sometimes float.
In animal experiments with mice, the research team led by Nagarajan Kannan from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (Minnesota) was able to show that the intestinal flora has a significant influence.
The conclusion after analyzing the collected data: The gas from intestinal microbes (total of all microorganisms such as bacteria in the intestine) makes "the chair swim", quotes the knowledge portal
spectrum
Study Director Kannan.
survey on the topic
Analysis of the buoyant mouse feces showed that they contained several gas-producing bacteria.
According to the study, these lead to increased methane production in humans and thus often to flatulence.
The droppings of mice with germ-free intestinal flora went under in the water in the experiment.
Whether and what effects the findings from the study could have on human health was not examined as part of the study.
Yoghurt, oatmeal, broccoli, cauliflower: Many home remedies help against constipation
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Floating stool as a sign of illness?
According to the researchers, stool floating at the top allows conclusions to be drawn about the composition of the intestinal flora of a living being.
Whether the fact that stool floats up the toilet can indicate illness still needs to be scientifically examined.
However, there is evidence that floating stool can be a sign of malabsorption syndrome.
This is the generic term for diseases in which the nutrients from food cannot be properly absorbed in the small intestine.
As the specialist portal
MSD Manuals
informs, stool floating at the top, which is difficult to wash away, and very sticky faeces speak for such a malabsorption disorder.
The reason for this could be a disturbed absorption of fats in the digestive tract, which means that the stool contains an excessive amount of fat, according to the
MSD Manuals
information.
List of rubrics: © Michael Bihlmayer/Imago