Buckle up gang, it’s time to add a new step into your rectum-releasing-routine as a gut scientist has said that the appearance of your poo could give you a certain insight into your health.
Where once your toilet timetable was dump, wipe, flush and wash hands, now there’s another step involved before you push that button and wash your turds away.
Dr Will Bulsiewicz appeared on the Diary of a CEO podcast earlier this year to talk about the facts our faeces can provide.
Not to say that Gillian McKeith was onto something, but the gut scientist said that he could tell a lot about a person from what fell out of their backside, and explained to people what their poo was trying to tell them.
He spoke of the Bristol Stool Scale, a chart you’ve possibly seen at some point in your life, which runs through the different types of poo you’ll do in your lifetime.
This is the Bristol Stool Scale, which shows what your poo has to say about your health. (Dr Kenneth Heaton)
The doc explained that if you wanted to examine the contents of your toilet then the ideal number two to do was actually a ‘type four’, though three and five also had some merit to them as well.
However, if your s**t is coming out hard and lumpy that points towards you being constipated, according to the gut scientist, while if it was mushy or just coming out as liquid then it meant you had an inflamed gut and possibly diarrhoea.
Explaining that the average person drops bottom bombs ‘1.7 times a day’, Dr Bulsiewicz said that the type four was ‘the dream’.
“The Bristol four is the classic where I come walking out of the bathroom in slow motion and rock music is jamming, and doves are flying in slow motion,” he explained.
“And I’m just such a stud, so that’s after a Bristol four. My wife knows what happens when it’s come out looking like that.”
The doc brought in some visual aids to help you understand what you were looking at. Four is ideal, three and five are alright, the rest are a problem. (YouTube/DiaryOfACEO)
However, the gut scientist said that it was far more worrying if you were getting to either end of the scale, saying that the worst of constipation would develop poo ‘like a golf ball’ that you’d have trouble getting out of you.
Of course that’s evidence of constipation so you may be thinking ‘no s**t, Sherlock’, with particular emphasis on the first two words.
The doc also stressed that if you were seeing colours in your poo then you should probably ‘see someone’, particularly if you gazed into your toilet bowl and saw red.
He warned people ‘don’t assume’ they knew what the reason might be, and suggested they should seek medical help instead of attempting to self-diagnose.
As for what you can do to have healthier droppings, Dr Bulsiewicz said getting more fibre in your diet and ‘plant-based food intake’ was the way to work your poo towards that mythical four.
To have healthy poo you should have ‘legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables’, while he noted that the diets of people having type one and type seven were actually quite similar, and both lacked fibre.
Sarah Carter is a health and wellness expert residing in the UK. With a background in healthcare, she offers evidence-based advice on fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being, promoting healthier living for readers.
