What Does Your Stool Size Say About Your Health

When we talk about stool one of two reactions always pop up either embarrassment or laughter despite the fact that our stool can be a huge indicator for our inner health, for example the nature of your stool can indicate whether or not your kidneys, bladder or liver are under any type of stress, whether you have infections or not, if you are suffering from any hormonal imbalances or hormonal shifts, it can even give a hint about your mental and emotional hint. Simply turning around and taking a look at the toilet after you finish your business can provide an informative perspective to your doctor.

In a study made in 1997 in University of Bristol published a study in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, a chart that ranks the stool on a scale of one to seven was made to determine the health of your digestive system based on factors like size, consistency and shape.

According to the study, stool that is long, soft and smooth is considered a sign for a healthy functioning digestive system while still with hard lumps is a sign for constipation and long transit time in the digestive system, still that is watery with undigested food parts is a sign of diarrhea and very short digestive transit time which could cause deficiencies in essential minerals or vitamins.

Now that we understand that a little look at your stool could be of importance to determine your health we can move on to one important aspect of you stool you need to check which is Size. The size of your stool was found to be strongly related to your risks of developing colon cancer, the larger the stool is the less chance you have for colon cancer and vise versa.

Small hard stools indicate a longer transit time for the food in your digestive tract meaning that your intestines have to work harder to eliminate waste, this was proven in studies that were made to compare the stool size between eight different countries were typically related to the diet you eat.

Foods that are rich in fibers allow your body to eliminate a larger amount of waste in a reasonable time while diets that are rich in meats and carbohydrates take longer to get eliminated from the body which significantly increase the risk of colon cancer.