Observe your stool, determine your health
This is a flavorful article, please pinch your nose!
There is a saying that:
“Whether your stomach is good or not depends on your stool.”
Defecation is a daily activity in our life. Many people flush away directly after going to the toilet without looking of their stool. But in fact, by observing the shape, color, smell and other characteristics of the stool, you can judge your health status.
Let us learn together today whether there is any problem with our gastrointestinal tract.
How about normal human stool look like?
First of all, we must understand what kind of stool is normal.
1. Shape:
Normal stool is mostly strip-shaped and soft, commonly known as “banana stool”, which can float on the water, does not stick to the toilet bowl and is flushed with water.
Stool that is mushy and not dry or lumpy also known as normal.
When the food is high in protein, the stool will be hard and clay-like; when the food is high in carbohydrates, the stool will be soft or mushy.
2. Color:
Normal stool appears light yellow or brownish-yellow, which is the normal excretion of bilirubin in bile.
3. Smell:
Although the smell of stool is difficult to describe, but the healthy stool should be slight odor but not too foul-smelling. Due to the skatole produced by bacterial decomposition cause our stool has a slight smell. People who eaten meat more will have a stronger smell of stool while vegetarians will have a lighter smell of stool.
4. Quantity:
The amount of defecation can be changed due to food intake and type of food taken. If intaking more dietary fiber, the amount of defecation will increase.
5. Frequency and habits:
Defecation once a day in the morning is the best. The frequency and habits of defecation vary from person to person.
Generally, as long as there is no difficulty in defecation or other discomforts, defecation once every 1-2 days is not considered constipation; and defecation not more than 3 times a day is not considered diarrhea.
6. Feeling of defecation:
It can be discharged naturally and smoothly within 1-2 minutes, and the entire time does not exceed 5 minutes. You feel relaxed after defecation means there is no residual stool and called as a “smooth defecation”.
Shape of human stool
In fact, human stool probably has the following forms. Most people’s stool within the range from 2nd to 6th.
What should a “perfect human stool” look like?
The most ideal shape of stool should be the fourth type of “banana stool”, which is brown in color. The shape must be round and long, and the surface should be smooth. But in fact, many people cannot poop so perfectly every time, so as long as it is within the range of the 3rd to 5th form are consider as a normal and healthy stool!
If type 7 loose stool occurs, it means diarrhea! This is usually caused by gastroenteritis. Severe diarrhea may also cause electrolyte imbalance and may be life-threatening!
If type 6 porridge-like stool, it may be caused by indigestion.
If it is the 1st or 2nd hard lumps or sausage-shape with lumpy type, it may be caused by constipation.
Colour of human stool
1. Green
If you do not eat a lot of green vegetables but have green, watery or mushy stools with a sour smell, you may be suffering from indigestion, intestinal dysfunction and other diseases.If the green stool is mixed with a large amount of mucus, it may be acute gastroenteritis.
2. Yellow
If your poop looked like corn yellow and smelly, it’s because you’ve eaten too many yellow or fatty foods. If the edible oil is not fully absorbed, it will look yellow. It can also be found in newborn poop. If the pancreas is not functioning properly, such as chronic pancreatitis (long-term inflammation and destruction of the pancreas) or celiac disease, the stool may appear dark yellow or golden.
It is recommended to drink more water, eat more light food and vegetables. If you still have this kind of high-fat stool after recuperating for a period of time, it may be malabsorption and you need to go to the hospital for treatment!
3. Red
If your stool is red in color, don’t worry too much and recall back whether you have eaten red color of food. For example: when you eaten a lot of watermelon, tomatoes, and red peppers, your stool will be look like light pink; when you eaten red dragon fruit and red amaranth or Chinse Spinach (Amaranthus cruentus), your stool will be dark red.
If there is blood in your stool, you can wipe your buttock. If there is fresh blood, it is most likely caused by hemorrhoids or anal fissure!
If the blood and stool merge together, it may be ulcerative gastroenteritis or some intestinal diseases. This is because intestines are very close to the anus, the blood has not completely dry or coagulate.
It is recommended to go to the hospital for specific examination and treatment.
4. Black
If your stool is black, dark brown, or dark red, recall back whether you have eaten foods containing iron recently, such as eating too many blackberries, mulberries, pig blood, pig liver, duck blood and iron-containing health products or medicines. These conditions can cause your stool appear black in color.
If the above conditions are excluded, you need to pay attention!
It is likely to be one of the characteristics of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Peptic tract ulcers, esophageal cancer, and gastric cancer are also common causes. When there is a small amount of bleeding in the lower gastrointestinal tract, black stool may also be passed. Because the time interval between gastrointestinal bleeding and defecate is relatively long, the blood has integrated with the stool, so the stool passed out looks like black in color.
5. White
If your stool that comes out is grayish white and similar to cement, this situation considered more serious!
It may be due to the body’s bile duct is blocked, preventing bilirubin excreted with the stool, or it may be cirrhosis of liver, gallstones, cholangiocarcinoma and liver cancer.
It is recommended to go to the hospital for examination!
No matter what the situation is, if the color of the stool is abnormal and the color remains the same after excluding the daily diet and observing a period, you need to go to the hospital for examination as soon as possible!
Unusual smell of human stool
1. Stool has a pungent sour or burning smell
May be caused by indigestion.
2. Stool smells fishy
May be caused by gastrointestinal bleeding.
Summary:
In this era of information explosion, we tend to ignore the smallest health signals around us. Defecation actually contains a lot of health information for us to take care of ourselves. By observing and improving the quality of stool, we can find out our health problems in time and improved our quality of life.
**Remember! ! ! Don’t rush to flush your stool away after using the toilet. Take some time to look whether your stool is healthy or not.
Care for your health by paying attention to your stool!
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简体中文 (Chinese (Simplified)) 
Melayu (Malay)
