Some people seem to be obsessed with the creation of the perfect poo. My brother even called me in to examine his works of art, a true bonding moment for young boys. Another friend described his perfect moment for us when he produced the cobra — one that coiled around and poked its head out of the bowl. There is something about “dropping the kids off at the pool” that makes us all smile. So, laugh if you must, but we’re sure you’ve wondered why some poos are floaters.
It is gas that makes poo float. Increased levels of air and gas make it less dense and therefore cause it to float.
It is very common to have people ask about the color of their stool to figure out how it relates to disease. There are definitely some color changes that can be cause for concern, but in general assessing stool color is no exact science.
Feces are mostly shades of brown or yellow because of the presence of an orange-yellow substance called bilirubin. Bilirubin combines with iron in the intestine to give the combo a beautiful brown color.
Poo does, however, have a rainbow of possibilities:
Black:
A black stool (melena) can mean that blood is coming from the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract, the esophagus, stomach, or first part of the small intestine. Other things that can cause black stool are black licorice, lead, iron pills, Pepto-Bismol, or blueberries.
Green:
Green, leafy vegetables contain chlorophyll, which can color the stool green. Green feces can also occur with diarrhea if bile passes through the intestine unchanged. In breast-fed babies, green stool is a normal occurrence, especially right after delivery.
Red:
Maroon stool or bright red blood in poo usually suggests that the blood is coming from the lower part of the GI tract. Hemorrhoids and diverticulitis are the most common causes of red blood in the stool. Beets and tomatoes can also make stools appear reddish.
Gray:
Diseases of the liver, pancreas, and gallbladder can cause pale or gray stool.
Yellow:
One condition that can cause yellow stool is a parasitic infection known as giardia. Giardia also causes significant diarrhea. Another cause of yellow poo is a condition known as Gilbert’s syndrome. This is a fairly common genetic disorder that causes an increase in your level of bilirubin. Gilbert’s syndrome is rarely dangerous.
Some people like to think of their lower gastrointestinal tract as a one-way street. One time during a rectal examination during a trauma, a frightened young man screamed out as the doctor was placing his finger in the man’s rectum, “Whoa, that’s an exit!”
Flatulence follows that same rule. Gas goes out or it simply goes away.
Seawater is more than three times as concentrated as blood. Humans shouldn’t drink salt water because it forces your body to deal with a solution that is more concentrated than its own fluids. In order to get rid of the excess salt, your body must excrete it through the kidneys as urine. The kidneys can only make urine that is less salty than salt water, so if you drink seawater, you’ll be peeing a lot and losing an excess of water. This would cause your body to become dehydrated, leaving an excess of sodium in your bloodstream. Water would then leave all your other cells to enter the bloodstream. This would cause the cells to shrink and malfunction. As a result, muscles would become weak and ache, the heart would beat irregularly, you would become confused, and ultimately you would die.
Drinking urine is probably safer than seawater, but the catch-22 is that if you don’t have any water to drink, you will become dehydrated and not produce any urine. The best bet is to not get shipwrecked and if you do, hope for rain.
By doing research we found reports of gonorrhea, toilet-seat dermatitis (infragluteal eczema), ascaris lumbricoides (roundworm), and enterobius vermicularis (pinworm). We know what you are thinking. After carefully washing our hands, we went back to our computers and came across more information.
Yes, occasionally you can catch something from a public toilet seat but this isn’t all that common. Work, on the other hand, may be worse for your health than toilet seats. A microbiologist at the University of Arizona, Charles Gerba, found that the typical office desk harbors around four hundred times more disease-causing bacteria than the average toilet seat. Here is the bacteria count:
telephone: 3,894 germs per square centimeter
keyboard: 511 germs per square centimeter
computer mouse: 260 germs per square centimeter
toilet seat: priceless
In our house, we call it the coffee alarm. Nothing is more reliable.
Coffee is definitely known to have a laxative effect. The caffeine in coffee speeds up every system in the body including the bowels. But when used excessively, caffeine can interfere with the bowels’ normal contractions and lead to constipation. Decaffeinated coffee does away with the caffeine but it still acts as a bowel irritant.
There is nothing better, for some, than the morning cup of joe and a cigarette, followed by the “morning constitutional.” Caffeinated drinks and nicotine have a laxative effect probably because they stimulate nerves that increase intestinal contraction, so if you had a block of cheese for dinner, this is a wonderful remedy.
If you want to have a cigarette and coffee for breakfast, make sure that you have a clean toilet nearby.
Sorry, pal, sometimes there just aren’t medical explanations for things. Nobody in medical school explained why you get the urge to urinate when you pour gas into the generator.
Going to bed at camp always felt like a risky time. The fear of having someone dip your hand in warm water and waking in a puddle was terrifying. There is no clear medical proof to this camp myth but there may be some science behind it. It is known that when someone has trouble urinating, a warm bath can sometimes make it easier to go, perhaps because of a reduction of pressure in the urethra with the increased body temperature during a bath. A study from Egypt called “Role of Warm Water Bath in Inducing Micturition in Postoperative Urinary Retention After Anorectal Operations” described this so-called thermo-sphincter reflex in 1993. We still don’t know if the hand dip works the same way, but it sure would be funny to picture an Egypitian in the laboratory sneaking up on sleeping volunteers to try to get them to wet their beds.