The number of bowel movements you have per day can be an important indicator of your health.
The frequency of a person’s bowel movements may influence their health because of the impacts of defecation on the gut microbiome, according to a new paper published in the journal Reports on medicine cells.
Researchers have found that defecating 1 to 2 times a day is a “Goldilocks zone” for health.
“Overall, this study shows how the frequency of bowel movements can influence every system in the body, and how aberrant frequency of bowel movements can be an important risk factor in the development of chronic diseases,” said Sean Gibbons, study co-author and associate professor at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), in a statement.
In the paper, the researchers describe how they analyzed data from more than 1,400 adults about their lifestyle, medical history, and bowel movement frequency. They found that people fell into four categories when it came to bowel movements: one to two per week (constipation), three to six per week (low-normal), one to three per day (high-normal), and diarrhea.
The researchers found that younger people, women and people with a lower body mass index (BMI) tended to have less frequent bowel movements.
“Previous research has shown how the frequency of bowel movements can have a significant impact on the functioning of the intestinal ecosystem,” co-author Johannes Johnson-Martinez, also a researcher at ISB, said in the statement.
“Basically, if stool sits in the gut for too long, microbes use up all the available dietary fiber, which they ferment into beneficial short-chain fatty acids. Then the ecosystem switches to protein fermentation, which produces several toxins that can make their way into the bloodstream.”
They also found a link between participants’ gut microbiome and the number of times they went to the bathroom, which contained fiber-fermenting gut bacteria associated with health. These bacteria appeared to be present in high numbers in people who were in the Goldilocks zone, where they had bowel movements 1 to 2 times a day. People with constipation or diarrhea were more likely to have bacteria associated with protein fermentation or the upper gastrointestinal tract.
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Additionally, the researchers found correlations between stool frequency and blood metabolites, indicating a link between chronic disease risk and bowel frequency. People with constipation had higher levels of p-cresol sulfate and indoxyl sulfate, which can damage the kidneys and are produced by bacterial fermentation of proteins. People with diarrhea had compounds associated with liver damage.
“Chronic constipation has been associated with neurodegenerative disorders and progression of chronic kidney disease in patients with active disease,” said Dr. Sean Gibbons, associate professor at ISB and corresponding author of the study. “However, it is unclear whether abnormal bowel habits are early predictors of chronic disease and organ damage, or whether these retrospective associations in diseased patients are simply coincidental.”
“Here, in a generally healthy population, we show that constipation, in particular, is associated with blood levels of microbial toxins known to cause organ damage, prior to any diagnosis of disease,” Gibbons said.
Researchers note that eating plenty of fiber, staying hydrated and exercising regularly helped people stay in the Goldilocks zone.
“This information could inform strategies for managing bowel movement frequency, even in healthy populations, to optimize health and well-being,” Gibbons said.
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