Any Scrubs fans will know that when it comes to your health, everything comes down to poo, and they certainly weren’t wrong about your faeces being an indication of your health.
Hopefully you will know by now that when you’re squatting down on the loo, you should be aiming for something akin to a soft sausage that’s a nice shade of brown without too many cracks.
But the worse your diet is, the worse your poop will look (and potentially smell), which can lead to problem poops like hard and lumpy ones, diarrhoea or smaller pebble like pieces.
Anyone that’s had a particularly spicy curry and a night on the beers will know the impact that can have in the short term, but there’s also things we need to avoid in the long-term to ensure things run smoothly when we head to the bathroom.
While it might be a taboo topic, the alarming growth of bowel cancer among young people means that we need to be honest with ourselves, and our doctors, about what’s happening when we go for a number two.
The wrong foods can lead to discomfort on the toilet (Getty Stock)
Fortunately, there’s plenty of health advice out there about keeping your colon cheerful, and a happy stomach usually means that you can avoid pinching your nose when leaving the bathroom.
But even healthy eaters stools don’t smell of roses, so why is that?
Shelby Yaceczko, a clinical dietician at UCLA, added: “Stools are generally not a pleasant smell because they are releasing byproducts of your digestion.”
Skatole, also known as 3-methylindole, is one of the main compounds to blame for the odour of poo. The bacteria that is essential for our digestion can also leave a stink in the toilet.
A pretty disgusting simulation from Rapture Shorts on YouTube has broken all this down.
The video explains: “When we eat a spoonful of delicious food the food is first broken down in the stomach. The small intestine is responsible for absorbing nutrients and the remaining part enters the large intestine and eventually forms faeces.
“Bacteria in the large intestine break down incompletely digested food residues, producing organic compounds such as sulphide and ammonia which have strong odours.
“At the same time amino acids and proteins release hydrogen sulphide that smells like rotten eggs when they break down, so faeces have a bad smell.”
Hopefully, you also know that fibre is often the key to a healthy and happy bowel, so eating fibre-rich foods like kiwi, nuts and the magical chia seeds can be crucial to keeping things as neutral smelling as possible.
While meat and eggs are key components of the carnivore diet that everyone on the internet is seemingly raving about, it’s also almost certain that these people suffer on the toilet without fruits and veggies in their diet, as meat and eggs are both rich in sulphur.
Sorbitol, often found in sweets, can also make poo smell particularly bad.
Yaceczko explained that highly processed and sugary food also lead to worse smells because they’re harder to digest.
Can especially smelly poos be a sign of health conditions
Although a bad-smelling poop might seem inconvenient, it can actually be a strong indicator of a health problem, particularly if it persists.
Malabsorption disorder prevents your body from properly absorbing enough nutrients, which can lead to some smelly poops, and can be an indicator of illnesses such as IBS, Crohn’s or liver disease.
Certain antibiotics can also make poo smell worse.
While particularly smelly poos usually go away on their own, if they’re accompanied by other symptoms like diarrhoea, abdominal pain, bloody stools, black or pale stools, fever or chills, and unintentional weight loss, it’s time to see a doctor, according to Healthline.
As a general rule, keep your diet varied with lots of fruit and veg, otherwise you’ll end up spending all your wages on bathroom candles and Febreze.
