Why does your poo sometimes float? It might be down to your gut health

[littlemissmartypants]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231221-why-does-your-poop-float-it-might-be-down-to-your-gut-health

26th December 2023, 09:00 EST

By Richard Gray
Features correspondent
@chalkmark
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Before we dive in, Nagarajan Kannan has a question: "Are you a floater or a sinker?" It's a surprisingly intimate thing to ask someone you've only exchanged emails with, but it is exactly this line of thinking that has led to something of a passion project for the director of the Mayo Clinic's stem cell and cancer biology laboratory in Rochester, Minnesota.
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It had initially been thought that the reason for the occasional floating unmentionable was something to do with the levels of fat that made their way into it. But in the early 1970s a couple of gastroenterologists at the University of Minnesota with time on their hands decided to put it to the test with a series of experiments. After subjecting the excrement from 39 volunteers – and some of their own solid waste for good measure – to a barrage of tests, the answer they came up with was that it was not fat, but gas.
Snip...
In the intervening years, medical science has revealed the enormous role that our microbiota play in many aspects of our health – from obesity to heart disease. Kannan suspected that changes in the make up of the 100 trillion bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms that call our guts their home may be responsible for whether our faeces is buoyant or not.
Snip...
To put the theory to the test, he and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic studied the droppings of mice raised in sterile conditions. These germ-free rodents have no microbes in their guts. In faecal floatation tests developed by the team, the poop from these mice sank instantly in water, while around 50% of the droppings from mice with gut microbes floated, before eventually drifting downwards. When they took a closer look, the reason became clear.
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More at the link.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231221-why-does-your-poop-float-it-might-be-down-to-your-gut-health

❤️pants

[hot2na]

1. Do you know your shit?

Your post reminded me of this:

https://www.healthworks.my/infographic-shit-poop/