- I'm Dr. Ugo Iroku, a board certified gastroenterologist
and digestive disease specialist.
Today, I'll be answering your questions from Twitter.
This is Gut Support.
Queerrepublican, how long is a small
and large intestine
'cause that's how many feet per second food moves
through my body?
So the small intestine is about 18 feet long.
The large intestine is about six feet long.
Oftentimes people will eat food
and feel like it's running straight through their body,
but it turns out
that there is a process called the gastrocolic reflex.
That's probably accounting
for that immediate bowel movement you have, what is that?
It's when your stomach senses that there's food coming in
and wants to create space in the body.
So it tells the colon, move things along
through the process of peristalsis.
It relaxes the muscles at the bottom of your anus
and you are able to poop.
And so the poop you're pooping out
is not the food you just ate.
It typically takes about two to three days
for you to eat a food and actually have it leave your body.
You should know that.
@kingofkgn, aren't we all a little lactose intolerant?
The answer king is no, just you, but just kidding.
A lot of us become lactose intolerant over a time.
The whole concept is that we are all born typically
with enzymes called lactase
that help us digest breast milk.
And so as we get older,
oftentimes many people in the population lose their ability
to break down that dairy.
It happens more commonly in African American communities,
American Indian communities,
Asian communities, Latino communities
and that makes us more intolerant to dairy.
Daleicious98, my poop is dark green
like the color of spinach, am I dying?
The color of poop starts off as being green for everybody.
And that's just the color of the pigment, bile.
As bile makes its way through your digestive tract
it's oxidized, it's digested.
By the time it comes out
it's the poop that you normally come to no one love
of a brown color.
The green color in poop is not a sign of anything dangerous
but that green it's all coming from you.
You're probably just having a faster motility movement
of the poop through your body
that's letting you still be able to see that green color
that you normally wouldn't see.
2BoopsAndAToot, this person needs
a gastroenterologist badly.
If you hold all your farts in,
do you start floating away like a balloon?
Obviously the answer is no.
If you were to hold all your farts in
you would be a very uncomfortable person.
There would be a high likelihood of gas incontinence.
So likelihood that you would indeed let one rip
at some point with some movement.
But after a while,
gas being gas just finds a way to dissipate
from one area and go to another area.
If it finds it's not able to go out through the anus
like it usually can, it'll dissipate into your body
and find its way excreted out your body,
perhaps through your respiratory system
or through another method.
So to make the distinction
between the anus and the sphincter,
I can show you on our little diagram here.
The anus pretty much refers to this entire area
that includes a number of supportive tissue and muscles.
It's the thing right at the end of your digestive system.
Now, as part of your anus,
you have sphincters external internal
that help to tighten the bottom of your anus
to make sure that nothing escapes.
So pretty much the sphincter are those muscles that exist
within the anus to help prevent incontinence
of gas, liquids, or solids.
And what is incontinence doctor?
Incontinence just means that you're letting things rip
without intending to.
Sometimes people have gas incontinence,
they're passing gas without meaning to,
or they could actually have poop incontinent
where actually having bowel movements at moments
you just didn't plan on having those, not fun.
TwinCitiesChick, how long does it take
for you to get food poisoning
after having eaten something suspect?
Asking for a friend, okay, no, that's bull.
I'm asking for myself, concerned emoji face.
And so it turns out that
when you eat something that makes you sick,
we call that food poisoning.
It can happen pretty quickly.
Within an hour you can have toxins that have been formed
by the bacteria affecting your gut.
Bacteria like Bacillus found in items like fried foods
or Clostridium found in dented cans that can have toxins
that are infiltrated in the food,
can make you sick again within an hour or two.
There's some that take a couple of days to develop
but you might be running for the toilet bowl
even before you're done with your plate.
SimplyThinkingg, what is a gastroenterologist
and why do commercials talk about them
like we should all have one?
So a gastroenterologist is a physician
who spent six years after med school training
on digestive disease health.
Oftentimes you need to see us for many reasons.
20 million Americans have chronic gastrointestinal diseases
like IBS or IBD.
One of the most common procedures that we do
as gastroenterologists is the colonoscope.
And this is where we look with the camera
into your colon and look for any signs of any disease
or polyps that need to be removed.
And just in case, you're feeling comfortable,
I'm gonna show you exactly what we do
during your colonoscope.
So what I have here is one of our inter scopes
and particularly this is designed to look
into your upper abdomen
but a similar process we use for colonoscope.
So it has a couple of dials that allows me to drive
the scope as it makes its way through your intestines.
It has a light source that lets me have a good look
and look to look for polyps or any sign of disease.
It has a few channels through the scope
that allows me to take samples with the biopsy forceps.
And it also has clips that let me stop bleeding
or cauterized and burn any bleeding sites if necessary.
Next up, Mucosal Immunology,
are there really 10 times more bacteria
than cells in our body.
Mucosal, if I can call you that, the answer is probably not.
The 10 times number comes
from earlier on in our examination of the microbiome.
So the collection of bacteria, viruses,
and fungi that exist in our gut
and the estimation at the time was that
there was 10 times more microbiota
than there were actually human cells.
That number has been revised recently
especially when you're just looking at bacteria.
It's thought to be more that for every one human cell
you have about 1.3 bacterial cells, but still
if your body were democracy,
you might be voted out of power.
Rafael Tiriel, okay, who needs a fecal transplant?
Rafael, we just met.
First of all, what we call it
is a fecal microbiota transplant.
And what that means is yes, we are taking fecal content
from person A and putting it in person B,
but this is not something most of you need
which is a good thing for you to hear.
It's typically used for people who have a very
severely damaged environment in their colon.
One situation is people who have C difficile colitis
where their gut has pretty much been overrun
by this bacteria called C difficile.
And so in those cases
we have to transport a whole new population
of healthy bacteria from a healthy person into their gut.
There are many ways we put it in through a colonoscope
or sometimes through a nasal gastric tube
but one way or the other, we get that healthy poop
into the colon to help it feeling better.
Just to let you know, again
there's this whole thing called the gut microbiome.
And so we're not just transferring poop for poop sake.
We're transferring a healthy community of healthy bacteria
from one person to the other.
We have this entire amazing universe
that exists inside of us that can keep us healthy,
and some people need a little help from their friends
to get through some situations.
Fran Drescher, could there be a connection
between your gut microbiome and Alzheimer's?
That's a great question, Fran.
It's one that we're closely looking into.
What we do know is that a healthy gut microbiome
produces nutrients that are important for a healthy brain.
Omega threes, polyphenols are all very important
for proper neuron formation and function in your brain.
And so it's very possible that having
a very healthy gut leads to a very healthy thought process.
In terms of how to actually make that work,
what to do about that information,
that we're still working on the answer to.
KemiAde, the worsting about being a woman, bloating.
Why must the air in my stomach feel like 10,000 knives?
Women frequently can have hormonal effects
that come from the uterus,
come from the ovary and affect the gut dynamics.
And so sometimes you have aspects of the gut
that are not relaxing the way they should
or that are not moving your bowels
along the way they should.
There are many medical definitions of the word bloating
but typically to be honest, we do tend to use that
as a description of the symptom.
When it comes to what the underlying problem is,
it could be constipation,
it could be diarrhea, it could be gastritis.
What can you do about it?
Modify your diet so that you can tolerate those times
of the month a little better.
There are many conditions that can have the symptom
of bloating and cause people to feel
like they're having a thousand knives shooting
through their guts.
All right, Angry Angry Alice asks, what is constipation
if not clogged farteries?
All right, Alice,
you're creating a whole new terminology here.
Constipation is essentially when your bowels
are not empty out as routinely as they should
in a way that they should.
And so there's this component of frequency
and then there's this component of a subjective description
of how your bowel widths are and how you feel with it.
So you should be moving your bowels
at least three times a week.
Anything less than that is formally constipation.
If you started off, however, is moving your bowels daily
and then you drop down to four times a week,
that might be constipation for you,
that change in bowel movements.
RSB90, I know bananas are a good prebiotic,
but what else is?
I've started on probiotic tablets for gut health.
So probiotics are bacteria that exist
that we intentionally sometimes consume.
They come in pill form with a concept
of trying to put healthy bacteria into our body.
I will say that not everyone needs to take probiotics.
If you have a healthy diverse diet
that could actually give you the probiotics you need
just from your consumption alone.
So if you're having your kimchi and kombucha and yogurts
that may be all you need.
Probiotics essentially eat prebiotics,
and what are prebiotics.
In short hand, those are essentially fibers.
They're things that probiotics like to eat
so that they can increase in number.
A healthy diverse diet will contain all the pre
and probiotics you need to be healthy yourself.
Cookie4youandme, that's nice.
My poop is black, am I dying?
Cookie, I hope not,
and odds are you're not dying,
but yes black stool can be very important.
What Cookie's referring to is the fact
that black stool often refers to blood in the stool.
Blood of course starts off as being red.
By the time it goes to the digestive process
and gets all the way down to the toilet bowl.
It's often seen as being black and tarry.
And so if you notice that change in your bowel movements,
that might mean that you have
an important gastrointestinal bleed going on.
Other reason for having black poop,
it might be food coloring.
It might be licorice.
It might be Pepto Bismol
but typically it's not something you wanna see.
And if you have that very important
to talk to your doctor about.
Ean Hammond ask, why does coffee make me poop?
All right, we know not to hang around you
right after your cup Java.
There are many reasons why coffee might be making you poop.
One of them is that coffee in general
can cause peristalsis in the colon.
So that's that P word again.
It just means it makes your colon moves a poop.
Another thing that coffee can sometimes do
through caffeine is relax the anal sphincter
making poop more ready to come out of your body.
And sometimes it's just having a warm liquid
and the routine of it all, something entering your stomach
that really more than anything else
is just a trigger of that gastrocolic reflux
for things to start moving along.
Connorleary64, does my IBS cause my anxiety
or does my anxiety cause my IBS?
Question asked for billions of years.
And the answer is yes.
So for the uninitiated, the lucky ones
of those of you who are
IBS stands for irritable bowel syndrome.
It really just means that your gut is irritated
and hyperactive and very sensitive to any amount
of distension in your gut causing a lot of pain,
a lot of gassiness and either a lot of pooping
or a decreased amount of bowel movements.
Your IBS does cause your anxiety
often in the form of a person having severe symptoms
and not having a clear answer
as to why they're having symptoms.
Additionally, we do find that people who have anxiety
or depression have a higher likelihood
of having irritable bowel syndrome.
Workoutfrolic, how does gut health impact
your immune system?
So it turns out that in your gut, again
we have this microbiome
and that's the word that just keeps coming up
that's intimately involved
in the function of our immune system.
It's important to note that your immune system
70% of it exists within your digestive health tract.
Having a healthy diet for your microbiome
keeps your immune system healthy as well.
It's able to produce short chain fatty acids
that keep your colon cells very healthy and robust
and all of this leads towards a healthy immune system
and a healthy you.
That's it.
That's all our questions from today.
Hopefully you learn something.
I know I did.
I learned about farteries and I will see you next time.
Bye.