> Experiments showed that not to be the case. Instead, trials with healthy human subjects showed that the difference was due to the amount of gas in a given fecal sample.
The article is pretty short and it mainly says that it is due gas content. The amount of gas seems to be dependent on the presence of certain gut bacteria.
According to the study, naturally about half of the population of mice produce floaters. When you collect stool samples of that half and inject it on the other half, they also start producing floaters. On the other hand, when you sterelize the gut of the floater group, they start producing feces that sink.
Maybe it's because I've gone through various hobbies related to fermentation but trapped gas seems like the most obvious and likely answer. Especially when you see bubbles around floaters. It's also very simple to test...take a floater, put it in a vacuum just above where water will start to boil off, then see if it still floats. Alternatively, compare its displacement before and after smooshing it through a fine grate. (Note I said simple, not easy xD)
So far the discussion in this thread is lacking, some would say its shit.
Understanding our gut is an overlooked part of medicine and biology. I think theres a certain taboo around the subject. But you can learn a lot about health, your mood, sleep cycles, etc from what comes out the other end. We need more research in this area.
Strong agree. For all the evidence and talk about 'the microbiome is a newly discovered organ', people sure do struggle to look beyond the surface reading of the research-- yes, all the research in this area is research about shit, and often involves putting things inside arseholes. Hilarious as arseholes undoubtedly are, its a real shame seeing this research held back by this.
One interesting corollary of the article-- I wonder if human corpses sink or swim in accordance with their former flatulence-- and how much the old tale about eating after dinner is determined by these selfsame gasses!
I'm not familiar with the literature but I was rewatching Scrubs recently which is a 10-20 y/o show and it was mentioned in an episode that you could tell a lot about a person's health by looking at their stool, even made a joke about a "Doctor Toilet", a smart toilet that analyzes your stool
> But you can learn a lot about health, your mood, sleep cycles, etc from what comes out the other end.
Was talking about that with my GP. His view was that there's a lot of variance on that front, and that we shouldn't read too much into it. In particular, it's not because your shit isn't "perfect" that you're unhealthy, and there's not much to do about it anyway.
Don't shoot the messenger! I know this is HN where people want (and think they can) optimise everything,
Definitely check your stool often and for things like mucus and blood. It could be a warning sign of something more sinister, and if you do find anything questionable contact your GP and get it checked out.
On a lighter note, this paper is _really_ studying the gut flora which we do know has at least some impact on immunological function.
>The German toilets, the old type -- now they are disappearing but you still find them -- it's the opposite. The hole is in front. So that when you produce excrement, they are displayed in the back, they don't disappear in water. This is the German ritual, you know, use it every morning, sniff, inspect your shits for traces of illness. It's High Hermeneutic. I think the original meaning of Hermeneutic for Germans may be this.
>"It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology."
>Hermeneutics (/ˌhɜːrməˈnjuːtɪks/)[1] is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretive principles or methods we resort to when immediate comprehension fails. Rather, hermeneutics is the art of understanding and of making oneself understood.
"In some aristocratic households, the Herzog or Fürst would appoint a physician whose sole duty was to inspect the stools of the family members daily, making detailed notes on consistency, form and appearance. He would recommend adjustments to the nobile diet accordingly. The specially shaped receptacles for the material to be inspected thus became intricately associated with nobility and wealth, and during the rapid industrialisation of the late 19th Century, middle class urban households adopted them in vast numbers"
From the History of European Stool Inspections, Henry O.R. Scrap (Oxford 2003)
> Definitely check your stool often and for things like mucus and blood.
Here in Italy we are checked every two years at +50yo: huge lines of people dropping off their small amounts of (safely stored in an appropriate container) poo. A few weeks later...good news, or bad, in the post. Both my wife and I were a bit embarrassed at first, being relative youngsters, but the over 70s - a great day out for them.
> In particular, it's not because your shit isn't "perfect" that you're unhealthy
"Not perfect" for means "meh" (sometimes too solid, sometimes too liquid, sometimes with weird things inside, ...). If I had systematically a weird poo I would be worried.
At the same time: it is not because your poo is "perfect" that everything is fine. Some things you cannot see, some other are not there but somewhere else (even related to colon, stomach, ...)
> Was talking about that with my GP. His view was that there's a lot of variance on that front, and that we shouldn't read too much into it. In particular, it's not because your shit isn't "perfect" that you're unhealthy, and there's not much to do about it anyway.
I figure this is why the parent post is recommending more research into the area. Your GP is probably right that you shouldn't look and draw conclusions, but I'm curious as to whether it's because conclusions can't be drawn, or because we simply haven't learned how to draw the right conclusions yet.
Your gut literally has a brain in it with as many neurotransmitters as the actual brain. The phrase "gut feeling" is literal, your gut can actually control you.
Historically John Harvey Kellogg was obsessed with digestion and intestinal flora[1]. The FOBT, used in diagnosing colon cancer has been around since at least the 1960s[2].
The original guaiac FOBT is a crude screening tool for colon cancer and never used for diagnosis in the strict meaning of the term (it’s somewhat sensitive and not at all specific).
It’s also confused these days with the more sensitive and specific FIT test. FOBT has no relevance in modern medicine.
I have coeliac (celiac) disease, ingestion of various cereal proteins (in wheat, barley, rye; thankfully not oats for me) cause an exciting array of gastrointestinal phenomena.
A visual inspection is usually enough to tell me about low-level contamination.
Recurring or high level ingestion becomes fairly evident to anyone within earshot, and effects usually last more than a week :/
Thankfully in the pre cellphone era, I was on a canoe trip in Algonquin Park. In the middle of a large Lake, the call of nature struck with a sense of urgency that required a solution quicker than just, "Paddle harder to land."
A jump into the lake and removing of trousers resulted in an "Aqua Dump". But alas it was a floater, rather than sinking to the unknown depths. It was a shocking discovery at the time.
A stinker. No seriously my wife and I were just talking about this a few days ago. The floaters indicate you're not processing fats very well. So the sinkers.
But the article says that floating vs non-floating has little to do with fat content. It's the gases generated by bacteria that cause the stool to float, not the fat.
> The floaters indicate you're not processing fats very well.
No. As a cited article concludes: "Thus, stools float because of an increased content of gas or water (or both); the floating stool should not be considered a sign of [excess fat in feces]." [1].
They reject your argument in the article, just into the 2nd paragraph.
> Prior to the 1970s, scientists believed that fecal matter either sank or floated depending on the amount of fat it contained. Experiments showed that not to be the case.
It's likely that a sinker is indicative of healthy stool. The actual article notes that floating stool is correlated to increased presence of B. ovatus which is "an anaerobic commensal bacteria linked with flatulence and intestinal bowel diseases" [1].
Phys.org might want to reread european cookie notice legislature, just linking to "about cookies" when clicking "cookie options" with no direct way to reject doesnt fly anymore.
When I walk in to a public men’s bathroom I hear a lot of noises I don’t hear in my own house, I often wonder what’s going on with other peoples bodies given I only know my own experience, clearly we’re all very different ;-)
"Public restroom shyness"? Some people are so uncomfortable going bout their business in public that they have trouble getting things moving. I used to work with a guy who would leave work for the day if he had to take a dump as he would only shit at home which was an hour commute one way.
Back when I was commuting to an office, my favorite thing to learn about a building was where the least-used bathroom was. I would make my daily paid-to-poop pilgrimage to this sanctuary.
It was a slow and spiritual journey, like walking on knees to the Basilica of Guadalupe.
I was quite uncomfortable (but managed to get the business done) for the first week or so after arriving in the US (business trip) due to the inch-wide gaps around stall doors. When flying back, going to the toilet in the first European airport was very... moving.
I contracted for a company in the US (I'm in the UK usually) and the stalls were terrible. Big gaps between the doors and frames, and really big gaps underneath the dividing walls too, so you could identify your co-worker by their shoes. The ability to put a noise to a face was really quite off-putting.
Come to Scandinavia. We are blessed with almost no “stall” type restrooms. Wherever there’s multiple toilets, they’re each in a separate proper tiny room.
The exceptions seem to mostly be older fast food places and roadside taverns.
Are you from the US? US public bathrooms are especially bad for privacy, because they only have thin wooden walls that start about 15 inches above the floor (so that anyone passing by can see if someone is laying on the floor, passed out).
In my country, where drug use is not such a big problem, bathrooms have actual brick walls, giving a person inside much more privacy.
I also wonder in what state some leave their own toilets at home after they have done their business.
I was also puzzled by those diagrams showing how you are supposed to sit on a western toilet seat. But then I watched some bits of one of those crual japanese tv show where their collapsed all the walls of some public toilets when a poor guy was at it (I hope it was an act). To my own surprise the japanese are sitting facing the flusher/wall, not facing the door. Plus you have countries where squat toilets are the norm.
Sex is another area where there are few social norms since you never learn by imitating peers (other than porn which is a terrible model).
>To my own surprise the japanese are sitting facing the flusher/wall, not facing the door.
Yeah no, that is not a "Japanese" thing. I have no idea what show you were watching but it was probably just a gag, or a way to avoid having to show his genitals, or something that one person did for whatever reason.
There are some people who sit that way. For example, British comedian Bob Mortimer said on an episode of Taskmaster that he does it because his anus is unusually high.
How would an unusually high anus benefit from facing away from the flusher / wall? I can only envision it being more likely to end up with the "mud" landing outside of the bowl.
Is it to avoid "mud" ejecting into / against the toilet seat?
For the record I am not one of these people. I did, however, discover after 40-some years on this planet that I am intolerant of soy. I removed it from my diet and I feel so much better, although I am constantly disappointed that it has infiltrated so much food.
"what's your poo telling you" is one of my favorite white elephant gifts. Gave it to a family member when they were in college, they kept it in the bathroom and it was stolen almost every time they had a party.
The gut-brain axis (GBA) consists of bidirectional communication between the central and the enteric nervous system, linking emotional and cognitive centers of the brain with peripheral intestinal functions. Recent advances in research have described the importance of gut microbiota in influencing these interactions. This interaction between microbiota and GBA appears to be bidirectional, namely through signaling from gut-microbiota to brain and from brain to gut-microbiota by means of neural, endocrine, immune, and humoral links. In this review we summarize the available evidence supporting the existence of these interactions, as well as the possible pathophysiological mechanisms involved.
121 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 206 ms ] thread> Experiments showed that not to be the case. Instead, trials with healthy human subjects showed that the difference was due to the amount of gas in a given fecal sample.
According to the study, naturally about half of the population of mice produce floaters. When you collect stool samples of that half and inject it on the other half, they also start producing floaters. On the other hand, when you sterelize the gut of the floater group, they start producing feces that sink.
Fat content seems not to be related.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale
And gut bacteria are involved, so this is super relevant to Hackernews.
A quick Google suggests that digesting fiber changes the gas/air content.
Maybe it's because I've gone through various hobbies related to fermentation but trapped gas seems like the most obvious and likely answer. Especially when you see bubbles around floaters. It's also very simple to test...take a floater, put it in a vacuum just above where water will start to boil off, then see if it still floats. Alternatively, compare its displacement before and after smooshing it through a fine grate. (Note I said simple, not easy xD)
Understanding our gut is an overlooked part of medicine and biology. I think theres a certain taboo around the subject. But you can learn a lot about health, your mood, sleep cycles, etc from what comes out the other end. We need more research in this area.
A decade or two ago, fecal transplants were considered joke medicine. Now its an important tool in treating certain gut infections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant
One interesting corollary of the article-- I wonder if human corpses sink or swim in accordance with their former flatulence-- and how much the old tale about eating after dinner is determined by these selfsame gasses!
https://youtu.be/2BDd0XseGtU
Was talking about that with my GP. His view was that there's a lot of variance on that front, and that we shouldn't read too much into it. In particular, it's not because your shit isn't "perfect" that you're unhealthy, and there's not much to do about it anyway.
Don't shoot the messenger! I know this is HN where people want (and think they can) optimise everything,
On a lighter note, this paper is _really_ studying the gut flora which we do know has at least some impact on immunological function.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzXPyCY7jbs
>The German toilets, the old type -- now they are disappearing but you still find them -- it's the opposite. The hole is in front. So that when you produce excrement, they are displayed in the back, they don't disappear in water. This is the German ritual, you know, use it every morning, sniff, inspect your shits for traces of illness. It's High Hermeneutic. I think the original meaning of Hermeneutic for Germans may be this.
Žižek: Ideology and Toilets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpSiMbkhkuE
>"It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics
>Hermeneutics (/ˌhɜːrməˈnjuːtɪks/)[1] is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretive principles or methods we resort to when immediate comprehension fails. Rather, hermeneutics is the art of understanding and of making oneself understood.
We called this the "shit shelf". And it had the unfortunate side effect of exposing the smell, so you got used to flushing during and not just after.
From the History of European Stool Inspections, Henry O.R. Scrap (Oxford 2003)
Nominal determinism.
Here in Italy we are checked every two years at +50yo: huge lines of people dropping off their small amounts of (safely stored in an appropriate container) poo. A few weeks later...good news, or bad, in the post. Both my wife and I were a bit embarrassed at first, being relative youngsters, but the over 70s - a great day out for them.
"Not perfect" for means "meh" (sometimes too solid, sometimes too liquid, sometimes with weird things inside, ...). If I had systematically a weird poo I would be worried.
At the same time: it is not because your poo is "perfect" that everything is fine. Some things you cannot see, some other are not there but somewhere else (even related to colon, stomach, ...)
I figure this is why the parent post is recommending more research into the area. Your GP is probably right that you shouldn't look and draw conclusions, but I'm curious as to whether it's because conclusions can't be drawn, or because we simply haven't learned how to draw the right conclusions yet.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg#Battle_Cre...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_occult_blood
There was an old movie from the 1990s about Kellogg: https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/entertainment/2019...
It’s also confused these days with the more sensitive and specific FIT test. FOBT has no relevance in modern medicine.
A visual inspection is usually enough to tell me about low-level contamination.
Recurring or high level ingestion becomes fairly evident to anyone within earshot, and effects usually last more than a week :/
What I really want to know is what happens to "ghost feces"... Sometimes you know one dropped into the toilet but it is nowhere to be seen...
Water affects this but not much; or you get a rocket-floater that dives down and comes up on the "other side" of the built-in trap.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=german+toilet
A jump into the lake and removing of trousers resulted in an "Aqua Dump". But alas it was a floater, rather than sinking to the unknown depths. It was a shocking discovery at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPxiXGr9nFM
No. As a cited article concludes: "Thus, stools float because of an increased content of gas or water (or both); the floating stool should not be considered a sign of [excess fat in feces]." [1].
[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM197205042861804
> Prior to the 1970s, scientists believed that fecal matter either sank or floated depending on the amount of fat it contained. Experiments showed that not to be the case.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-22626-x
And maybe fecesbook would be a good name for such app.
It was a slow and spiritual journey, like walking on knees to the Basilica of Guadalupe.
The exceptions seem to mostly be older fast food places and roadside taverns.
Plug your ears.
I don’t know exactly why it works but for me it’s magical in its ability to get things moving.
If you have stage fright while at the urinal, start going tricky math problems in your head.
In my country, where drug use is not such a big problem, bathrooms have actual brick walls, giving a person inside much more privacy.
I was also puzzled by those diagrams showing how you are supposed to sit on a western toilet seat. But then I watched some bits of one of those crual japanese tv show where their collapsed all the walls of some public toilets when a poor guy was at it (I hope it was an act). To my own surprise the japanese are sitting facing the flusher/wall, not facing the door. Plus you have countries where squat toilets are the norm.
Sex is another area where there are few social norms since you never learn by imitating peers (other than porn which is a terrible model).
You won the internet today, sir.
Yeah no, that is not a "Japanese" thing. I have no idea what show you were watching but it was probably just a gag, or a way to avoid having to show his genitals, or something that one person did for whatever reason.
There are some people who sit that way. For example, British comedian Bob Mortimer said on an episode of Taskmaster that he does it because his anus is unusually high.
Is it to avoid "mud" ejecting into / against the toilet seat?
Thanks for the link and timestamp info!
Now granted, traditional Japanese toilets are getting rare in Japan, it's mostly western style toilets now.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0811857824/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize