Nutrition & Vitamins - What is a healthy stool?

My name is Christine Marquette, and I'm a registered and licensed dietitian, with the Austin Regional Clinic, and I've been asked, What is a healthy stool? A healthy, normal stool should be brown in color, similar to the color of plain cardboard. It should be between about four and eight inches long. You shouldn't have to strain, when you're having a bowel movement. It should come out nice and easy. There shouldn't be any explosive activity going on. It should just enter the water at a normal rate of speed. You shouldn't hear any major splashing going on. It should again, just be smooth coming out. It is important that you do periodically check your stool, make sure there is nothing unusual going on, because it does indicate your overall health, so for example, if you had very, very dark stools, it is possible that you may have G.I. bleed, in your upper G.I. tract. A lot of times that blood, by the time it actually gets excreted in your stool, it can cause it to be very dark. Other items that can cause dark stools, if you're on some medications, such as antibiotics, or if you're taking iron, that may cause that to be very dark as well, so if you are taking those types of medications, whether it's antibiotics or iron, that could very well be the reason. However, if you're not taking any type of medication, and you haven't to your knowledge, felt sick and your stool is coming out very, very dark, it's a good idea to go ahead and talk to your doctor. See if you can get a referral to a G.I. doctor, and make sure there's nothing serious going on, that you don't have any kind of bleeding in your upper digestive tract. The other thing to be cautious, is if you have very pale, or very light colored stool, that can indicate a problem with your liver or your gallbladder, that you may not be producing enough bile salts. Bile acids or bile salts, that's what tends to give your stool the brown color. If you're not producing enough, you may not actually be absorbing enough of your nutrients, so that's another potential problem, that you want to get checked. If you're having very loose stools, diarrhea, or explosive diarrhea, again there is something that is going on, where you're not absorbing your nutrients properly, because they are passing through your digestive tract, way too fast, for you to be able to absorb those nutrients, so that's something else you need to investigate. Is it something that you ate? Did you get food poisoning? You really want to investigate that, if it lasts more than a day or two, so a couple of things to keep in mind, as far as what is a healthy stool, and what isn't a healthy stool?