Poopology

I have read some terrible things about biology, and the worst is everything about excretion. I can’t even blame evolution — it’s all physics and thermodynamics and chemistry, in which the extraction of energy from the environment is always going to produce waste products. Even photosynthesis pumps out lots of destructive free radicals, and animals are the kings of inefficiency, making all this crap (literally) that they fling out into the environment for someone else to take care of.

I learned more than I wanted to from this article on How to Poop Correctly. It’s an art, and we’re all doing it wrong.

The stool takes time to move into the right position to come down through the anal canal, which is why you shouldn’t try to force a poop when you don’t feel the urge. Many people will try to push a poo out in the mornings before they leave for school or work.

It’s also common for people to use coffee and cigarettes, which increase the production of certain hormones and neurotransmitters that trigger bowel peristalsis (involuntary muscle movement), to encourage their body to move the poop down faster. This isn’t a great idea, as your body can become dependent on these substances to shit, and they diminish the normal movement of the bowel.

Frequently, when things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like them to, it’s not that you’re constipated – it’s just that the stool hasn’t moved into the rectum yet. However, when you do feel the urge, you need to respond to your body’s message as soon as possible. Every time you hold it in, your stool inches a little way back up, and your rectum reabsorbs some of the water from the stool, drying it out and making it harder to push out when you finally allow yourself to go. Don’t hold it. For a lot of you, this will mean getting over your reluctance to use public restrooms. Coffee shops and high-end hotels often offer clean, safe refuge.

But that article doesn’t deal with the big problem. It only covers moving waste through your body and out to, for instance, a “high-end hotel”. Then it’s their problem. It’s not over yet, though. Here’s a study that looked at the geyser of fecal material produced by flushing.

Our study demonstrated that lid position (up or down) prior to flushing of household or public toilets of United States design seeded with MS2 bacteriophage had no significant effect on the MS2 cross contamination of household restroom surfaces. MS2 was recovered from all restroom surfaces tested, and lid closure had no impact on the results. The most effective strategies for reducing restroom cross-contamination associated with toilet flushing include the addition of a disinfectant to the toilet bowl before flushing and the use of disinfectant/detergent dispensers in the toilet tank. To reduce the risk associated with exposure to contaminated fomites in the restroom, regular disinfection of all restroom surfaces following toilet brushing, and/or use of a disinfectant that leaves residual microbicidal activity is suggested particularly when the household is occupied by an individual with an active infection with a virus, such as norovirus, causing acute gastroenteritis. Because many viral infections may be asymptomatic, this is even more important in health care facilities where immunocompromised individuals are often present.

Lid up, lid down, it doesn’t matter — you’re either going to get a plume of nastiness shooting upwards or out sideways. Coffee shops and high-end hotels are looking increasingly less attractive, because you’re just going to be wading through someone else’s fecal ejecta.

I shouldn’t read this stuff.

Also, I’m scheduling a colonoscopy for mid-August — the doctor wants me to come in the day before classes start for it. At least I’d be beginning the semester with a clean start.