Why is the poop brown? [WE EXPLAIN]

Have you ever wondered why our poop is usually brown? Surely, when you were a child, this question came to your mind. We decided to answer them and dispel all doubts about human feces.

Three-fourths of the human poop consists of water and the remains of undigested food. Normal faeces has a spongy texture and a brown tinge – no matter what you ate (although there is a group of products that can change its color, for example, beets). Why is our poop this color?

The color of the stool

The poop is usually brown when it leaves the digestive system. This is because it contains a chemical that our body produces. Sterkobilin, because we are talking about it, is a product of the breakdown of hemoglobin – a protein molecule in red blood cells that enables the transport of oxygen in the body.

How is stercobilin produced?

Red blood cells only live for 120 days before they are finally replaced. When the hemoglobin in them breaks down, it produces a yellow protein called bilirubin. This, in turn, enters the liver through the circulatory system. The bilirubin then enters the small intestine in the form of bile. This yellow-green liquid helps the body digest and absorb fats, among other things.

Your body absorbs and reuses some of the bilirubin as the digested food passes through the small intestine. On the other hand, its remains become just stercobilin, which your body needs to get rid of. This chemical binds to undigested food, making your poop brown. If there were no stercobilin in the stool, it would probably be white.

See: Green stool – causes of stool discoloration

The rest of the article under the video.

1. The editorial board recommends: How should we sit on the toilet? We do it wrong all our lives

What could a different color of the poop mean?

Sometimes our poop is not brown. It depends on what you eat and how fast your metabolism is. When poop travels rapidly through your body, bilirubin doesn’t have enough time to break down into stercobilin. This makes your stool less brown than usual.

That is why – although it may seem strange – it is worth checking what our poop looks like from time to time. This may be the first sign that something is wrong with our body. What should worry us? If you frequently poop in an unusual color, such as black or white, you might want to see your doctor. The same is true if your stool is too hard or too soft and this condition persists for a long time. If your poop is red even though you haven’t eaten beetroots, that should prompt you to see your doctor as well.

You can buy general mail order stool examination at Medonet Market

Read also:

1. Is frequent bowel movement a symptom of an illness?
2. Baby poop – what does its color mean?
3. Hemorrhoids – is it taboo?

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