In recent months you've probably noticed an increase in mentions of my poop. Most are in the triathlon/running context. Taking a morning poop "lightens the load" and makes me feel ready for the exertion at hand. A good duke out the morning of a race is glorious.
Most athletes are avid students of their poop consistency, color and periodicity along with their urine color and frequency. If you monitor inputs (food) you monitor outputs (well, you get the picture).
Heather (Terp) and I have had a longstanding debate over poop processing time. How long does it take for material to move from mouth to Xxxtter?
Well, for many years I've contended that it takes 48 hours to process food. I seem to recall some scholarly tome telling me as much. And I probably had some anecdotal self-observation thrown in for good measure.
This morning I lost the debate.
I didn't expect to lose it today. We didn't plan any poop activities. We haven't even discussed it in months.
Last night we ate corn. Corn, like so many other seeds destined for travel-via-ingestion, doesn't digest well and you can see it in your poop. This morning I took a poop and there was corn.
Boomps. Debate over.
Not very scientific, but this says that at the very least corn can go from my mouth to the Xxxtter in about 12hrs30min. Not bad. Fast tracking it.
You win Terpa! I should never have doubted you. You know your Xxxt!
Update: After admitting defeat in the poop debate I went to the web to see what others had to say:
After putting the yummy stuff into your mouth, it (the bolus) then has to travel through the entire gastrointestinal tract before coming out the other end. The gastrointestinal tract for the purposes of this exercise includes the oral cavity, the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, and colon.
Food travels down the oesophagus at a rate of approximately 3 to 4 centimetres per second (1 to 2 inches), and the entire process takes about 5 to 6 seconds. In the stomach, food tends to hang around for a little longer and this depends on a variety of factors including the amount of food you have consumed, how much fat it contains, and also the acidity of the stomach. However, all food should have left the stomach within 2 to 4 hours.
In the small intestine, digestion continues and absorption occurs. From here on, the time to defecation will vary depending on the time it takes to adequately digest and absorb in the small intestine. This will usually take 5 to 6 hours. The "food then enters the colon for further digestion and water reabsorption before defecation. The time from it’s entering the colon to defecation is about 12 to 24 hours.
Thus, the time for food to travel from one end to the other probably ranges from about 20 to 30 hours. Although I haven’t had the time to look further into the rest of your question, I hazard a guess that it is unlikely that meat will hang around for a week given that the gastrointestinal tract is very effective in breaking it down with various enzymes and acidity of the stomach. Foods high in protein and fats probably would probably take a little longer to pass through than if it were carbohydrate.
--David Ng, BPharm MClinPharm PhD Candidate
Aha! There, see that. 20 - 30 hours. And David's a PhD Candidate so he knows his Xxxt too. But then I found a much more authoritative source:
It is interesting, given that most digestion and absorption occurs prior to the large intestine, that food, which at this point is primarily fiber, will spend more time in your large intestine than anywhere else during digestion. On average, food travels through the stomach in 1/2 to two hours, continues through the small intestine over the next two to six hours, and spends six to 72 hours in your large intestine before final removal by defecation.
Aha! Let's look at the minimum case for the above. 1/2 + 2 + 6 = 8 1/2 hours. Oh, wait, nevermind that. But notice that some food could spend 72 hours in the large intestine. Yeah, 72 hours!
Anyhow, I guess it's different for everybody. And different for each food. Terp still wins. I didn't realize that anything could get through me that quickly... I thought it was a minimum of 24 hours or so.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006