The Digest

Everybody does it. Yet, only half of us talk about it.

It' time to dish the first... on pooping!

As the makers of a Pendulum Glucose Control, which is a medical probiotic that helps your body process fiber, Pendulum Therapeutics set out to better understand America's poop habits through a nationwide survey.

We appropriately called the survey ... The State of Poop in America.

Why is it so important to understand how America is pooping? 

Poop is an essential marker of overall health—especially gut health.

The color, consistency, and smell of bowel movements are all indicators of

• How food moves through your GI tract
• Healthy (or unhealthy) eating habits
• Potential health issues like internal bleeding
• The diversity of your gut microbiome

And much more.

How can you tell if your poop is healthy or not? 

The Bristol Stool Chart (below) was developed to help classify stool into seven different groups. 

According to WebMD: 

The ideal stool is generally type 3 or 4, easy to pass without being too watery.

Type 1 or 2 typically indicates constipation.

Types 5, 6, and 7 typically indicate diarrhea.

What can you do to improve your stool?

Pendulum Lead Dietitian Kristin Neusel notes, "Along with taking Pendulum Glucose Control to help improve gut health, we recommend a fiber-rich diet that includes soluble fiber to address constipation (e.g., apples, oats, psyllium) and/or insoluble fiber to help with diarrhea (e.g., whole wheat foods, beans, carrots). When you increase fiber, be mindful to slowly increase it over time and to make sure you’re also getting enough fluid.”

To learn more about how much daily fiber you actually need and easy ways to add it to your meals, click here.

What was discovered about The State of Poop in America survey?

According to our survey of 1,000 adults ages 18 and older:

• 50% of respondents rarely—if ever—talk about pooping. 
• Those who “often” talk about it confide in family members (56%), followed by friends (22%) or medical professionals (22%)
• 56% of respondents poop 1-2 times per day, whereas 29% only poop 2-3 times per week

TMI?

Respondents say no.

In fact, more than half of those surveyed (51%) wish they knew more about poop than they do.

The next time you are in the bathroom, we encourage you to pay a little closer attention to what comes out to better inform you on what's going on inside.