The bigger size and more frequent your bowel movements are, the less likely you are to developing colon cancer.
By Dawn Flemming
The bigger and more frequent you’re your stools are, the less chances you have of developing colorectal cancer. Colon cancer rates go up dramatically when the average daily stool drops below half a pound. People who have stools that are a quarter pound in weight have three times the rate of cancer. Now you’re probably not going to weigh your poop but there is a simpler way. Just try weighing yourself before your bowel movement and after and you will see a difference.
The connection between the weight of your stool and cancer is due to its transit time. The larger and more frequent your stools, the less transit time there is. As such, the longer your stool stays in your colon, the more toxic its environment becomes and the higher chance of you developing cancer.
Now how long and how large your stools are depends on your diet. Plant-based diets have shorter transit times whereas conventional diets with meat and dairy can take up to a week to transit as opposed to 1-2 days for plant-based ones. So even if your having bowel movements every day, it is possible that your present stool is from what you ate a week ago hence meaning that you are effectively constipated.
Constipation is the most frequent GI complaint in America. Constipation is often the result of a lack of fiber which is only found in plant-based foods. Fiber is important as it soaks up toxic elements in your colon and excretes them. The more plants you eat, the more fiber you get and the quicker you get rid of the toxicity in your GI tract. People who have strict plant-based diets are three times more likely to have daily bowed movements as opposed to those who are do not follow them.
Dawn Flemming is Director of Business Services at Geriatric In-Home Care in Fresno, California.