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Health

What is the ‘Goldilocks’ zone of pooping? Here’s how to achieve it

By
Tracy Swartz
Published July 16, 2024, 11:00 a.m. ET

Time to toot your own horn.

If you’re pooping once or twice a day, congratulations, you’re in the bowel movement “Goldilocks” zone.

Researchers from the Institute for Systems Biology say a fiber-rich diet, adequate hydration and regular exercise are key to hitting that scat sweet spot. How often you poop can influence your health now and in the future.

Researchers from the Institute for Systems Biology say a fiber-rich diet, adequate hydration and regular exercise are key to reaching the "Goldilocks" zone of pooping once or twice a day.
Researchers from the Institute for Systems Biology say a fiber-rich diet, adequate hydration and regular exercise are key to reaching the “Goldilocks” zone of pooping once or twice a day. Getty Images

The study, published Tuesday in Cell Reports Medicine, finds that younger people, women and those with a lower body mass index tend to have less frequent bowel movements.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 1,400 healthy adults who volunteered their information via the consumer wellness company Arivale.

Our gut microbiome — the collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi in our digestive system — gives the scoop on our poop.
Our gut microbiome — the collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi in our digestive system — gives the scoop on our poop. Getty Images/iStockphoto

The participants were divided into four groups based on their potty patterns: constipation (one or two BMs a week), low-normal (three to six a week), high-normal (one to three a day) and diarrhea. 

The researchers looked for relationships between bathroom behavior and a person’s demographics, genetics, gut microbiome, blood metabolites and plasma composition.

They found that our gut microbiome — the collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi in our digestive system — gives the scoop on our poop.

The microbiome breaks down complex carbohydrates and proteins to create metabolites that can be potentially beneficial or toxic.

Fiber-fermenting bacteria were linked to the “Goldilocks” frequency — as in, just right — while bacteria associated with protein fermentation were tied to constipation.

“If stool sticks around too long in the gut, microbes use up all of the available dietary fiber, which they ferment into beneficial short-chain fatty acids,” explained lead study author Johannes Johnson-Martinez. “After that, the ecosystem switches to fermentation of proteins, which produces several toxins that can make their way into the bloodstream.”

Sean Gibbons, an Institute for Systems Biology associate professor and corresponding author of the paper, warns that abnormal BM frequency may be an important risk factor in the development of chronic diseases.

For example, protein fermentation by-products known to cause kidney damage were abundant in the blood of those who reported being constipated.

“Here, in a generally healthy population, we show that constipation, in particular, is associated with blood levels of microbially derived toxins known to cause organ damage, prior to any disease diagnosis,” Gibbons said.