Recent research from the Institute for Systems Biology shows that bowel movement frequency significantly impacts long-term health, affecting multiple physiological processes and potentially influencing the risk of chronic disease. Analyzing data from more than 1,400 individuals, the study links bowel movement patterns to health markers such as gut microbiome composition and blood metabolites, suggesting that maintaining a “Goldilocks zone” of daily bowel movements may be crucial to optimal health.
Researchers from the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) have found significant correlations between age, gender and BMI, and bowel movement frequency.
Everybody poops, but not every day. New research from the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) suggests that bowel movement frequency is linked to long-term health.
A research team led by ISB examined clinical, lifestyle, and multi-omic data from more than 1,400 healthy adults. How often people poop, they discovered, can have a profound impact on a person’s physiology and health. Their findings were recently published in the journal Cell reports Medicine.
Researchers examined data from consenting participants from the consumer wellness company Arivale. The team focused on generally healthy adults and excluded those with certain health conditions or medication use.
The research team categorized self-reported bowel movement frequency into four groups: constipation (one or two bowel movements per week), low-normal (between three and six bowel movements per week), high-normal (between one and three bowel movements per day), and diarrhea.
Once the categories were categorized, the team looked for associations between bowel movement frequency and factors such as demographics, genetics, gut microbiome, blood metabolites and plasma chemistry.
Findings on Demographics and Gut Microbiome
The study found that age, gender and body mass index (BMI) were significantly associated with bowel movement frequency. In particular, younger people, women and people with a lower BMI tended to go to the toilet less often.
“Previous research has shown how bowel movement frequency can have a profound impact on the functioning of the gut ecosystem,” said Johannes Johnson-Martinez, the study’s lead author. “When feces sit in the gut for too long, microbes use up all the available dietary fiber, fermenting it into beneficial short-chain fatty acids. The ecosystem then switches to protein fermentation, which produces various toxins that can enter the bloodstream.”
The researchers also showed that the microbial composition of the study participants’ gut microbiomes was a telling sign of bowel movement frequency. Gut bacteria that ferment fiber, often associated with health, appeared to thrive in a “Goldilocks zone” of bowel movement frequency, where people defecate between 1 and 2 times per day. However, bacteria associated with protein fermentation or the upper GI tract appeared to be enriched in people with constipation or diarrhea, respectively.
Impact on health and disease risk
Similarly, several blood metabolites and plasma chemistries showed significant associations with bowel movement frequency, suggesting a potential link between gut health and chronic disease risk. Specifically, microbially derived protein fermentation byproducts known to cause kidney damage, such as p-cresol sulfate and indoxyl sulfate, were enriched in the blood of individuals reporting constipation, while clinical chemistries associated with liver damage were increased in individuals reporting diarrhea.
In particular, blood levels of indoxyl sulfate were significantly associated with reduced renal function, providing preliminary evidence for a causal relationship between stool frequency, gut microbial metabolism, and organ damage in this healthy group.
Not surprisingly, people who reported eating lots of fiber, being better hydrated, and exercising regularly were more likely to experience poor bowel movements.
“Chronic constipation has been associated with neurodegenerative disorders and with progression of chronic kidney disease in patients with active disease,” said Dr. Sean Gibbons, associate professor at ISB and corresponding author of the paper. “However, it is unclear whether abnormalities in bowel habits are early drivers of chronic disease and organ damage, or whether these retrospective associations in diseased patients are merely coincidental.
“Here, in a generally healthy population, we show that constipation is specifically associated with blood levels of microbial toxins known to cause organ damage, before disease is established,” Gibbons said.
The study also looked at the links between bowel frequency and anxiety and depression, showing that past mental health is linked to how often someone poops.
“Overall, this study highlights how bowel frequency can impact all body systems, and how abnormal bowel frequency may be an important risk factor in the development of chronic disease,” Gibbons said. “These insights can inform strategies for managing bowel frequency, even in healthy populations, to optimize health and well-being.”
Reference: “Abnormal stool frequencies coincide with elevated microbe-derived blood metabolites associated with impaired organ function” by Johannes P. Johnson-Martínez, Christian Diener, Anne E. Levine, Tomasz Wilmanski, David L. Suskind, Alexandra Ralevski, Jennifer Hadlock, Andrew T. Magis, Leroy Hood, Noa Rappaport, and Sean M. Gibbons, July 16, 2024, Cell Reports Medicine.
DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101646