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Wall Street Journal Best Seller Dr. M's Seven-X Plan for Digestive Health
How much time does it take from ingestion of food to the time it is expelled in stool? I was recently asked by one of the print media regarding this question raise by one of its readers. This may be not a question for dinner table, but if you want to know, read on.
Is It Leaky Gut or Leaky Gut Syndrome?
The time it takes for food to travel from mouth through the gastrointestinal tract and come out through anus is known as bowel transit time. This time depends on multiple factors including person's diet and medications as well as diseases he/she may be having.
There is a great deal of person to person variability and in fact, even when tested in same person, the results can vary from day to day. Persons ingesting high fiber diet may have quicker transit while patients taking medications that slow down gut are likely to have longer duration. A variety of tests are employed to look at bowel or gastrointestinal transit time.
One of the tests involves ingestion of non-absorbable radio-opaque markers. These markers start appearing in stool about 15 to 24 hours after ingestion. In the simplest form of this test, the markers are given only once. An x ray is done before ingestion, and then on the fifth day to look for any residual markers.
In most normal healthy subjects, the markers are usually completely evacuated by about 48-72 hours. If however by the fifth day, over 20% of the markers are still in the gastrointestinal system (gut), that is considered definitely abnormal.
Wall Street Journal Best Seller Dr. M's Seven-X Plan for Digestive Health
