Hi!
Why do our intestines have to be so long and twisted? What was nature’s reasoning for our poop to have such a long path to its destination? And basically, what is constipation?
It riddles me, why our poop doesnt just go straight to the exit, but it need to pass this weird meaty highway inside us 🤣
In: 4
Our intestines are where all the nutrients from the food we eat get absorbed into our bloodstreams. All of the nutrients pass through the walls of our intestines. Thus, having longer intestines means there’s more surface area for nutrients to be absorbed. If our intestines were a straight line, there wouldn’t be enough surface area to absorb all of the nutrients that we need, especially plant matter, because it’s harder for us to extract nutrients from plants than from animal meat.
It needs time to absorb all the good nutrients and stuff that our bodies need so it has to go on a long and winding journey to do this. Yes the output can be intense and long 🙂
The small intestine is there so you can absorb all the nutrients in the food. You also have bacteria living inside you that help your body break the food down and absorb it into your body.
The large intestine is there to reclaim all the water your body put into the food to break it down. If the food skipped your large intestine all the time, you’d lose an absolute ton of water to your poop, which in the natural environment would be very bad.
Water and nutrients are absorbed there. This happens as food travels through it. It is a slow process anyway, and the body needs time for the enzymes it produces and the bacteria in our gut to break the food down (digestion). Longer intestines give more time for food to be digested, and give a larger area for things to be absorbed from.
In contrast, people who have surgeries where they have parts of their small intestine removed might end up malnourished and have to adjust their diet or take supplements. People who have part of their large intestine (colon) removed (or bypassed) often end up with very loose or watery stools because they are less able to reabsorb the water.
It’s interesting to note that carnivores have much shorter intestines. In fact, herbivores and omnivores have longer intestines because we need to break down the cellulose in the plant matter we eat.
> And basically, what is constipation?
Constipation is when there’s not enough water in your poop, so it becomes a solid lump in your colon that is hard to move. This can happen for a lot of reasons.
For instance, some drugs cause all your muscles to relax, including your intestinal muscles. This makes your food and poop move slower through your colon, which gives your colon more time to absorb water out of it. The end result is that when people take opioid drugs (like oxycodone, morphine, heroin, or fentanyl), they almost always get constipated.
However, constipation can also be caused by eating food that doesn’t agree with you, or just eating large amounts of dry food without enough fluids and fiber. In those cases, eating different food and drinking some fluids can help. Many older people take extra fiber supplements to “stay regular”, which just means to not get constipated.
Or it can be from a more serious medical problem, especially if it continues! In really bad cases, the colon can be paralyzed and unable to poop at all, so the poop has to be surgically removed. (Icky, yes, but it saves people’s lives.)
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