Let's Talk Shit

Everyone poops. If you don’t, there may be a serious problem. It is said often: ‘we are what we eat.’ But it’s tough to study what we eat without relying on subjective reporting, broadly-aggregated stats, or impractical calorimetric studies. Studying what we leave behind, however, is a lot easier, notwithstanding the gross factor. After all, isn’t it just as true that ‘we are what we ate’?

Feces are like Rosetta stones for the body. They help us interpret a complex language of signals and information passing throughout our bodies. We know what we put in, but that doesn’t paint a full picture of what happens inside—an apple may not impact everyone in the same way. Barring subjective reporting, repetitive blood tests or, in extreme cases, autopsies, we know (relatively) little about the daily metabolic grind. In other words, it’s a jungle in there.

Let’s not return to the days of Fantastic Voyage. Instead, studying shit—its frequency, size, shape, color, smell, chemical composition—tells the story of a journey through the body. All we have to do is collect it and study the shit (!) out of it.

We also have to talk more frankly about crap. It makes many people uncomfortable. But that embarrassment may stem from a problem inside. And the only way to know is to talk about it, with a doctor at least.

But the hard (or soft) truth is that the medical community may not know enough about the links between feces and human nutrition and health because there hasn’t been enough momentum to initiate a large-scale study of the stuff. There have been forays, like this 2006 study of fecal microbes, but what’s needed is more holistic.

I’m talking epidemiological studies across geography, socio-economic levels, culture, language and age, correlated with health outcomes; studies that focus on the big (diet, digestion) and the small (bacteria and viruses). I’m thinking of routine samples at schools and doctors’ offices, PSAs from the President and Surgeon General, and Stool-Stations on street corners—public bathrooms and medical research in one! Isn’t it time we put our money where our…um, you know what I mean.