(5 mins) Transcript.

Dr Greger first asks, 'what is normal bowel movement'? Is it more like 2-3 times a week or 2-3 times a day? And how do we know what 'normal' is? Most of this video focuses on constipation - many people have to strain and apply pressure to trigger stool movement. Does all this straining and pressure application lead to diseases? Yeah, it's believed to be a contributory factor to diseases like diverticulosis, hiatal hernia and so on.

Does Squatty Potty help? It's a device that has recently emerged in the market to change the angle at which we defecate -- instead of sitting on modern toilet bowls, we go into more of a squatting position with this device, just like our ancestors did. Dr Greger says that we can achieve a similar effect by simply bending forward (so that our thighs apply pressure against our abdomen).

… but wait a minute! Why apply all this pressure? And why discover creative ways to apply even more pressure, when we know that pressure may lead to diseases like hiatal hernia and diverticulosis? What's the root cause of the problem? Why are stools difficult to pass for some people?

The root cause is believed to be lack of fiber in the diet.Now fiber is found exclusively in plants (but if we start processing plants to generate processed food, we often create fiber-deficient foods). Thus we have yet another argument to consume plant-based foods (only plants have fiber) in their whole form (processed plant foods are often fiber deficient).

Memorable quotes from this video:

(2 mins) Transcript. An old video by Dr Greger that highlights theassociation between large volumes of bowel movements and lower risk of appendicitis, colon cancer, constipation, and diverticulitis.

An interesting insight in this video: "People don't realize you can have daily bowel movements, and still be effectively constipated. You can be regular, but five days late. What you're re flushing today you may have eaten last week. If you want to test it for yourself, all you need to do is eat a big bowl of beets and see when things turns pretty in pink. And ideally, it should be down in the 24- to 36-hour range to reach that half-pound target."

… so what foods take a long time from mouth to anus? And which foods take little time? Dr Greger explains it in the next video called 'Mass Food Transit' (see next video).

(1 min) Transcript. A short, insightful video. He defines 'transit time' as time taken between food intake and bowel movements (associated with that food). First, Dr Greger explains that vegetarians have shorter duration between food consumption and bowel movements (about 1-3 days); meat consumption may extend this to 4-5 days! The average duration is also a function of gender (women have longer transit times). Finally, he explains the inverse relationsip between transit time and stool mass in a graph: if the transit time is shorter, average stool weight is more! In his previous video titled 'Stool Size Matters', Dr Greger points out that smaller volumes of stool size are associated with myriad chronic diseases.

(1 min) Transcript. An old, short video by Dr Greger. Excerpt:

(3 mins) Transcript. An interesting video that summarizes a classification of stools depending upon their shape and size. Next, Dr Greger studies what kind of stools are passed by omnivores, vegetarians and vegans. But Dr Greger doesn't explain whether any type of stool shape and size is associated with disease.

(2 mins) Transcript. Summary: "ven when fiber and fruit and vegetable intake are kept constant, choosing foods richer in antioxidants may increase stool size, which is associated with lower cancer risk."

(4 mins) Transcript. Summary: "The average number of bowel movements a week is compared between those eating prunes, those taking a fiber supplement (psyllium), and those eating a strictly plant-based diet." What did the study show? Baseline: 1.7 bowel movements per week on average; with prunes, the number incresead to 3.5 per week, with metamucil (psyllium husk based), the number increased to 2.8 per week. Dr Greger then wonders,

(2 mins) Transcript. This video studies a curious statistic: Which country has the largest (and smallest) average stool size?