Season 4 Bonus Episode: What Does the Color of Your Poop Mean?
Welcome to this bonus episode of the Gut Show! We’re covering what the color of your poop actually means. During the show, I talk about what your poop actually is and what it contains, the importance and impact of bile, and finally what all the colors are trying to say about your poop. It's really helpful to take the time to look back at the poop before you flush the toilet and to see what might be going on because our poop tells us a lot about our health! We're building off of our main episode of Is My Poop Normal, so I really encourage you, if you haven't already listened to that episode, press pause, go listen to the main episode first to get some more details around what's considered normal or abnormal.
In this episode, we cover:
What is poop?
Does what we eat impact the color?
The different colors in your poop
What does the color mean?
Is black stool and red stool bad?
Can you poop orange?
Don’t forget to connect to others in The GUT Community, a Facebook group for those with IBS and digestive disorders to support one another and dive deeper into each episode together.
Now before we really dive into the different colors, I want to start with talking about what poop actually is!
We talked about formation and all of that in the main episode. Understanding what poop is, is really helpful because obviously, what you eat doesn't just come out in that food form anymore, right? Poop comes out in a different form than what goes into your mouth throughout the day and the reason why is that poop is actually made up of food leftovers from digestion, the different little components of foods that weren't fully digested. Maybe be skins of vegetables, water, different organisms, both dead and alive, it's funny to think about, but it's true! Also mucus and old red blood cells, and this part is really important when we're thinking about the coloring of your poop and of what's going on. There are also some other digestive juices and things that are mixed in including bile, which is going to come into play with coloring.
So when food moves through your GI tract, it's broken down into the different macronutrients and your micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals. Then the body starts to absorb and utilize those different nutrients, we talk about that more in the main episode. Fibers are parts of plant foods that are not digestible, so they make their way through the GI tract, they get to the large intestine, mostly intact, like kind of broken apart, but they're not fully broken down into the specific nutrients like other things are.
In the large intestine, there are microbes and bacteria that ferment that fiber to produce beneficial byproducts and gas. Now, this is complex way beyond that kind of simple base form, but simplest state when it comes to poop being formed. So what happens is that what's left over from this fermentation process of the fiber is what comes together to form poop. And so more fiber can help with the bulking and formation of stool and poop in order to get those shapes and textures and consistencies that you want. You're also going to see different colorings of foods and even textures of foods that are found in your poop as part of that kind of leftover process.
Now, about 75% of your poop is actually water, unless it's been moving too slowly through the GI tract or sitting in the colon for too long, where the body's reabsorbing that water too quickly or for too long. A portion of your poop is actually made up of dead and alive organisms, like I mentioned earlier, as well as dead cells from the intestinal walls. So it's very normal that parts of the intestinal wall kind of come apart, and they rebuild, just like every part of the body and tissues in the body, they are constantly breaking down and rebuilding, breaking down and rebuilding. That is a healthy person in a healthy body to be able to break down and rebuild.
If you are breaking down without rebuilding, that's a major concern, but it is very normal that poop is going to contain some of these old cells, old red blood cells and old cells and parts of that intestinal wall tissue. And sometimes this might come out and be seen and it might look kind of mucousy and stringy or something like that. If you have that very often, that is not a good thing, but every now and then that can happen from the intestinal wall kind of breaking apart and rebuilding.
Now in some people, their intestinal wall is going to be more compromised and more damaged, and again, that's where you might get some more warning signs. If you're seeing lots of that, it almost looks like a casing of some sort, that's not a good thing. But in your regular poop, you are going to see little parts of that every now and then, it's just going to help make up the form that you see in the toilet.
It can be easy to think that what you eat determines the color of your poop, but you're not eating brown things all the time and your poop is usually brown, so it doesn't always compute that what you eat determines the color. However, sometimes what you eat can impact the color and we're going to dive into that a bit more with specific colors and specific foods and ingredients that can contribute to the color. But overall, there's way more to the color of your poop than just what you eat and even thinking about what it's made of, that doesn't really make sense in terms of coloring, right?
So your dead organisms, you're not really going to see that, the food particles are going to be kind of mushy and broken out, water has no color to it really. So that brings us to the actual coloring process. The color of poop is dependent on what you consume, the health of your GI tract and how much bile as well as old red blood cells are found in your stool. So let's focus first on bile.
Bile is produced by your liver and is released by your gallbladder to help break down the foods that you eat. Primarily fats, but also other food macronutrients, even your carbohydrates and your proteins. So this is released into the small intestine where a lot of that absorption and utilization is taking place. Bile has a yellow green color to it, and while most is reabsorbed in your body in the large intestine, after it does its job, it gets reabsorbed, some bile is going to add to your poop and contribute a yellowish green color to that stool that's being formed.
If your body is not reabsorbing bile, or there's an issue with bile, then you may notice more of a yellow green tint, so we're going to talk about that a little bit more. And if you're missing bio completely, where your body's not even producing it, you may notice a lack of that yellow green that's really the base form of the brown color that you're going to see.
Bilirubin is a substance in your blood that is formed after red blood cells are broken down. So your red blood cells have broken down and they form bilirubin. This has a yellow color to it as well and will add to your poop. The mixture of your bilirubin, your bile, and that leftover food matter is what leads to this brown color range, which can range from dark brown to a pale, lighter brown. That is all considered very normal, healthy and what is expected with the color of your poop.
We see poop emojis are usually a really bright kind of vibrant brown, it doesn't always have to look like that. If you're ranging in the color that is okay, sometimes it'll be darker, sometimes it'll be lighter. But if you're outside of this brown range, then this is something that we need to kind of investigate further and keep up with to see if something may be going on.
So let's dive into the different colors that you might see and what they could mean, starting with green. So the foods you eat like green vegetables, green food coloring, and iron supplements can all contribute to the green color of your stool. This could also mean that you have diarrhea, and bile is not mixing with your bilirubin to turn brown. So maybe you're getting that greenish color from the bile that's coming out. One thing that you want to do if you're noticing green stool is you first want to ask, am I having diarrhea and is there like a fattiness to my stool that might signify that there is more bile that has not been reabsorbed.
If you're having diarrhea, this isn't a top concern unless this continues day after day after day after day, and becomes a cycle that you're having. But if it's a short term diarrhea stint, or maybe you have been constipated, now you have diarrhea, foodborne illness or something's going on, a stomach virus, a so you're having more diarrhea that then resolves in the color goes back to brown, not something to worry about.
The next question you want to ask is have I been eating a lot of green vegetables or have I had green food coloring recently, and if that has been true, then you may assume that it might be what you ate or what you had. So we might see this from like really high green juices, green smoothies, really, really high green vegetable intake, or if you're eating green vegetables, and let's say your digestive capacity is a bit lower, so you've been struggling with your digestion overall, that could contribute to some green color. Again, this should improve as the green intake goes down, the green food coloring has made its way through, but if it doesn't improve, that it's something we might dig into more.
Now the next color is yellow. So this is kind of in the green family, a little bit closer to brown. This can actually be normal for some people, due to again, their bio reabsorption of bile production. If the stool is yellow and it's really greasy or fatty looking, then that could be a sign that your body is poorly digesting fats. So that might mean that you just ate a lot of fats that you haven't been eating, so a really heavy fat meal, that's the first question I would ask if you're seeing yellow stool, did I eat something really fatty, recently, that might be impacting me today.
If you're noticing that this is happening when you're not really eating a lot of fats, but even just the smallest amount of fat, then that could be a sign that there is a fat absorption issue, which can happen in some and might be related to bile or some other things going on in the body, that's something you want to bring up with your doctor.
Yellow stool can also be a sign of celiac disease, so if you do notice that you have increased risk of celiac disease, because you have a digestive disorder, like IBS, or maybe even IBD, maybe you haven't been properly screened for celiac, you have a family history of celiac, anything like that going on, and you're seeing yellow stool often, especially after you eat gluten containing foods, then it might be something to ask your doctor about to properly rule out celiac.
So moving down the line with your colors a bit more, we have white or kind of a clay colored, ashy colored stool. So the most common reason for like white or ashy colored stool is medications. And bismuth, which is commonly used for diarrhea, it's found in Pepto Bismol, is a very common cause of this. And so if you are utilizing a lot of bismuth, or different medications, maybe you just started a new medication, that could have an impact on the stool coloring.
Barium can also impact this, which might be used for different scans that you're getting or tests, so if you had to swallow like a barium solution, then the next few days, you may have a white or clay colored stool. This could also be a lack of bile, like I mentioned before, we're not getting that green and yellow hue that we're looking for and so the stool is actually coming out more white, that would be a sign that either the livers not producing it or the gallbladder is not releasing it and that's something that may need to be evaluated further. This could also be a sign of liver disease kind of for the same reason, so we want to make sure we're evaluating the overall picture, looking at other labs, just making sure we keep an eye on it if this is something that continues even without certain medications at play.
Now what about the opposite end of that spectrum with black stool? Black stool can indicate that you've been eating large amounts of blueberries, black licorice or even black food colorings of some sort. If you are a blueberry eater, maybe you had a big blueberry smoothie or something like that, then you may have more black and like extra dark stool for that reason. If you're a black licorice eater, same thing.
Black stool can also mean that you're taking iron supplements, really high dose iron. This doesn't happen for everyone, but it can, so if you are taking an iron supplement, maybe recently started one for some reason, then that could be impacting your stool and making it appear more black. Other medications can also have this impact, so again, if you've recently started a medication, that's something you may want to evaluate and ask your doctor about or the prescriber of the medication to better understand the side effects.
Worst case scenario is black stool can indicate bleeding in the upper GI tract. So if you've checked through that list of okay, have I eaten blueberries, have I taken iron supplements, have I started a new medication, and it's all kind of coming back blank but you are noticing this black stool often, maybe accompanied by pain and some other symptoms, then you may want to get evaluated for potential bleeding in the upper part of your GI tract, which could be a sign of IBD, an ulcer or something like that that's going on, so you want to make sure you get it evaluated.
And then red stool. So red stool can mean that you've recently eaten beets, you've eaten a large portions of tomatoes or tomato sauce, maybe you've consumed some gelatin or red drinks or any other red food coloring, those are very common and can contribute to this red stool. Sometimes what that will look like is it almost looks like you put red dye in this in the poop and so it diffuses into the toilet bowl. That is very common. So the first thing you do to ask if you see that, and you're kind of panicking a bit is did this happen?
Something I would also say for menstruating individuals, are you on your period? Is there any chance any blood from there is mixed in with your stool whenever you pooped? So that's another question that you want to ask.
Now, if that is not the case, and you haven't eaten any red foods in the past 48 to 72 hours, this could indicate bleeding in the lower part of the GI tract, the lower part of the colon and even the surrounding of the anus. And so that's where you may want to evaluate, do you have hemorrhoids? Do you have any anal fissures and tears anything like that?
If you've been dealing with chronic constipation, or you were just like pushing or on the toilet for a long time, wiping with a lot of aggression for the last day, any of those things could indicate some bleeding. Now this is very minimal like spotting on the toilet paper and you notice like oh, I'm a little bit irritated, you can keep the area clean, and allow it to heal, keep the stool soft, and this may improve. But if the bleeding is coming out, if it's very significant, if it doesn't improve, if it's not healing, and it's accompanied by this lower pain, then that's something you may want to bring up with your doctor and discuss further to better understand what might be going on and if there's anything that needs to be evaluated in your colon.
We don't want to ignore these warning signs that something could be wrong, so it's good to just take note of what's happening and watch how it changes over a day or two. If it feels like something is going wrong, or something is really off, make an appointment and talk to your doctor about it.
The last color we'll cover is orange. So orange is not a very common color that we see, but it can be be related to high intakes of orange foods, orange coloring, it also could be related to antibiotics or even antacids, with large amounts of acids. And so if you notice that you have just started like a different antibiotic therapy, or you just started antacid or something like that, that could explain why you're seeing more orange colored stool.
This could also be a sign of poor bile release, also not getting those other colors kind of mixing in to give you that brown color. So it might be that in between of yellow and brown that you're seeing, and so if you do see this, again, take note of it, do your checklist, and discuss it with your doctor or the prescriber of a medication if that's in place to see what might be going on and if it needs to be evaluated.
So I hope that was helpful in better understanding your poop!
One big important takeaway from this is that the color of your stool is not always something to be concerned about or to fear, but it is something to be knowledgeable about. If you're not looking at your poop after you go, then you might be missing some signals and communication from your body, so it's really helpful to take the time to look back at the poop before you flush the toilet and to see what might be going on.
If you are concerned, take a picture, show it to your doctor, take a log, write things down so that you can better understand the signals your body's giving you to then get on top of whatever problem may be there if there's one and find the solutions that you need to have better digestion and better poops that are the lovely brown that you are looking for.
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