Stools & Poops: Shape, Color, Texture Can Reveal Disease

Stools – no, I don’t mean the high circular chairs in bars – but poops. How well do you know your poops?

If you’re reading this, chances are pretty good that you’ve examined your poops more than once.

Take it from me: Once you examine your stools, it won’t gross you out; it will become very tolerable.

Doctors realize that stools can be very telling of a person’s health, and strong indicators of all sorts of disease, including cancer.

Poops come in so many kinds of shapes, textures and colors.

They can be oily or greasy, hard, come out like pebbles or long ribbons, be soft, full of undigested food, laced with blood, very foul smelling, be floaters or sinkers…

Here are several BM articles featuring a gastroenterologist’s expert answers.

Causes of narrow stools other than colon cancer

 

Is there a way to tell the difference between stools from irritable bowel syndrome and colon cancer?

 

When stool color might mean cancer

 

Are narrow stools common with IBS?

Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.