Should Your Poop Float or Sink? Here’s Why It Matters
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It’s true that poop itself is a waste product—but there’s actually plenty of valuable health information you can glean from your own craps . After all, shifts in everyday functions, like getting your period , peeing, and yes, pooping can be one way your body tells you something is wonky. And in the realm of number two, noting whether your poop tends to float or sink, and if the answer has changed, is a part of interpreting that message.
“Anything that comes out of you is important to look at,” Felice Schnoll-Sussbaum, MD , board-certified gastroenterologist and director of the Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health at Weill Cornell Medicine, tells SELF. And given you’re probably taking care of business in private, “nobody is going to know the way your stools look aside from you,” she says, which makes it essential to take a glimpse pre-flush. This way, you can learn your baseline, so you’ll be able to tell if things are out of the norm too.
Read on to learn whether poop should float or sink, what each scenario can reveal about the functioning of your GI system, and when unusual poops warrant a call to your doctor.
Is it normal for poop to float or sink?
You might remember from science class that an object denser than water will generally sink—and the same is usually true of poop, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says. So if your craps regularly fall to the bottom of the toilet, know that that’s typical. (Pat on the back!)
A floating poop, by contrast, can be atypical, since it means it contains something that’s decreasing its density, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says, like gas bubbles or excess fat. To get science-y for a sec: It’s not that these additions make your poop lighter, per se, but that they spread out its mass over a larger surface area, which makes it more buoyant. (This is the same reason why a giant ship can float even when a small stone pebble will sink.)
So, is it always a problem if poop is floating versus sinking? Nope, not necessarily. In fact, floating stools on their own are not usually a cause for concern. “It primarily has to do with what you’re ingesting, in terms of the fiber and carbohydrate content of your diet,” Taneisha Grant, MD , board-certified gastroenterologist at Yale Medicine and assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine, tells SELF. But while certain eating habits can lead to totally innocuous floaters, there are also some medical scenarios that can strip your poops of their typical density.
If poop generally sinks…then why is my poop floating?
1. You’re eating a whole lot of fiber.
The most likely reason is actually a positive one—you’re doing a good job getting your daily fill of fiber (roughly 28 grams), or you’ve recently started ramping up how much of it you’re eating. Part of the reason fiber is so fantastic for you is that it can function as a prebiotic , feeding the good bacteria in your GI tract, which create short-chain fatty acids that strengthen the lining of your gut. A by-product of that process, though, is a bunch of gas, which can get trapped in your stool, eventually leading to airier poop that floats, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says.
The same additional gas is what can make you feel bloated when you begin a fibrous diet, she adds, so if you’re often experiencing that sensation of needing to fart (or actually tooting up a storm) and you’re popping out floaters, fiber may certainly be the culprit. You don’t want to cut it out, though—fiber is, again, a great thing for gut health and can help keep you regular. The key is just to increase your intake gradually and be sure to drink plenty of water as you’re doing so, because fiber needs liquid to move things along smoothly.
2. Your body isn’t absorbing fat well.
Similar to gas, extra fat in your poops will decrease their density, sometimes enough to leave them bobbing (think about how oil floats on water). In this case, though, you’d likely notice that your poops look greasy, too, or pop out along with droplets of oil, “almost as if you poured some into the toilet,” Dr. Grant says. These fatty poops (a.k.a. steatorrhea) also tend to stick to the sides of the bowl when you flush, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says.
As for what causes the shitty fat buildup in the first place? You could just have a super high-fat diet to the point where your body isn’t able to take it all in, and some of it’s pouring over into your poops, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says. But it’s also possible that your GI system is struggling to absorb the fat you’re eating (even if it’s not a lot) because of an issue with one of the organs required for that process, she says, like your liver or pancreas.
Basically, bile released by the liver and the enzyme lipase secreted by the pancreas work in tandem to help you break down fats—so anything messing with the creation of either substance or its ability to reach food in your GI system can leave you with extra fat in your poop, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says. That includes gallstones (which can block the flow of these chemicals), as well as liver disease and chronic pancreatitis, in rarer cases. Similarly, Crohn’s , an inflammatory condition, can also leave you with fattier floating poops because it causes swelling in the part of the small intestine where bile does most of its work on fat.
But in the case of any of the above conditions, you’d almost definitely catch other red flags beyond the floaters, like deep abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, fever, and loss of appetite, for starters (more on when to see a doctor below).
3. You’re fighting a gut infection.
A pathogen setting up shop in your stomach can certainly mess with your digestion and leave you with floating poops (among other things, like diarrhea, vomiting, and belly pain).
The most popular bacterial culprits, like Escherichia coli (a.k.a. E. coli ) and Salmonella , are most likely to trigger goopy or liquid-y poops. But Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says that infection with the common parasite Giardia , or giardiasis, often turns up floaters because this microbe can interfere with your ability to absorb nutrients, including fats—leaving all that grease running into your poops.
4. You have a functional GI condition, like IBS.
It’s possible that your digestion is discombobulated because of a disconnect between your gut and your brain (rather than anything chemical or structural happening in your body). The result is a condition like irritable bowel syndrome or functional dyspepsia (a.k.a. indigestion), both of which can involve unpredictable spasms of your intestines, generating gas, bloating, and yes, airier poops, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says. Indeed, a 2015 study found that floaters are characteristic of mixed IBS (i.e. alternating constipation and diarrhea ) in particular.
Recent research has also shown that IBS tends to occur alongside a bacterial imbalance in the gut, specifically small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), Dr. Grant says, which scientists suspect could exacerbate its symptoms. What makes things worse: All those extra microbes floating around your GI tract can start to break down the bile you need to absorb fats, once again sending more of those greasy blobs into your poops.
When to see a doctor about floating poops
The biggest things to consider are how long you’ve been noticing the floaters and whether they’re happening alongside some other more concerning symptoms.
If your poop occasionally bobs in the bowl or tends to fluctuate in consistency, that’s less worrisome, Dr. Grant says, versus a noticeable shift in density that happened one day and persisted, particularly if things are looking especially greasy or oily. The latter is a sign to call your primary care doctor or a gastroenterologist, she says.
The same thing goes if you’re experiencing any other symptoms or changes in core body functions along with the floaters, Dr. Grant says. On the GI front, she says, that might look like abdominal pain, ample gas and bloating, constipation, and diarrhea, as well as shifts in how often you’re going or changes in poop color . And elsewhere, keep an eye out for any signs of unintentional weight loss, dark pee, yellowing of your skin, fever, and itching, which can point to liver or pancreas issues, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum says.
No matter your situation, Dr. Schnoll-Sussbaum also stresses that there’s zero shame in bringing up poop with your doctor; they are professionals and deal with this shit on the regular (literally). Plus, offbeat poops can, again, hold key intel about your health—and nothing should keep you or your doctor from accessing that.
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Originally Appeared on SELF
