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The secret behind easier bowel movement may be in the angles

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It is human nature to squat when defecating. It was not until the invention of the modern-day toilet that humans started to sit upright for waste elimination. A new invention, the Squatty Potty, is bringing back that natural human instinct.

Dr. Rajeev Jain joins “Take Care,” this week to talk about the Squatty Potty and whether or not it really helps. Jain is the chief of gastroenterology at Texas Heath Dallas and a partner at Texas Digestive Disease Consultants.

For humans, bowel movements are all about the angles.

“Physiologically there is an angle when you defecate and in western countries as we sit on a [toilet] that angle is not the ideal angle,” Jain says. “These angles are critical for defecation. When they get disrupted you don’t have easily passable bowl movements.”

Think of the colon as one large water hose. At the end, where waste elimination happens, is the rectum. The rectum is held in place naturally by the puborectalis muscle, which kinks the rectum much like when a bent hose stops the water from flowing.

As a human sinks lower and lower towards the squatting position the rectum slowly starts to unkink, making it easier to defecate. The closer humans are to a squatting position the easier it will be to eliminate the waste.

The squatting position is much like the unbending of the water hose.

“In Asian countries the commode is in the ground and you actually squat to defecate and that’s the natural way of doing it. I think the Squatty Potty sort of reintroduces that,” Jain says.

The Squatty Potty brings the squatting position back to the western culture. Essentially, the Squatty Potty is a stool, used to during wasted elimination, that allows you to squat over the toilet.

“I think it is a great concept,” Jain says. “The reason I think it is reasonable to consider is that you are not doing some kind of intervention to the patient that is risky. Putting your feet up on a stool is not going to hurt you.”

Putting the body in its natural waste elimination position will help defecation more than hurt it.

“It would be great to have some scientific data behind it to show that it really does help patients. But right now I tell patients to go ahead and try it,” Jain says. “And it is cheap. It’s not like you’re spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to do something.”

The Squatty Potty starts at $25 and can be purchased on a variety of online and in store outlets.

But, Jain says it’s more about the angle than the device.

“You can buy or use your own stool at the right level and get the same or better results,” Jain says.

When it comes to defecation; why not make it natural?