When does undigested food appear in the stool?

The appearance of undigested food in the stool is not something that happens often, it cannot be defined as normal and fortunately it is almost never a sign of serious problems. It has a close relationship with the type of food you eat, in fact limiting their consumption will tend to solve the problem.

Some foods are difficult to digest, especially those very rich in fibers which are quite resistant to all the processes developed by the stomach and intestines during the demolition of food.

However, this should not prevent us from including a good dose of fibers in our diet as these, inside the feces, have the function of attracting water, making the fecal cylinder softer and easier to expel. In fact, fibers are one of the most important allies for intestinal health and for the fight against constipation, also because a bulkier faecal mass stimulates peristaltic movements which make us expel faeces faster.

Among the traces of food that we can find in our feces we can find corn, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, lentils. In these cases the main cause is certainly caused by the presence of cellulose present in the cuticles and in the outermost coatings of these foods. Our body has all the enzymes available for the demolition of various sugars including starches, but cellulose is excluded from the list.

When the cause of undigested food in the stool is a specific part of the food itself there is no reason to worry. The suggestion is to chew the food carefully, in order to reduce the size of the particles as much as possible and make them more accessible to digestive enzymes. Another tip is to consume cooked vegetables as much as possible, in order to soften the fibers which can thus be digested, thus maximizing the amount of nutrients absorbed.

When should you worry? and when not?

For all that we have said so far, the presence of food in the stool should never be a cause for concern. But there are cases in which this phenomenon is accompanied by particular symptoms and for this reason it would be good to report everything to your doctor to make sure there is nothing serious.

The symptoms in question are:

• persistent diarrhea;
• Excessive weight loss without a plausible explanation;
• Presence of blood in the stool;
• Frequency in defecation.

This last point is very important, as a too rapid intestinal transit means that the food remains for a short time available to the enzymes responsible for digestion, so it is very easy to find it later only partially digested in the faeces. This represents a problem because the nutrients necessary for the body to carry out all its functions and obtain energy are not absorbed. This results in weight loss, a sense of weakness, lack of concentration and energy, anemia.

All the symptoms listed can be the indicator of pathologies such as:

• Crohn’s disease: an inflammatory disease that affects the intestines and causes a variety of problems often accompanied by pain;
• Celiac disease: an autoimmune disease, caused by a reaction by the body against gluten, a protein molecule present in some cereals, including wheat. This immune reaction causes a flattening of the intestinal villi responsible for absorption. Furthermore, in affected subjects gluten represents a toxic molecule that creates even very serious symptoms;
• Irritable bowel syndrome: in this case the intestine becomes particularly sensitive, even to sudden changes in temperature and periods of particular stress;
• Lactose intolerance. Some people lack an enzyme called lactase, which is responsible for digesting lactose, a sugar found in milk. The latter, if present as it is, is toxic to the intestine and causes painful colic, flatulence and poor digestion;
• pancreatic insufficiency. It is known that the pancreas is a gland that also takes part in digestion processes, as well as producing insulin to control blood sugar spikes. It produces pancreatic juice, which contains a series of enzymes responsible for digesting many nutrients present in food. In patients with pancreatic insufficiency, this gland does not produce functional enzymes and as a result digestion will not be optimal.

What to do?

When the presence of food in the stool is accompanied by one of the symptoms described above, the best thing is to contact your trusted doctor, in order to report all the symptoms in order to arrive at a diagnosis. Often the first test to be prescribed is the examination of the faeces and, based on the response, continue with other tests.