Dr. Trisha Pasricha

One, yeah, the volume's going to go up because the fiber, the soluble fiber, is going to hold on to water.

It's going to be softer.

So in some ways, that volume's going to be more.

But also because it's not going to necessarily form as solid a patty that you're going to want to hold on to.

It's going to just come out quickly, effortlessly, and more easily.

It shouldn't be pure liquid.

It shouldn't look like mud.

I would say that maybe we swung in the wrong direction there.

But it will just be easier to pass.

And in fact, they've done these studies where...

For example, in the US, there's this statistic that we talk about, which is based on a survey of thousands of adults in the US who considered themselves to have normal bowel movements.

And they said, OK, how often are you going?

And it turns out anywhere from three times a day to once every third day would be within the range of normal, although people still sort of believed that once a day was normal.

When they looked at other countries, for example, in East India, where people eat a significantly higher fiber diet,

those people were going like on a median of 14 times per week, which is almost twice as much as we sort of think is normal here in the U.S.

But it's often just a function of fiber.

And there are also other factors too, right?

Like exercise plays a role.

Your stress certainly can play a role, though what you're describing to me sounds interesting because it could be a form of post-infectious IBS, as you're describing.

But there have actually been a lot of studies about bacterial infections and how those can kind of sensitize the lining of the gut