Dr. Trisha Pasricha

And that's because one of the jobs of the colon is that it sucks water out of, at this point, the waste.

that's there because everything that you don't, again, you've absorbed the nutrients you need in the small bowel.

Now it's the waste that reaches the colon.

All the water is getting sucked out.

So as it goes along this way, it's getting drier and firmer and harder.

Eventually, Mel, it makes its way to the back, all the way to the back to your pelvis.

So this is a female model.

I'm going to hold this up.

This is a cross section of your pelvis, a female pelvis, okay?

So this is your bum.

Right here is the colon, the last part of the colon called the rectum.

So this is where all that food you've eaten that has now become waste, that has now been fermented by your microbiome, it hangs out here in the rectum until you're ready to release it back into the free world.

The sphincters that hold it tight.

You have control over your external sphincter.

So if you say we are not ready, you can shut the door.

You can shut that door most of the time.

Yeah, there are times where you can't.

And then you can see, so this is the back of your colon and the part that's called the rectum.

For in women, we have our uterus here and then our bladder up front.

So it's all the way at the back.