Dr. Trisha Pasricha

If you're suffering with constipation, a lot of us will have grandmothers who said, oh, what you should take are prunes.

And prunes are great for constipation.

Like they actually do, they've done these great studies head to head with prunes and then a fiber supplement called psyllium.

And they found actually prunes are wonderful.

Grandma was right.

But what more recent studies have shown, randomized controlled trials, are kiwis.

Two kiwis a day can be great when you're specifically dealing with bloating and constipation.

And yes, they're very high in fiber, but probably it's more than just the fiber because these studies...

that have compared head-to-head randomized control trials of kiwis and prunes, they've sort of balanced so that you're getting the same amount of fiber from both groups, but the kiwis seem to do a better job, cause less bloating.

And we think it's because when you eat these different kinds of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and other things, you're getting more than just the fiber.

You're getting all of the other nutrients that come with these foods.

And so we actually don't know quite what the mechanism is about kiwis, but we do know it's beneficial.

So like a quick trick if you're really struggling with constipation is kiwis or prunes.

Prunes can make people's bloating a little bit worse.

Kiwis didn't seem to do that.

Yeah.

The two other factors that I think we don't think about for our guts, we think about them probably more often for our brain health or for other organs, are exercise and sleep.

Well, it turns out those are incredibly important for our guts as well.

Regular exercise, like the kind you do long-term, sustain, it becomes a habit, that's associated with increased motility of your gut, which will give you an easier, more quickly passing stool in the long-term.

If you just go for a walk once in the morning, just that movement alone will start to stimulate contractions.