New research shows that sitting on the toilet to void your bowels is having an adverse effect on your health.
Good news if you're not a fan of the water charges: it seems ditching your toilet would not only result in you saving a load of money, but it would also make your bowel movements easier and your gut healthier, all in one foul fell swoop.
Giulia Enders is currently studying for her doctorate in microbiology in Frankfurt, but has already released a book called Darm mit Charme, which translates as Charming Bowels, which sold 200,000 copies. Continuing a theme, her latest work Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Under-rated Organ also deals with the way we go to the toilet and explores how sitting down to do it is actually doing more harm than good when it comes to defecating, as it slows down the process and puts unnecessary strain on the body.
Enders claims that it would not only be more efficient, but also better for our health if we squatted instead of sat, as the part of the gut that releases fecal matter is akin to a kinked hose, and that it won't "open the hatch completely" when we're sitting down.
Her work also posits that the higher incidence of haemorrhoids, diverticulitis and other bowel diseases in Europe and the US compared to Asia may be as a result of the fact that we're more likely to sit than we are to crouch: "1.2 billion people around the world who squat have almost no incidence of diverticulosis and fewer problems with piles. We in the west, on the other hand, squeeze our gut tissue until it comes out of our bottoms."
So, time to sort your s**t out, it would seem. Or your s**tting, at least...
Via The Mirror
