# Talissa (and others) - corn and transit time.



## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

I've been meaning to ask you about sweetcorn and transit time. I seem to recall that you did a post about it once and I can't for the life of me find it now. Anyway, without remembering what you said, I ate some corn for the first time in years a few days ago. I knew it would upset my digestion and it sure did. I ate it about midday and the first evidence of it was evacuated about 830 pm and a bit more half an hour or so later. Also some remnants in the morning too. Is there any way that this experiment can teach me something about my digestion? Cheers.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:I ate it about midday and the first evidence of it was evacuated about 830 pm and a bit more half an hour or so later.


Midday is when, exactly? It sounds quick enough to make me wonder whether you mistook it something else for the corn.


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## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

It was about 1230 pm. I can't think of anything else it could have been as I have a very restricted diet. I'll experiment again some time when I am able to stay at home for the day.


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Hey Arnie, I think that was Kathleen who talked about transit time. Normal can be anywhere from 12/14 hours all the way to 72 hours(ranging from eating a heck of alot of fiber to barely a whisper)...acc to webmd less than 14 hour transit means "D"







caused by intestinal infection "or" IBS. T-


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## Prudy (Jan 21, 2006)

Well I know if it had been me... when I could eat corn...... I would see the corn kernals in the stools... so I was sure ..... with me... it is usually within 3- 12 hours that it will pass... some things sooner... greens like endive.. romaine.. would be out within a couple of hours.... I could see the dark green leaves floating in the water... We pretty much can tell when what we have eaten passes.. we are scientist of our own stools...


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:It was about 1230 pm.


8 hours is extremely quick, certainly way faster than normal and is not IBS. Sounds like you have a gastroenteritis.


> quote:it is usually within 3- 12 hours that it will pass... some things sooner.


3 hours? This obviously was *not* the case. You mistook what you saw from previous meal.


> quote:We pretty much can tell when what we have eaten passes.. we are scientist of our own stools...


No, you are not. This kind of testing is not valid because one has no way to ensure what was seen really came from the previous meal and not some other pior meal, which is likely to be the case as it was above. And also because one needs a substantial mass and to watch what the bulk of this mass does.


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## Prudy (Jan 21, 2006)

Hey F...Well since you don't know me... or what my particular eating pattern is.... Hard for you to ASSUME.... what I know is or isn't in my stool.... If I only ate corn once a month... and the day I ate it, several hours later it appears to have passed... it sure as heck isn't from a month ago.. now is it...????I don't need to explain to you anyway ... yes I am a scientist of what goes into my body and what comes out... I have been dealing with IBS a heck of alot longer then since I joined this board...But hey, if you want to check it out... I can, right along with M.... forward you some for your own scientific advancement.....and I will even enclose an itemized list of what I ate to manufacture it...so you can compare your results.....


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Well, unless your biology is completely different from all other human beings, there are a fair number of things that can be assumed about you. Generally, unless something freaky is going on it takes X amount of time for food to get from the mouth to the anus. In every person (16-72 hours is the usual normal range). There are not people who are anywhere close to normal in the GI tract (which IBSers typically are) that will pass stuff through the GI tract many times faster than normal. When you have a GI infection you can (I have, but only when really sick with something, I tend to the short end of normal range usually, but it never comes through faster than 12-16 hours unless I am sick with very frequenty watery diarrhea) but that is not normal everyday digestion.You may be good at observing what you believe you see, however many people do end up making assumptions about what they believe to be true which have something about them which makes them out of the range of normal human biology.I dont' think it is crazy or whatever to assume that the rules of biology, chemistry, and physics apply to people who post here







If you regulary pass food in 3 hours, you probably also would have some other symptoms that are out of the range of IBS, like malabsorption syndromes and such.K.


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## eric (Jul 8, 1999)

If foods pass through a person too quickly they would have malabsorbtion problems and would probably be on a feeding tube.In IBS however, nutrient digestion is normal, unless there is another condition going on as well as IBS, which can happen.A person would still have the problem of malabsorbtion and nutrient deficiencies which would be a problem itself.Gastrointestinal Transit: How Long Does It Take? http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pat...cs/transit.html


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## Prudy (Jan 21, 2006)

Well... maybe I am not the norm... and since I didn't frequently eat corn or lettuces of any kind because of what it did and does to my digestion... when I ate it... I think I am familiar enough to recognize corn kernals in my stool... and pieces of lettuce... when I hadn't eaten it in weeks.. Comprehend... And no I did not have a virus with diarrhea....and this not all food... this was when I ate those certain things... which I do not anymore because of what it does to me... So.. be as it may... and whatever... I am done on this topic... End of subject for me... Ta.. Ta.....







Oh and in case you think I am new to my S/S... I have been dealing with this for close to 20 years......


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Well extremely short transit times are something that is usually associated with something serious, I would report it to my doctor if I wasn't otherwise sick but passed corn or other foods in 3 hours or less on a regular basis.Especially if you do it at the beginning of a BM rather than after all the stuff that should be in there has come out first.K.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:Well extremely short transit times are something that is usually associated with something serious,


like cholera, which results in death in very short order. That whatever was observed was *not* what the observer thinks it is is far more likely explanation.


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## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

Apologies, Talissa, for taking your name in vain.Whoever wrote the post, I wish I could find it. OK, I'm going to be extra careful next time I do the corn experiment, and watch what very carefully what I'm eating for a couple of days beforehand. The only other thing it could have been was some bhuja I ate at about 10am, containing some dried peas, most of which I discarded. Again I don't usually eat that sort of food. It's a treat I give myself when I'm not going out during the day or evening because of indigestion. The corn I ate was creamed, which would actually have made it more easily digested. If I have the whole kernel next time, I'll get a better idea of what is happening in the stool.


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

No prob Arnie







Here's another home test you can try if you must~http://www.drugs.com/enc/bowel_transit_time.htmlThis seems better to me than the corn because for every meal we eat, the diff foods of that meal will generally travel at diff rates through our digestive tract...


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## Nikki (Jul 11, 2000)

I have found, that i notice food i eat seems to come out very quickly. Within about 8-12 hours i will notice something that doesn't really agree with me. For exmaple, beetroot or corn- i have noticed seems to come out awfully quickly. HOwever, it normally comes out AFTER other things. lol. Sorry how descriptive this was.nikki


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## Popp (May 31, 2004)

Arnie,I believe transit times will vary depending on the person and their system. Flux, what would you believe should be a proper transit time for barium? I had a barium drink when I was at the hospital for tests. I drank the barium at 9:30.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

While they do vary from person to person and time to time, there are some transit times that are so far outside the norm that it indicates something funny going on that needs to be checked out.If your transit time is extremely short you will either die of dehydration or starvation. If your transit time is weeks rather than days you could get a blockage and end up dying from that.http://www.webmd.com/hw/digestive_problems/hw235227.asp has the normal times.K.


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## legbuh (Jan 9, 2005)

I can make stuff go through in an hour easy.







I proved this once when I was having problems, and didn't realize it was from milk.My mom said "try peppermint pills". I took one, and hand my normal glass of milk for breakfast (wasn't a big eater).I left for work, and on the way there got EXTREME urgancy (no BM yet that morning).Got to work, ran to the bathroom, and proceed to have D that smelled like peppermint. Even my coworkers could smell it down the hall and wondered what the heck I did. This was in 45 minutes from taking the pill and drinking the milk.Now, other foods go through me quick too. Darker lettuce is one.. 2-3 hours sometimes. Not all the time, but it's obvious since I don't eat that much salad.. and it's obvious what it is when this happens.Otherwise 12 hours max is about the norm for me.


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## Popp (May 31, 2004)

I had to hold it until I finished all the x-rays and had loose bowels of nothing but white lquid and that was before 11:00 am, I hadn't even left the hospital. I had 2 more loose movements at 11:45 and another at 12:15. I had very little whiteness in another movement the next morning.And the nurse kept telling me throughout the tests to make sure I drink alot of water during the day as the barium tends to constipate people. Ha! Not me


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:I can make stuff go through in an hour easy. Smiler


Even if you wanted to do that, you cannot and did not.


> quote:Got to work, ran to the bathroom, and proceed to have D that smelled like peppermint. Even my coworkers could smell it down the hall and wondered what the heck I did. This was in 45 minutes from taking the pill and drinking the milk.


Odor is a gas. Gases move through the system independently of liquid and solid material. Here your observation was correct, but it had nothing to do with transit time.


> quote:Now, other foods go through me quick too. Darker lettuce is one.. 2-3 hours sometimes. Not all the time, but it's obvious since I don't eat that much salad.. and it's obvious what it is when this happens.


Nope, what you saw was from a *previous* meal. And this demonstrates how poorly this method is test transit. The lettuce was probably still in your stomach.









> quote:Otherwise 12 hours max is about the norm for me.


No, it's probably closer to the *minimum*.


> quote:what would you believe should be a proper transit time for barium? I had a barium drink when I was at the hospital for tests. I drank the barium at 9:30.


It is difficult to say what the whole gut time would be because you are not testing normal transit. You've probably fasted hours before the test and who knows how cleaned out the system was prior. Barium is also going in as a liquid.


> quote:This seems better to me than the corn because for every meal we eat, the diff foods of that meal will generally travel at diff rates through our digestive tract...


It actually worse. Foods generally move through at similar rates, but liquids would go much faster. They can just spill their way down. Plus, you don't know how much of this stuff gets absorbed and how much it is getting spread out.Finally, what is obvious is that people can't tell that what they are looking at is from some previous meal, so it wouldn't surprise me if this material somehow one got it confused with something from a prior meal!


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## legbuh (Jan 9, 2005)

Haha.. funny story. Just because the peppermint thing I know flux is wrong (although he makes you think and is correct very often). I know what happened... it wasn't just odor I was smelling.. it was peppermint oil! It even felt "cool" as it passed out over the next 30 minutes (2-3 times).Tonight for the superbowl we got pizza and wings at a friends house (just down the block). After eating it I started gurgling a couple hours later... we were leaving.. I couldn't make it home (1 minute drive, we had our newborn, so we drove).I went back in to use the restroom... lol! Pizza and wings.. I could see and feel (wing sauce) what it was.I would put 10k on the fact I can get stuff through my system in 3 hours... double or nothing for 2 hours. You up to lose some $$ flux?







You may know a lot, but I think you haven't experienced what many of us have (and I've never even seen you explain your situation or if you even have IBS).I swallow a few marbles.. or eat some weird colored stained something or other (purple cabbage?) I take 2 peppermint pills. I drink 2 glasses of milk. I guarenfrickenTEE you'll see (and smell peppermint) it all in 2-3 hours MAX.







I'll even eat some pizza (food color it a bright green or something so we know what it is) just so it's not "liquid moving through fast"...Those that have this happen know it's not something we ate a day or two before.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:I was smelling.. it was peppermint oil! It even felt "cool" as it passed out over the next 30 minutes (2-3 times).


It was actually probably still in your stomach.


> quote:would put 10k on the fact I can get stuff through my system in 3 hours... double or nothing for 2 hours.


Even if it were true, which it is not, how could you prove it?


> quote:I swallow a few marbles.. or eat some weird colored stained something or other (purple cabbage?) I take 2 peppermint pills. I drink 2 glasses of milk. I guarenfrickenTEE you'll see (and smell peppermint) it all in 2-3 hours MAX


You'll smell yes. But you won't see it *ever*. That's because it evaporates.


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## Prudy (Jan 21, 2006)

leg..... ignore those blurbs..... there is always a come back.... All I have to say to those educated.. :supposedly: responses is this..Unless you walk in our shoes... you have no way of knowing .....So how about stop refuting what we are telling you about our own system.... You can surmise.. refute... but it is all subjective....babble!


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## legbuh (Jan 9, 2005)

I agree... and I have no idea how food evaporates in my gut... lol..


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## Popp (May 31, 2004)

> quote:You'll smell yes. But you won't see it ever. That's because it evaporates.


How can you smell if it evaporated???


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

The smell in the peppermint smells as it becomes a gas.Gas passes through the GI tract at a different rate than stool. It moves quickly and will come out usually soon after it is formed. The food the gas came from may come out a couple of days later than the gas.K.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:How can you smell if it evaporated??


You couldn't smell it *unless* it evaporates. Evaporation is the process of a liquid turning into a gas.


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## legbuh (Jan 9, 2005)

In my case it did evaporate.. if that's what caused the smell. Since I could feel the peppermint oil "cooling" my rear, and it evaporated as it was expelled with my breakfast... all liquid.How much water evaporates in our GI tract during it's journey?


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## 16229 (Jan 28, 2006)

Sorry, but I have to go with Flux on this one.If you had an average transit time of 2 or 3 hours, you would be dead in about a month. It would be the exact same thing as starving yourself. You would lose several pounds each day.Looking at your stool IS NOT a good way to tell what's in it, and how long your transit time is. Any doctor will tell you that. And that's why even when I have blood, they ALWAYS double check with the kit that verifies it. It's not because they don't believe me, but more because you just can't tell definitively.Two main reasons there aren't 2 hour transit times here. First, you would be crapping what would essentially be vomit. It would look nothing like a stool. Second, it would most likely be covered in bile still. Green or blue. But, as flux did say, gasses travel faster. While not probable, my doc did say it's possible for someone who is very gaseous to slide a corn kernel farther ahead in the queue. But even then, that is not indicative of your normal transit time, just a freak occurance with a small nugget of food you didn't chew enough.And I don't think anyone here is trying to stop anyone from finding answers. We're all looking for them. But knocking on a door in Arizona to find someone who's in Norway isn't helpful. Only by rooting out the myths can we ever hope to get close to the facts.Look at me, I had blood in my stool daily for almost a year before I finally figured out what the heck it was. And yes flux, I know that that isn't IBS







. But what I'm saying is it's freakin blood. I had a hard time believing it at first because I was like, how can I not notice blood? How can I not know what blood is? I was only able to deal with it effectively after I figured out what it really was, and not what my mind imagined it to be for a year.


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## 18548 (Apr 10, 2005)

artjunky - what do you mean by the blood? i'm always getting asked whether i have blood in my stool and i always point out i'm on iron tabs so i wouldn't know how to tell. They take that as no i don't have blood. Is it really obvious or something?


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## 16229 (Jan 28, 2006)

The thing with blood is it can look so different, depending on the point of origin, and transit time. For example, if you have blood from a hemmorhoid, then you'll know, it's usually bright red just like if you cut yourself.The farther up the tract you go, the darker the blood gets, and the more mixed it becomes with your stool, making diagnosis tougher. And iron supplements can make everything darker, too, correct? When I first had it, it was almost like my stool looked like raw hamburger meat. Nothing distended, only faintly red, with a little runoff that I couldn't really differentiate from the D. At the time I was passing a lot of mucus, which only made it more difficult. The doctor had to tell me it was blood for me to realize it.Blood can either cover a stool or be parts of it. If it comes from an ulcer, it is probably almost black in color and tends to ball up in parts of your stool. If blood comes from the small intestine it's probably dark and mixed with the stool, while if it comes from the large intestine (colon) is most likely a red, but not as bright as if you cut yourself. All these are relative though, as to how long the blood is in your system.In my experience, it is hard to tell for sure, except in two main situations. First, when it's from a hemmorhoid, because it's so easy to tell it's blood then, especially if you get the streaks on the tp. 2nd, if you pass a large amount of blood at one time. Once, it was the only thing I passed. It had to be at least a cup of it. Though mucus may have made it look like more blood than there was. But trust me, I knew it when it happened. I knew something was wrong, and what came out looked nothing like a BM.If you happen to visit the doc on a day when you think there could be blood, you can always have them check to make sure. Peace of mind is a good thing, though the checking for it part sucks. The reason the doc is probably so happy to take your answer as a 'no' is because they're probably not any more excited about having to stick their finger where the sun don't shine than you are. To check for blood, they have to stick a finger in the rectum. They then wipe their finger on this pad and put some drops on it. If you have blood, the drops turn a certain color. I'd give more details, but I usually don't try to pay attention to the whole thing, try to focus on anything else I can think of. The whole process only takes a few seconds, but it's a long few seconds. At one time I heard they were going to offer a home test for it. I'd be interested to know if they do have one now. It might be a little less embarrassing. Unless it involves crapping in a bucket. I'm very anti crapping in buckets, bowls, those hat shaped thingies that fit on the toilet seat, etc.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:Since I could feel the peppermint oil "cooling" my rear, and it evaporated as it was expelled with my breakfast... all liquid.


When it evaporates, it is a gas, not a liquid, You could not have felt it "cool" anything, either.


> quote:How much water evaporates in our GI tract during it's journey?


Probably none. It is all wet in there all the time.


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## jenEbean (Apr 5, 1999)

Ewwwww, I have not replied to this for the very reason of a "you are not seeing what you are seeing" reply or "you don't know what you are talking about reply" but..I am a gluton for punishment obviously. I can and do frequently pass parts of meals in 30-45 minutes. I know what I see. If I eat a salad and havent had one in months but then eat one and poop out bright and dark green lettuce and spinach, it is passing that quickly. I eat like a horse to keep my weight up but poop like one too, up to 20 times a day, loose, watery, floaty, frothy, foul vomit smelling stool. My GI sent me for test after test which found an overgrowth of bacteria. I am on my third course of antibiotics for that. But, she said that this is definitely NOT IBS, it is some sort of malabsorption syndrome and they have to figure out what it is. I am thirsty constantly, can never get enough to drink. I am hungry constantly but poop it out very very fast. I'll just be glad when they figure it out and I can get on with my life and not live around a toilet.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:. I can and do frequently pass parts of meals in 30-45 minutes. I know what I see. If I eat a salad and havent had one in months but then eat one and poop out bright and dark green lettuce and spinach, it is passing that quickly.


You may indeed have malabsorption (and not IBS), but what you saw was from a *previous* meal and what you ate was still in your stomach! Sometimes seeing is the opposite of believing.


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## legbuh (Jan 9, 2005)

I never said my average time was 2-3 hours... I said mine was 12 or so. As for the peppermint smell and "feeling" on my rear.. I guess I was imagining that as well.LOL..I still stand by that I can easily make stuff pass through in 2-3 hours... if I want to (but it's never fun) and I'm willing to put big money on it to prove it. Of course, the marbles I swallow and pass would probably be from a "previous meal"... since I eat them often.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I don't think anyone is saying you imagined it. Just that gases pass through the GI tract much faster than solids/liquids (and if you smell it, it is a GAS kinda by definition).You can't use smelling peppermint as a measure of transit time for the food you ate when you took the pill.When you do pass stuff more rapidly you would have to have cleaned out all the previous stuff (so either been having lots of diarrhea before you ate the stuff, or had enough diarrhea after you ate to clean out all the previous stuff) The food you just ate can't bypass the stuff that is currently sitting in your colon to come out first. It comes out pretty much in the order you put it in, with some mixing, but no one can jump the queue and come out way before what you ate in the previous couple of meals.K.


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## Prudy (Jan 21, 2006)

Mark... You can buy those Occult Test Pads from a pharmacy... They have them online as well.. I bought mine through a pharmacy associated with my work.. they are expensive... but if you want to test at home... they are out there.. You can test stool from the toilet.. just have to be sure you have no bleach tabs in your tank to clean the toilet.. you know chemical free water in the bowl...... and read the instructions well.. as stool high in bile with test a blue green...or green.... You can poop in a sitz bath pan if you want... but ... cleaning it after... well that's another story....


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:but no one can jump the queue and come out way before what you ate in the previous couple of meals.


Following the logic of the claim, I guess, means there isn't anything in front of it. That is to say, it goes in and comes out all very, very rapidly. Makes preparation for a colonsocpy really simple. Just skip a couple of meals and voila.







What could result when consuming say a long strand of spaghetti, I wonder.









> quote:if I want to (but it's never fun) and I'm willing to put big money on it to prove it.


Which means what, exactly? The "evidence" you provided so far argues *against* your conclusions.


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## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

For someone severely afflicted by gas, I really know zilch about transit time through the body. How long after ingestion of food is gas likely to manifest itself? And, after eating something which gives you gas, how long is the gas likely to remain in the body?Also, another observation related to the topic. When I eat certain food, eg corn or dried apricots, my digestion starts to go haywire within an hour or so, with excessive, odorous gas and the urge to have several bms, which usually are sludgy. Now I certainly know that the bms at this time are not from the food I've recently eaten, but that food seems to have a disruptive effect on my digestive system.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Food can trigger BM's through the enteric nervous system. If for no other reason that after every single meal you eat the colon gets a "move it along" signal.Some foods are more likely to trigger this in some people than others. Fatty, large meals are often a problem. However, if you polled everyone you'd find a lot of different things that can cause this.Usually you expect the new gas to start shortly after the food hits the colon. Gas in the 30-60 minute range can be from the "move it along" thing rather than new gas. It usually takes a few hours to get food from the stomach to the colon. One of the things that happens if there is bacteria in the small intestine (the SIBO Pimental is investigating) the gas increase could occur earlier than usual.K.


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## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

Thankyou, Kath. I tend to eat small, frequent meals rather than the normal 3 meals a day. It makes me wonder that by eating more frequently, I'll be introducing more gas.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I don't think it would change the total amount that much.


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