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Health Matters Trust Marandure—
Constipation is a common problem. In general terms, it means either going to the toilet less often than usual to empty the bowels, or passing hard or painful stools (faeces). Constipation may be caused by not eating enough fibre, or not drinking enough fluids. It can also be a side-effect of taking certain medicines, or related to an underlying medical condition.

My preferred definition of constipation is that it is difficult and/or infrequent bowel movements. Symptoms: Infrequent and/or difficult bowel movements, headaches, coated tongue, tiredness, bad breath, mental depression and mental dullness.

Constipation is more than a troublesome condition. It is an insidious drain on the health of millions of people. As bowel transit time is increased, the stool becomes hardened and difficult to pass due to dehydration.

The body slowly reabsorbs the fluid content in the faeces and along with it many soluble toxins. This autointoxification is the reason people suffering from constipation have coated tongues, foul breath, lack of energy, and difficulty in thinking. These poisons affect every area of the body.

Fibre deficiency and constipation are associated with diverticulitis, appendicitis, and colon cancer. The small, hardened faeces are very difficult for the normal intestinal peristaltic actions to deal with effectively. With the lack of bulk added by fibre in the diet, the intestine resembles a tube of toothpaste that is almost empty.

The same difficulty you have in getting out that last bit of toothpaste is exactly the problem your intestine has. The peristaltic contractions are more forceful but less effective and tend to create small out pockets or diverticuli in the intestinal walls.

Associated with both diverticulosis and constipation is a change in the normal bacterial flora. As a result, bile acids normally found in the faeces and excreted are altered by prolonged exposure to these abnormal bacteria, and become carcinogenic. Thus we see the cause-and-effect relationship behind low fibre diets and colon cancer.

Most people habitually use laxatives to regulate bowel movements when constipation is a chronic problem.

In many cases this causes a strong intestinal action due irritant qualities of the laxative. The unfortunate after effect, however, is that the bowel reacts to this unusual stimulation by becoming less active just after its use. The result is that in two to three days when no further bowel movement has occurred, a second dose of laxative is used-and on and on for years, even decades!

Enemas will also have a similar effect. Laxatives which contain mineral oil not only cause the bowels to become overstimulated and weakened, but actually rob the body of all fat-soluble vitamins.

Constipation can have its beginnings very early. The normal breastfed child will have a bowel movement approximately 20 minutes after the start of a feed. This is quickly learned by mothers who breastfeed their infants without first making sure they have diapers on! This bowel action is a true physiological reflex.

Over time, as solid foods are introduced, this reflex becomes less sensitive and can be affected by the type of foods consumed.

Mothers soon become aware of these effects and use foods such as bananas to harden the stool and slow transit time, or prunes and papayas to soften them and encourage a bowel movement.

Later, as the child is weaned and cow’s milk is introduced, bowel movements become less regular and more difficult to regulate. Once the child is toilet trained, less attention is placed on regularity in some cases, and constipation may take a strong hand. Unless the child is weaned to proper foods such as whole grains, fruit, and raw vegetables, the early years can set up a lifelong constipation problem.

In the early years, and also with adults on hectic schedules, the call of nature maybe habitually ignored or postponed.

This causes the body to discontinue sending these messages to the brain until it has no further choice, due to bowel overload, but to obey.

Regularity has become a meaningless expression in describing or diagnosing constipation. One doctor used to routinely ask his patients if they were regular until he realised that to some people once a week was “normal.” It is far more useful to know the consistency of the bowel movement and how often a bowel movement occurs.

If the bowel move once or twice a day and the stool is difficult to pass, the patient is constipated, no matter how regular he or she is. This can occur with what we call “loaded bowel syndrome,” where nearly the entire transverse and descending colon are filled with hard faeces.

Another useful index is bowel transit time, or the time it takes for food to pass through the body. In diets composed of unrefined cereals, fruits, and plenty of raw vegetables the transit time is usually 12 hours or so. On a refined diet this may extend to 24, 48, or 72 hours or longer.

Certainly, other factors other than the diet play a role in many cases of constipation. Lack of exercise removes the mechanical action of the muscles on the intestinal contents, thus slowing bowel action. This also reduces normal circulation throughout the digestive tract.

The presence of spinal lesions in any of the segments from the midthoracic region through the lumbar plexus is another major factor. Eating while under any stressful emotion basically paralyses all digestive functions, including peristaltic action.

Still, all these factors mentioned account for a very small proportion of cases of constipation. Diet and diet alone stands most prominent as both the cause and cure of this disorder.

Trust Marandure is a Naturopathy Practitioner based at Bulawayo he can be contacted on 0772482382 or email [email protected]