We all know people are full of it, some more than others
They walk around, full of it. They sit next to you on the subway, full of it
But how much poop are humans full of exactly? Live Science relates a telling measurement that puts the rest of our numbers into perspective
Two centimeters. Every second of every day, the human body generates two centimeters of poop
Bodily waste processing is thankfully more complicated than that. Otherwise, you'd produce 5 feet of poop every 76 seconds, the entire length of a typical large intestine
And yet, weight-wise, people produce about 312 pounds per year, the same weight as a baby elephant
6,552 pounds by age 21, two female hippos, and 25,896 pounds by age 83, a trailer-less semi-tractor
That is one big pile of s**t. In the end folks hold and lose about one ounce of poop per 12 pounds of body weight per day or 14 ounces on average That makes the average amount of stored human poop just two ounces short of a pint But there are several factors that influence poop
quantity, and therefore poop retention, including exercise, diet, nutrients, water, age, medication
stress, and more. There are also links between hormone levels and bowel regularity, especially
related to women's monthly cycles. And of course, if someone has a disorder like irritable bowel
syndrome, all bets are off. But above all else, constipation, or a lack thereof, determines how
much poop a person carries inside. Live Science says that about 30% of poop is composed of fluids
and the other 70% of solids. If poop moves through the body too quickly, not enough water
gets absorbed and poop becomes soft. If poop moves too slowly, more water gets absorbed and poop
becomes firm. The longer poop stays inside, the more water gets absorbed. The firmer the poop
gets and the harder it is to poop the poop out And the longer you constipated the more poop accumulates in the body exit apparatus the colon However Dr Darren Brenner a professor in the gastroenterology division at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine
told PolitiFact that major poop accumulation isn't really a thing. According to Brenner
there is unlikely to be more than a few pounds of stool in the colon, even for constipated people
and there's always at least a little bit. Brenner explained, the colon is never really devoid of stool. It is the organ that removes water to solidify stool
and there is always some amount of stool in it. However, in a rare case, Inverse describes how a
22-year-old Chinese man stayed constipated his entire life. In 2017, doctors surgically removed
almost 30 pounds of feces from inside his inflamed, colossal colon. With so many humans on the planet
each full of so much poop. The whole world is full of it. One gastroenterologist explained to Vox how different people in different parts of the world
produce different compositions of poop depending on environmental and dietary factors with people in developing countries tending to eat more fiber But even taking such differences into account even as far back as 2011 Live Science recalled that the world is simply full
of too much human waste, which can have serious environmental consequences. Back then, there were
7 billion people alive. Now, it's already over 8 billion. We're looking at nearly 10 billion by
2050, each carrying an average of 14 ounces of poop inside of them. That's a lot of sewage and
sanitation infrastructure, aside from the 8,750,000,000 pounds of feces collectively carried around every day. While there's no way to disintegrate poop into harmless atoms or teleport
poop out of our colons, we can at least all tend to our own gut health. After all, no one wants to
turn out to be that guy stuffed with 30 pounds of brown sludge. Aside from regular exercise and
healthy eating habits, there's always colonic irrigation for the rectally daring. Check with your doctor for more ways to make sure you're not full of it