SELF-HELP PREVENTION: CONSTIPATION
What is it?
The infrequent passage of stools, which are hard. Severe constipation (less than 3 stools a week) is rare, but 77 per cent of the population passes only 5-7 stools a week and a further 8 per cent only 3-4 a week. Compare this with people living on a non-western diet who may pass two or three stools a day! About 40 per cent of the British population say they are constipated and between 5 and 22 per cent take laxatives.
It is worth taking trouble to prevent or cure constipation because it has the following harmful effects:
1. It is difficult to pass stools and can be painful.
2. The hard masses of stool can tear the delicate lining of the back passage and produce an anal fissure which is excruciatingly painful and bleeds.
3. It can produce piles and make existing ones worse.
4. The straining involved raises the pressure in the veins of the legs and produces varicose veins.
5. The straining involved raises pressure inside the abdominal cavity and worsens or even creates a hiatus hernia (a rupture of the stomach through into the chest).
6. In elderly people severe straining has been recorded as the cause of strokes as the increased pressure breaks a blood vessel in the brain.
What causes it?
• Too low an intake of dietary fibre. The average UK diet contains 20 g dietary fibre but in countries where constipation is unknown the average daily intake is between 50 and 120 g daily. UK vegetarians eat about 40 g a day.
• Poor ‘bowel habits’.
Prevention
• Increase the amount of dietary fibre you consume by:
1. Eating whole-meal bread only.
2. Making most pastry with whole-meal flour.
3. Changing to a bran-containing cereal for breakfast or eating muesli.
4. Eating more fruit, vegetables and pulses (peas and beans).
Increase your fibre intake slowly over several weeks or you could get an uncomfortable swelling of your abdomen and a lot of wind. Over two or three months you should be able to greatly increase your dietary-fibre consumption and over a year hit the goals outlined above. You will know when you are taking enough fibre because you will open your bowels at least once a day and will do so easily and without any straining. Most people find that when the fibre content is right their stools float. Once your dietary-fibre intake is right, keep it at that level and don’t take more than is necessary.
• Drink at least two or three glasses of water a day to top up what you would otherwise drink. This helps the dietary fibre bulk up and pass through the intestine and bowel easily. If you want to see how important fluid is just drink very little for a day and see how constipated you become.
• Get used to opening your bowels at a regular time each day, preferably in the morning immediately after breakfast. You may find that you open your bowels twice a day if you step up your fibre intake.
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