Gut with charm: It's about the sausage

Her debut album "Darm gut Charme" is in the non-fiction bestseller lists at the top, the bookstores go out the copies, with Giovanni di Lorenzo or Markus Lanz chats in front of the camera on Pupse and defecation, as if it were the weather. The 24-year-old medical student Giulia Enders bluntly advertises for her favorite organ, making the intestine sociable.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Mrs. Enders, if you had to make someone a bowel fan in 30 seconds, what would you score?

Giulia Enders: The gut gives us the energy to live. Its surface is 100 times larger than our skin. He trains two-thirds of our immune system and produces more than 20 of our own hormones - on the other hand, our sex organs are minimalists! The gut has an extraordinary nervous system that senses and tastes with its receptors as we go inside. He is like an unconscious matrix, watching us and taking care of us all the time.

Because of this, does our body often respond to stress or grief with constipation or diarrhea?

The nerves of the intestine and brain are built the same, which is the case with no other organ. If the brain spills out stress hormones, they dock in the intestine. For him, this is like a poisoning, to which he responds with diarrhea or vomiting. This is not a mishap, but makes sense, because bowel and brain are colleagues. If the brain has a problem that needs to be solved, the gut can be good-natured and put back - then no energy goes into the digestive system. He can also be frightened when certain emotions go through the body. He is very attentive to how we are doing.

Is it true that the range of healthy digestion ranges from three times daily bowel movements to three times a week?

You can orient yourself well. But the most important marker of healthy digestion is consistency. The Bristol chair shape scale describes it quite well, type 4 is ideal:

In 1997 Dr. Ken Heaton the Bristol Chair Shapes Scale. It shows seven different consistencies in which faeces can occur. In Type 4, the water-solid ratio is optimal.

At noon there was a burger. What ends up in the toilet?

At best, the burger has molecular dissolved in our blood. Feces consists of three quarters of water. So the whole thing can be removed smoothly. The solid ingredients that end up in the toilet bowl are one-third indigestible fibers from the lettuce leaf or the tomato. Another third are intestinal bacteria that have the very best in the colon from the burger and then retire. The last third is a mix of substances that the body wants to get rid of - remnants of medicines, dyes or cholesterol.

Why does some feces smell so extreme and others not?

There are bacteria that produce unpleasant sulfur gases. And some foods feed just those bacteria. After meat or a hearty piece of onion cake it smells rather unpleasant than potatoes with carrots. When I changed my diet a few years ago because of a skin disease, the unpleasant odors seemed to be rarer. But this topic is far from being fully explored - there are still some open questions.

If my feces stink, did I eat unhealthy?

It is not quite that easy. Some things do not smell like somehow, when you are alone and honest with yourself. But if you're unpleasantly surprised by its own produced odor, you might want to eat something different the next day.

Can I recognize another person by his odor?

Something like that should happen. This may show that everyone has their own Pokémon team of gut bacteria. It's like a fingerprint. Some have rare Japanese bacteria in the gut, although they have never been to Japan. How does this happen? There are quite crazy discoveries.

Medical student Giulia Enders (24) researches for her doctoral thesis at the Institute for Microbiology and Hospital Hygiene in Frankfurt am Main.

Is a good or bad digestion innate? How much influence do our genes have on how much our behavior?

It is well known that genes do not play the main role in the question of which bacteria colonize us in the intestine. Our hobbies and our eating habits - we like to eat spicy, salad and vegetables, how often do we put our fingers in our mouths? - are much more decisive. In the end, our way of life could influence whether we tend to have strong hair, good nerves, atopic dermatitis or rheumatism through certain intestinal bacteria.

Are fingers in the mouth good or bad?

Everything you put in your mouth is a chance. It could live on in the gut - whether it's good or bad.Some researchers say that not the number of bad or good bacteria is important, but their diversity. In the stock business one would say: super risk spreading! But you have to promote the good and feed the intestines prebiotic fiber. For example, asparagus, green bananas or onions are especially eaten by good bacteria.

I feel that many more women than men have digestive problems.

That's right: constipation affects twice as many women as men.

All a matter of attitude: sitting on the toilet makes our bowel a kink and can not empty completely - unlike when squatting outdoors. Alternatively, it also does a small stool in front of the toilet and a bent upper body.

... because women only pee officially. Is the problem social?

There come together some factors. Although the issue of bowel may be uncomfortable for women and men alike, it is different for women. Take the example of Pupsen. This can be justified with a "My body means well with me, that had to go out". Men can articulate that as well. Women find this popo perspective harder. Since I lost that shame, I can also go to train toilets. I say to myself: "The internal sphincter only wants the best for me." Blockages are known to be not exclusively hormonal. The differences in the intestines of men and women are not well understood. Many researchers have no desire for women as subjects, because the menstrual cycle and the hormonal fluctuations make the results ugly. So some of the studies were only done on young men.

Is there a natural time for the business?

Since the internal sphincter has the command right. Morning is a good time for many: You had the whole night rest and after waking up you have not read 50 e-mails. Now many people are still listening to what their tummy has to tell them, because the outside world has not nibbled at them yet.

I once heard that it is healthier for the bowel to sleep on the left side.

My grandma always says that on the right side it's best because of the heart. But the intestine has such a strong self-movement that it decides for itself what may lie where. Much more important is what and when to eat. In the self-experiment you notice that very quickly: A greasy food shortly before going to bed ensures bad sleep. At night, very little happens in the intestine, which goes to sleep. Therefore, if you eat late, better only eat easily digestible things.

Can problems with the intestines also lead to bad breath?

The typical bad breath is caused by anaerobic bacteria, ie those that would die in contact with oxygen. The survive in the mouth, although it makes him constantly talking, because they live under a protective layer in the mucous membrane of the tongue, teeth and also in the clefts of the tonsils. Swallowing down these bacteria can affect gut health. Bad dental hygiene definitely has a negative effect on the intestinal flora. The mouth is now the entrance hall to the intestine.

Lactose, fructose, gluten: Why have food intolerances increased so much?

Our diet has changed dramatically compared to what our parents and grandparents ate. If they have consumed 16 to 24 grams of fruit sugar per day, we easily get twice as much, Americans even to 80 grams daily. Since one can not blame it for an organ that was built relatively equal over millions of years, if it is irritated. However, you do not have to behave the same way as if, for example, milk is poisonous when you realize that it does not get you well. You can test your limits calmly. Our gut is a tough guy who can handle a lot.

How it all began: The lecture that became a book

Giulia Enders called her talk "Darm gut Charme", with which she took first place in three science slams in 2012 - events where young scientists present a project to an audience. The Youtube clip of her performance also saw a literary agent. She suggested Giulia Enders to make a book out of the lecture. What the medical student then did: She took a leave semester and wrote her first non-fiction book within ten months.

Conan Trains To Become A Sausage Master - CONAN on TBS (April 2024).