TikTok Myth of the Week: Your Guts Are Full of Poop

Some TikTok myths I find in the wild (like stories about supposed tick attacks ), and sometimes I’m alerted by news articles that claim there’s a trend. The latest wave of reports on TikTok claim that people on the platform are promoting laxatives as “budget Ozempic” (no relation to “natural Ozempic” ), a fact that I was unable to verify. However, I came across some other interesting claims.

In fact, the woman whose video the media used to illustrate the “budget Ozempic” trend created a TikTok in response , explaining that she doesn’t use laxatives to lose weight. She says the Miralax she added to her smoothie on camera was intended to combat worsening digestive health issues.

So no, I haven’t found many videos promoting laxatives as an alternative to Ozempic. I also haven’t found any compelling reason to believe that TikTok trends are leading to a shortage of laxatives, as the Wall Street Journal suggests . But TikTok, or hashtags as it’s known, has no shortage of content related to laxatives, #GutTok and even #PoopTok.

TikTok is obsessed with gut health and laxatives

Throughout the platform, girls (and some boys) detail how they take laxatives to cope with constipation or health problems like irritable bowel syndrome. They talk about how bloated they feel or look, how long they’ve gone without pooping, how their doctor wants them to take such and such a dosage of Miralax, and much more. (I can’t verify how many of these people actually have health problems.)

The weight loss content is always close to this. TikTokers have been linking sexuality and “gut health” for years , usually implying that you can’t be truly thin until you get rid of “bloat.” This is often followed by advertisements for nutritional supplements.

So we have people adding Miralax and Metamucil to their morning shakes while dieting, and people who admit to using laxatives before putting on a bikini because they believe it will make them temporarily slimmer. People sometimes talk about how they used laxatives in the past to try to lose weight. In other words: laxatives are talked about a lot, but they are rarely advertised as a separate weight loss aid. (Laxatives can cause dehydration and move some fecal matter, but they don’t actually do anything for weight loss.)

And, of course, there are laxative pranks. Someone adds Miralax or a generous dose of magnesium citrate solution to their partner’s drink, then films him suddenly running to the bathroom. Both are osmotic laxatives rather than stimulant laxatives, and Miralax in particular often takes a few days to take effect. I suspect most of these videos are staged. I also believe that anyone who “pranks” someone by disrupting their bodily functions and health is a terrible person.

How many pounds of feces do we carry in our intestines?

And now we come to the myth I promised you: the number of pounds of poop you’re carrying around in your body that you desperately need to get out. This TikToker Says the Right Smoothie Will Lead to a 10-Pound Poop. It says people lose two pounds after a colon hydrotherapy session (which may be true for all I know) and then says the weight loss increases if you do multiple sessions. (This part seems much less plausible.) She estimates that the average amount of fecal matter in the colon is “five to 20 pounds.”

This chiropractor , who calls himself a “regenerative detoxification specialist,” says you have 25 pounds of feces in your body, and you need to stop eating—drink only juice—for 90 days to make sure you’re truly “ready.” (Odd, since colonoscopy prep can get the job done in three days.)

This health coach ups the ante to the “six to 40 pounds of poop” that she stresses ” gets stuck in our bodies.” The characteristic symptom, of course, is weight gain. Treatment? A special fiber supplement that should be used as a “cleanse”. It is supposed to remove the buildup and prevent future buildup. It would be great if this build-up was real. Is not.

Poop doesn’t get stuck in the colon

Look, constipation is real and it can be uncomfortable. In extreme cases related to genetic abnormalities, medications, and/or health conditions, a person’s body may indeed contain unusually large amounts of feces. For example, a few pounds.

Definitely not 10, 25 or 40 pounds without realizing it. The Mutter Museum’s famous eight-foot megacolumn belongs to a man whose stomach was so bloated from carrying 40 pounds of waste that he was billed as “The Man in the Balloon” in a sideshow. There are photos. He doesn’t look like the healthy person who scrolls through TikTok looking for weight loss tips.

Sometimes these videos claim that Elvis or John Wayne died with tens of pounds of feces in their colon. Elvis had digestive problems, including what appeared to be megacolon, although as far as I can tell, the exact weight of his colon contents has not been made public. John Wayne has never undergone an autopsy, and this fun fact about him appears to be completely made up .

So how much poop do most of us carry around with us? A little! One poop can easily weigh a pound, sometimes two, but there are only a few of these poops in your gut at any given time. The entire journey from plate to toilet can take anywhere from 10 to 72 hours – so you’re unlikely to have the same food left inside you for more than three days.

Gastroenterologist Robert Fusco writes that this is all pretty obvious if you’ve ever prepared for a colonoscopy. You throw away “an expected few pounds of waste” and a laxative solution. Feces cannot “build up” or “get stuck” in the colon; As several doctors patiently explained to PolitiFact , that’s not how the colon works.