A change in the color of stool to a lighter shade, in most cases, indicates the development of diseases of the digestive system. It is for this reason that it is necessary to undergo a thorough examination of the entire body at once in order to promptly identify the possible development of life-threatening pathologies. Every patient should take into account that bile pigments can be subject to specific influences in the intestines, which has a huge impact on the processes of stool coloring too light.
Light-colored diarrhea in adults is quite common, because the final color of excreted stool depends on the food products consumed recently. For example, light-colored products will tint the discharge in light shades. This can happen if you consume a lot of dairy products the day before. By the next act of defecation, provided adjustments are made to the diet, the problem will be solved on its own, and the feces will acquire its usual “brown” shade.
Causes of stool lightening
Often, the usual yellow-brown color of feces in adults is provided by a substance - bilirubin, which is a component of bile. But white stool is nothing more than a result of a disorder in the outflow of bile from the gallbladder. Doctors have been able to identify several specific ailments that can cause abnormal stool color.
- Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver.
- Cholecystitis is an inflammatory process in the gallbladder, which occurs with acute attacks of pain in the right hypochondrium, lack of appetite, hyperthermia and nausea. Feces have a watery consistency and an unusual, very light color.
- Pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas that occurs against the background of an incorrectly selected diet, alcohol abuse, infections of internal organs, as well as due to the use of certain drugs.
- Crohn's disease is a pathology that manifests itself as inflammation of all organs of the digestive system.
- Oncological diseases of the gastrointestinal tract - the emergence of malignant neoplasms in many internal organs, practically does not cause any symptoms. The first suspicious signals begin to appear when the tumor grows to a large size. Among the main symptoms, experts identify pain in the abdominal cavity, constipation or diarrhea, vomiting, lack of appetite, and significant weight loss in a short period of time.
Sometimes, light diarrhea occurs after taking certain medications, especially such as:
- Antibacterial drugs.
- Anti-inflammatory drugs.
- Drugs used to treat gout.
In such situations, a one-time discharge of very light-colored feces should not cause any panic; the patient is simply advised to observe the nature of the discharge (color, consistency, frequency, smell) for several days. Some experts say that white stools are associated with the abuse of foods with a high percentage of fat, especially meat and dairy products.
How long does the period of illness with rotavirus infection last?
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Rotavirus infection, which is transmitted through household and airborne transmission, can cause intestinal disease.
Young children and adults with poor immunity suffer most from this type of infection. People who do not complain about their health tolerate the symptoms of rotavirus disease quite easily.
As mentioned above, rotavirus can enter the bodies of children or adults both through household and airborne droplets.
To protect yourself from possible infection with this infection, you should thoroughly wash your hands before eating, carefully handle vegetables and fruits intended for food, and, if possible, reduce contact with people showing characteristic symptoms of this disease.
How many days does the incubation period of rotavirus infection last? It is worth noting that there is no clear answer to this question.
On average, the incubation period of the disease can last two or three days, but in some cases it can be five to seven days.
Both the incubation period and the severity of the disease depend on the strength of the person’s immunity.
That is why the symptoms of rotavirus infection are much more acute in children, who have weaker immunity (compared to adults).
Pay close attention to your health and the health of your children. You can become infected with rotavirus infection not only in the winter, but also in the height of summer, so this disease should not be written off during this period.
It is important to differentiate rotavirus disease and banal food poisoning. These pathological conditions have similar symptoms, more pronounced with rotavirus infection.
What to do if you have symptoms that directly or indirectly indicate the presence of rotavirus disease in children or adults?
What does light brown poop mean?
Plant foods in large quantities are a common cause of lightening of stool. This condition is not considered pathological and does not pose any threat to human health. The rapid pace of movement of food masses through the intestines leads to incomplete digestion, and the stool ultimately turns out to be light brown in color. Normalizing the diet by adding proteins and fractional nutrition to it normalizes the functionality of the entire gastrointestinal tract.
Dark brown loose stools
Stools acquire a dark brown color as a result of inflammatory processes - colitis, ulcers and some other pathologies. Diarrhea occurs, and the shade is closer to very dark brown and even almost black. Digestion also suffers, and there is a constant feeling of discomfort.
Important! If we are talking about colitis, then ulcers appear in the intestines, which can lead to frequent alternation of constipation with diarrhea.
As a result, all processes of movement of both digested and undigested food are disrupted. Fermentation begins, food lingers for a long time in some parts of the intestine. To accurately identify the cause of the pathology, you need to consult a doctor, conduct an examination and take tests. However, loose stools in themselves should already alert you if they occur regularly.
In inflammatory processes, treatment begins with eliminating the inflammation, and only then does it move on to combating the symptoms. When diarrhea with dark diarrhea is cured, it is important to adhere to preventive measures, eat moderately and monitor your well-being.
Dark stool from medications
There are several types of medications that cause dark or greenish stool. Depending on the intensity of therapy and concomitant treatment, the stool may be liquid. This often leads to:
- substances with iron;
- systemic medications, such as herbal supplements;
- products with bismuth (for the treatment of ulcerative lesions of the gastrointestinal tract);
- activated charcoal also turns stool black or even dark green;
- Some anti-inflammatory drugs may cause darkening of stool.
Useful information: Vomiting, nausea, loose stools and fever: diseases and physiological causes of symptoms
There are drugs with acetylsalicylic acid. When using them, you should be extremely careful, as they do not lead to darkening of the stool, but to bleeding. As a result, the stool becomes dark.
Very light stool
If a person notices that the color of his discharge will be very lightened, almost white, this is one of the signs of impaired functioning of an important digestive organ - the pancreas. To exclude the possibility of developing diabetes mellitus, you need to consult with your local physician and undergo all the necessary tests.
Unfortunately, regular loose bowel movements with discolored feces may indicate the appearance of malignant neoplasms in the digestive tract, so a visit to the doctor cannot be avoided.
Regular bowel movements of very light-colored stool, or their frequent repetition, should cause concern. Isolated cases are not perceived as a symptom of the disease, since this is a likely cause of an improper diet.
What is diarrhea?
In the medical sense, diarrhea is frequent (more than 3 times a day) defecation of liquid feces with a volume of 200 ml. In most cases, it is a protective reaction of the body to remove toxins, microbes, drugs or decay products.
In normal health, stool color varies from dark yellow to light brown. A healthy person's feces consist of leftover food eaten over the past 2-3 days. The mass has a dense consistency and does not contain foreign impurities. The presence of white specks in the stool - remnants of undigested food - is safe. But mucus, pus, greens, blood are impurities that signal the development of the disease.
Light-colored loose stools in adults occur due to diseases of the digestive system. In this case, there is a frequent urge to defecate, tenesmus, and abdominal pain.
Light yellow stool
As mentioned above, the color of feces is affected by the substance bilirubin, which is part of bile. Yellow stool in a healthy person, according to medicine, is not considered a pathology.
But constant beige bowel movements, which indicate impaired bilirubin production or narrowing of the bile ducts, can be dangerous. To determine the exact factor causing the problem, you need to consult with a specific specialist who will collect anamnesis, prescribe examinations and a treatment plan.
Clinical picture
Immediate medical attention is required in cases where lightened and loose stools are accompanied by a number of additional signs:
- Intense pain in the left hypochondrium and girdling pain. Pancreatitis manifests itself in a similar way.
- Body hyperthermia, nausea, vomiting, pain and stool mixed with white or yellow mucus are likely signs of an intestinal infection.
- Discoloration of stool and frequent bouts of diarrhea, sudden weight loss, increased fatigue, sudden intolerance to many foods are likely signs of digestive cancer.
- White feces, which is accompanied by fever, pain in the right hypochondrium and darkening of urine, are signs of hepatitis or cholecystitis.
- The feces have changed color due to clearly visible particles in it that look like worms or larvae - this is clearly a parasitic infestation that causes additional symptoms such as weakness, nausea and weight loss.
It is imperative to consult a doctor if you have abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, or body hyperthermia. Self-treatment is not recommended. It is better to go to the hospital, undergo a diagnostic examination and rule out possible dangerous illnesses.
Black diarrhea as a disease factor
If there are no changes in the diet, but if there are suspicions of certain gastrointestinal diseases, you can begin to search for the causes of black loose stools: if there are disturbances in the gastrointestinal tract, bleeding may develop in the upper parts of the stomach. As a result, the stool becomes dark.
Pathology is also found in other degenerative conditions:
- varicose veins in the intestines;
- growth of tumors;
- periodic black diarrhea indicates progressive inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract.
Such pathologies are always accompanied by accompanying symptoms, which are difficult to ignore. So, if the source of inflammation is in the stomach, vomiting with blood, general weakness and low blood pressure with dizziness may occur.
Important! Black feces in a baby or adult may indicate pathologies not related to the gastrointestinal tract. With heart failure and bleeding, a similar condition is possible.
Other symptoms that should suggest the development of a dangerous pathology: fever, nausea and vomiting, pain throughout the gastrointestinal tract.
Useful information: Causes of diarrhea, nausea and fever: main viruses and diseases
Treatment
When diagnosing diseases of the liver, pancreas or other organs of the digestive tract that cause lightening of the stool, doctors prescribe treatment in an inpatient department, under the strict supervision of medical personnel. Many ailments that were diagnosed in the early stages of development can be easily eliminated with a high probability by following a diet and following all the recommendations of the attending physician.
If the main reasons for the change in the color of feces are very simple, and the problem is not accompanied by additional symptoms such as hyperthermia, pain, vomiting, etc., you can try to cure the disease yourself, at home.
Bile deficiency causes great harm to the entire body, based on which the patient should reconsider his diet. Eating large portions of fatty foods can have a negative impact on your general condition, so great emphasis is placed on balancing your diet. Foods like full-fat milk, cream or lard can cause a lot of damage to the digestive system, and signs like white poop are just the tip of the iceberg.
The results can be quite disastrous: overweight (obesity), diabetes, pathologies of the cardiovascular system, liver and pancreas, which become difficult to fulfill their physiological abilities.
If light stools occur after taking medications that were prescribed to eliminate any diseases, you should consult with your doctor, who should tell you whether this is a side effect or the result of an overdose.
Many drugs have the ability to accumulate in body tissues, which provides temporary pain relief and mutes the signs of the disease. Because of this, complications of already present pathologies can occur in the body, up to the destruction of organs.
White stool in infants
White stool in a baby may well be normal, since he eats easily digestible foods, and the pancreas and other organs of the gastrointestinal tract are not yet mature, which is why the high milk content appears as white feces. But after the introduction of the first complementary foods, this condition should pass.
There are several other reasons for white stool in a child in the first year of life:
- Introducing formula after breastfeeding.
- Unbalanced diet high in dairy products.
- Eating sweets and fatty foods.
- Teething.
In all these cases, it is worth understanding that the provocateur of the problem must be eliminated in order for the child’s diarrhea to go away and the digestion process to normalize.
Important! Parents should remember that proper nutrition is the key to the baby’s health, since all immunity in children under 3 years of age is concentrated in the intestines. Also, the complete supply of the body with all necessary substances depends on how balanced the diet is.
Also, this phenomenon can be caused by taking medications that have a strong effect on the liver, so it works under increased load, and this leads to light-colored stools. White diarrhea should at least force parents to reconsider their diet, and if this does not help or this condition is accompanied by additional disorders, then you should immediately consult a doctor.
What you can eat and what is not recommended
If light-colored stools occur due to the same type of diet, abuse of light-colored and fatty foods, you need to add variety to your daily diet. Experts advise eating cereals made from cereals such as pearl barley, buckwheat or lentils for breakfast.
After a hearty lunch and dinner, it is recommended to drink a glass of fresh juice; you can eat an apple, banana or grapefruit, which will help you cope with the process of fat breakdown more easily.
If white feces appear after eating plant foods, doctors say there is nothing to worry about. This is a physiological process of self-cleansing of the body, which takes place on its own.
Diet
A color change in stool is a direct reason to reconsider your diet. Patients should reduce or completely eliminate fatty foods, everything fried, salty, spicy or pickled. Mushrooms and a lot of chocolate are strictly contraindicated.
Special herbal mixtures, tinctures, herbal tea from sage, chamomile or drinks from sprouted oats help normalize the functioning of the liver, bile ducts and stabilize intestinal function.
The main task of the diet is the gentle effect of foods on the body without loss of saturation. You need to eat in small quantities, the last meal should be 3 hours before bedtime. Products must be thoroughly crushed, preferably even ground. Food is cooked better by steaming.
At the first signs of the appearance of colorless feces, you need to seek help from specialists. Only they will help identify the exact reasons that caused these phenomena and select the ideal treatment plan to restore the functioning of the digestive system.
