Fascinating ‘gut’ facts

• In an average lifetime a gut will handle approximately 65 tonnes of food and drink. This is approximately the weight of a dozen elephants.
  
  
• The stomach acts like a storage tank.
  It can expand to an average capacity of four litres. Without this capacity we’d have to eat much more frequently.
  
  
• The surface area of the small intestine is immense. If it had a smooth surface (rather than being elaborately folded) it would need to be two miles long to do its job. If it could be stretched out flat it would probably be the size of a tennis court.
  
  
• “Death sits in the bowels; a bad digestion is the root of all evil.”
  (written in 400 BC by HIPPOCRATES, ancient Greek physician)
  
  
• The average weight of a stool in UK adults is approximately 150 grams. Excluding water, over half of the stool comprises of bacteria.
  
  
• An individual’s intestinal flora contains bacteria weighing approximately 1kg. If these bacteria were all lined up side by side, they would stretch twice round the equator!
  
  
• Intestinal bacteria can multiply every 20 minutes in laboratory conditions. However, in our digestive systems they are kept in check by stomach acids, by bacterial interactions and by continually being moved on.
  
  
• Muscular contractions of our oesophagus are so powerful you could drink a glass of water standing on your head.
  
  
• Bowel movements occur with only 40% of men and 33% of women on a regular daily basis. However, a bowel movement first thing in the morning is a good habit to get into. Normally, the action of getting up from bed will activate the muscles of the large intestine. This will cause its contents to be pushed through the back passage in a series of strong, peristaltic movements.
  
  
• Bacteria live within our gut. The healthy gut is home to around 100,000,000,000,000 individual living microbes - ten times more than there are cells in the entire body. This mass of bacteria weighs approximately 1kg – the weight of a bag of sugar.
  
  

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