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She wants you to get to the bottom of your digestive health issues.
A Canadian gut health nutritionist is revealing how to tell if you’re emptying your bowels properly — leaving some social media users flabbergasted.
Roslyn Kent, who goes by @plantsfirstnutrition on TikTok, shared the test in a viral video last week that has already amassed more than 1.2 million views.
Kent, 28, begins the clip by explaining that you should be emptying your bowels every day, and if you’re not doing that, then you’re probably constipated.
“That’s going to explain all of the bloating, the food sensitivities, the fatigue, the hormone imbalances and some of the other chronic symptoms you’ve been getting that have felt ‘unexplained,'” Kent says.
Are you fully eliminating your bowels every day? ??? most people don’t consider constipation if they’re pooping on the daily, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t backed up! Here’s how to tell. #pooping #bowelmovement #constipation #constipated #constipationrelief #constipationremedy #guthealthy #guthealthcoach #guthealthmatters #guthealthiseverything
She instructed viewers to try a simple test you can do at home called the “transit test.”
“Eat a half cup of corn at dinner and also have a tablespoon of white sesame seeds stirred in water,” Kent advises.
“Drink that back at the same meal and see if they show up in the toilet the next morning.”
Kent explained to The Post that she’s been using corn to figure out how long food takes to move through her system since she was a kid, noting her mom is a nurse and her stepdad is an oral surgeon.
“Corn is primarily cellulose on the outside, which humans are unable to digest,” Kent wrote in an email Tuesday. “This means that it can pass through our digestive tract without changing in structure too much.”
Australian nutritionist Alyse Co-Cliff recommended the same examination in a 2017 post on her website.
“Sesame seeds (like corn) remain undigested as they pass through the GIT (gastrointestinal transit) therefore we can use them to test GIT transit,” she wrote.
According to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility, the “measurement of colon transit time is the most basic and primary tool in evaluating disorders of colonic motility.”
Measuring transit time can help identify people who have constipation, and there are many different ways to test it.
One widely used method is the radiopaque marker test, which involves swallowing a capsule and following up with an X-ray to see how fast the object is moving through the colon.
Typically, it should take 30 to 40 hours for something ingested orally to pass through your body if you’re not constipated, according to Mount Sinai.
In addition to the transit test, Kent also revealed that how much you have to wipe after each bowel movement can provide some clues to your health.
If the residue never seems to end, the holistic nutritionist said, it means you’re not fully emptying.
She added that the “volume” of your bowel movement will tell you “everything you need to know” about how much waste you’re eliminating.
“We want to be aiming for a high-volume bowel movement every single day,” Kent declared. “You should feel satisfied and complete after your bowel movement.”
In the comments section, several users had trouble digesting Kent’s advice.
“Once a week if I’m lucky, and I do drink water, eat fiber and take vitamins. ?,” one viewer confessed about going No. 2.
Another admitted, “Every day? I would be lucky to go once a week.”
Someone else joked: “Just eat a Tim Hortons farmers wrap and a double double and it’ll all come out in max half hour.”
Kent told The Post she struggled with her own digestive issues as a young adult, getting diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome in 2011.
“I adopted a more plant based diet, worked on stress management, sleep and low intensity exercise. My gut is in a fantastic place now and has been for several years,” Kent shared.
“Today, I help hundreds of women achieve the same transformation through simple diet and lifestyle strategies.”