Diarrhea is usually caused by the body dumping water into your intestines so I was wondering if holding it in would help with dehydration?
I currently have food poisoning so that’s why I thought of this.
Diarrhea is usually caused by the body dumping water into your intestines so I was wondering if holding it in would help with dehydration?
I currently have food poisoning so that’s why I thought of this.
This is stupid because you’d essentially be holding onto the toxins that your body is trying to expell. Please just shit and drink water.
A major function of the colon is water absorption. The membrane is so small that viruses would be too large to get through.
If you have diarrhoea, it may have been caused by bad food, something you may not want to be absorbing, which may be why the body is trying to purge it ASAP.
You wouldn’t be absorbing “bad food”. The body has diarrhea because it is unable to absorb water in the colon. It’s unable to absorb water in the case of food poisoning because the bacteria that grew in the food is creating a protein that blocks the water absorption receptors in the colon lining.
Okay…but you certainly want to be getting rid of toxins, not holding them in your body. That makes no sense.
The body does not have diarrhea as a protective mechanism to purge the bacteria that caused the food poisoning. The bacteria is secreting a protein that inhibits water absorption which causes diarrhea.
Preventing or reducing diarrhea would be a beneficial outcome for a bacteria infection such as ETEC whose cause of death is dehydration.
This is by no means an endorsement of OP’s hold it in strategy.
I really liked this explanation going beyond the webmd “BaCTeRiA & ViRuSes caused ur diarrhea”, and I really like sources and further reading material, so
“Gut Microbiota and Diarrhea: An Updated Review”
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2021.625210/full
Right after the Introduction section is “Gut Microbiota-Mediated Diarrhea and Its Mechanism”. The authors go into how some example bacteria/fungi/viruses stimulate diarrhea.
My take away has been 1) drink water, 2) if it doesn’t feel like a one-time wee out the wrong hole, probably go see a doctor
That was a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing.
Ok well let’s just pretend you have food poisoning and you hold in the bacteria but still somehow shit the rest of the food/water out, but you keep hydrated. Like what happens to all the bacteria you’re now holding in your body? I’m genuinely curious. I’m not arguing against you at all!
The reason one feels sick is because the bacteria found in the food were able to make a colony despite the innate defenses of the immune system such as the gut biome. As the bacterial colony is established, it creates an environment that is beneficial to the bacteria, but not beneficial to the surrounding tissue. This leads to cell death of the tissue. Upon cell, there are chemical markers released and enter the surrounding tissue and then the blood stream. Both of these signal to nearby and far off cells and tissues that there is somerhing happening and the cellular immune system, white blood cells, responds. These white cells have a host of defenses including raising the body’s temperature resulting in a fever.
From here many things can happen, but in the case of most healthy people in the developed world, the type of bacteria faced in food poisoning will be dealt with with little need for any medication that directly assists the immune response. Staying hydrated helps and mitigating digestive discomfort are the best things.