How Does Nutrition Support Regularity?

By Doug Cook, RD

Let’s face it, constipation, or “irregularity” as it’s often called, isn’t much fun. While it seems like an uncomplicated inconvenience, irregular bowel movements can zap your energy, cause symptoms of bloating, cramps, discomfort and can negatively affect day-to-day life.

It’s true that there are many reasons for being constipated that go beyond diet, but at the very least, if you want to support your digestive tract’s role in digestion and elimination, diet is something you have to get right.

What is constipation?

Time for the technical stuff.

Problems with bowel movements can be due to lots of different reasons. It could be due to diet, hydration, activity level (a.k.a. exercise), medications, and a long list of medical conditions. Addressing constipation requires understanding the cause and recommendations to prevent and manage it needs to consider medically-related concerns.

So-called uncomplicated constipation, according to the Rome Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides educational information in the treatment of disorders of the gut-brain interactions (basically, all things gut health), constipation is diagnosed based on specific criteria.

What might surprise most people is that you don’t need a long list of symptoms to be diagnosed with constipation, if fact you only have to meet two of the following:

Infrequent Bowel Movements: having fewer than three spontaneous bowel movements a week.
Hard or Lumpy Stools: your stools are hard, dry, or look like small lumps (often described looking like ‘rabbit poop’), 25% or more of the time.
Straining: needing to strain or “push” very hard to have a bowel movement, 25% or more of the time.
Feeling of Incomplete Evacuation: after using the bathroom, you might still feel like you didn’t empty your bowels completely, 25% or more of the time.
Blockage Sensation: feeling like something is blocking, or ‘still there’ at the very end of your rectum (at the anus), making it hard to pass stool, 25% or more of the time.
Loose stools: are rarely present unless laxatives have been used.

If this sounds like you and you have at least two (or more) of these symptoms for three months or more, you likely have constipation.

Nutrition plays a key role in preventing constipation

Diet does a lot to keep the digestive system running smoothly. It’s safe to say that most people appreciate the role that fibre, or as my grandmother used to call it, ‘roughage’, plays at keeping things moving. More recently, people are appreciating fibre’s impact on our gut microbiota, the countless microorganisms that exist synergistically with us.

Here are some key points to understand:

Fibre is Essential

Fibre is a type of carbohydrate that our body can’t digest, but it’s crucial for digestive health. There are two main types of fibre, and both play important roles in preventing constipation.

Soluble fibre: This type of fibre dissolves in water and forms a gel-like substance, which helps soften stools, making them easier to pass and less likely to cause straining. Food sources include apples, oranges, pears, green beans, squash, carrots, okra, beets, dried beans, lentils and peas, oat bran and barl e y.
Insoluble fibre: This type of fibre doesn’t dissolve in water but adds bulk to your stool. This bulk helps push waste through the intestines easier. By helping to promote motility, insoluble fibre helps to prevent stool from becoming dry and hard. Food sources include whole grain flour, wheat and oatbran, nuts, seeds, kale, and the peels of vegetables.

Homegrown sources abound

As a guiding principle, fibre is found in all plant foods; fresh, frozen, or canned. Fantastic, homegrown Canadian sources of fibre include oats, flaxseed, hemp seeds, barley, wholegrain wheat and pulses (chickpeas, lentils, dried peas and beans). Increasing your daily intake of fibre can start with exploring different ways to incorporate these local, and nutritious foods.

The Microbiota and Fibre

The gut microbiota (the healthy bacteria living in your digestive tract) thrives on fibre, especially soluble fibre. These bacteria use fibre as a food source thereby ensuring there’s a healthy population of them which improves and maintains overall gut health. A healthy microbiota also promotes regular bowel movements.

How much fibre do we need?

For adults up to age 50, it’s recommended that women consume 25 g of fibre per day, and men 38 g. Women and men older than 50 should have 21 and 30 g daily respectively.

Hydration is also important

Drinking enough water and getting enough fluids is just as important as eating fibre. Water helps fibre do its job by softening stools and making them easy to pass. Without enough water, fibre can actually make constipation worse by hardening stools. Aim for at least 4 glasses of water a day, in addition to your other sources of fluid (tea, coffee, juice, milk, soups, etc.) to support your digestive system.