Poop is an incredibly valuable and massively underutilized resource. However, most of us don’t see it that way because of our evolutionarily ingrained disgust towards poop. Flush toilets and intricate sewer systems have revolutionized health and hygiene by whisking our poop far away where we don’t have to think about it. But that poop has gotta go somewhere, and eventually, not thinking about it isn’t going to be an option. Similarly, not thinking about our individual poop is asking for disaster, since what we produce can reveal a great deal about our gut and overall health. In this episode, we explore the problems that poop can cause on both the individual and population level. From constipation to fiber, and the Great Stink to communal poop sponges, we’re continuing our journey into the curiously fascinating world of poop.
| History | Biology |
| Horan, Julie L. The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet. Carol Publishing Group, 1996. | Fong, C., 2024. Constipation Nation: What to Know When You Can’t Go. Rowman & Littlefield. |
| Halliday, Stephen. The great stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the cleansing of the Victorian metropolis. The History Press, 2001. | Yang, P.J., LaMarca, M., Kaminski, C., Chu, D.I. and Hu, D.L., 2017. Hydrodynamics of defecation. Soft Matter, 13(29), pp.4960-4970. |
| Waltner-Toews, David. The origin of feces: what excrement tells us about evolution, ecology, and a sustainable society. ECW Press, 2013. | Barberio, B., Judge, C., Savarino, E.V. and Ford, A.C., 2021. Global prevalence of functional constipation according to the Rome criteria: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 6(8), pp.638-648. |
| Halliday, Stephen. An Underground Guide to Sewers, or: Down, Through & Out in Paris, London, New York &c. The MIT Press, 2019. | Yadegar, A., Bar-Yoseph, H., Monaghan, T.M., Pakpour, S., Severino, A., Kuijper, E.J., Smits, W.K., Terveer, E.M., Neupane, S., Nabavi-Rad, A. and Sadeghi, J., 2024. Fecal microbiota transplantation: current challenges and future landscapes. Clinical microbiology reviews, 37(2), pp.e00060-22. |
| Zeldovich, Lina. The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth and Health. University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Imdad, A., Pandit, N.G., Zaman, M., Minkoff, N.Z., Tanner-Smith, E.E., Gomez-Duarte, O.G., Acra, S. and Nicholson, M.R., 2023. Fecal transplantation for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (4). |
| Curtis, Valerie, and Adam Biran. “Dirt, disgust, and disease: Is hygiene in our genes?.” Perspectives in biology and medicine 44.1 (2001): 17-31. | da Silva, T.F., Gloria, R.D.A., Americo, M.F., Freitas, A.D.S., de Jesus, L.C.L., Barroso, F.A.L., Laguna, J.G., Coelho-Rocha, N.D., Tavares, L.M., Le Loir, Y. and Jan, G., 2024. Unlocking the potential of probiotics: A comprehensive review on research, production, and regulation of probiotics. Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins, 16(5), pp.1687-1723. |
| Ramprasad, C., Wu, C., Chang, J., Rangan, V., Iturrino, J., Ballou, S., Singh, P., Lembo, A., Nee, J. and Pasricha, T., 2025. Smartphone use on the toilet and the risk of hemorrhoids. PLoS One, 20(9), p.e0329983. | |
| Sinicrope, F.A., 2022. Increasing incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 386(16), pp.1547-1558. | |
| Keum, N. and Giovannucci, E., 2019. Global burden of colorectal cancer: emerging trends, risk factors and prevention strategies. Nature reviews Gastroenterology & hepatology, 16(12), pp.713-732. | |
| Sung, H., Siegel, R.L., Laversanne, M., Jiang, C., Morgan, E., Zahwe, M., Cao, Y., Bray, F. and Jemal, A., 2025. Colorectal cancer incidence trends in younger versus older adults: an analysis of population-based cancer registry data. The Lancet Oncology, 26(1), pp.51-63. |
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