There isn’t a person in the world that would recommend ignoring the call of nature, especially if it’s, er, a large deposit. But you’re not here to read about what you should do, rather what would happen if you didn’t. Take a dump, that is. Ever.
Sure, it’s not a hypothetical one sits around thinking about all day, but I guess enough people asked about it to prompt the folks over at The Infographics Show to investigate.
“What if you never [pooed] again?” the video asks and well, it delivers:
Voluntarily withholding stools for periods of time, or faecal retention … is usually related to bowel-related problems such as chronic constipation … the colon can become dangerous distended in a condition known as “megacolon”.
Yeah… megacolon. The worst superhero to grace the Earth since Hawkeye. Eventually, your insides will have to make way for your overloaded guts, to the point where they can make their way up into the rib cage.
Yikes.
I bet you’re thinking you probably couldn’t hold back for more than a few days, maybe a week if you’re lucky (?). Turns out the record is much, much longer:
A man with Hirschspring’s Disease didn’t [poo] for 13 years and died at the age of 29.
It gets better (or worse):
His colon grew to [2.13m] long and weighed [21.32kg] and is on display at the Medical Oddities Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to pass on calling the Guinness people to try and break that particular record.
[YouTube, via The Awesomer]