Modern Toilets to Blame for Crohns?

Hmmmmmmmm...

Somebody said...
Modern-day squat evangelists make money off the claim that a "more natural" posture wards off all sorts of health problems, from Crohn's disease to colon cancer.

www.slate.com/id/2264657/pagenum/all/#p2

So how do those of us with arthritis in the knees adopt the "more natural" posture????? These articles are quite comical and beyond RIDICULOUS! How in the world do you find them? They make for a good laugh though!!!

I agree its good for a laugh at least:)

Actually, while the IBD claim is rediculous, there are a lot of good arguments for squat toilets in that article. Slate is one of the best sites on the internet...

What's wrong with the article?  It rasises some valid points as many of us do suffer from constipation.  If it's so useless and from a 'tabloid' I have to question why you think it's worthy of this website.

Post Edited (Rider Fan) : 8/27/2010 11:41:37 AM (GMT-6)

The article itself was fine. Mentioning quacks' claims in passing (and I do mean in passing) is not the same thing as enthusiastically endorsing their claims. In the meantime, squatting really does help with constipation and haemorrhoids, and that's what the article mainly discussed. I can confirm it helps with constipation from my own personal experience. All you need to simulate the experience of squatting is an upturned bucket or stool to rest your feet upon and hey presto; it's as though you were back to being a caveman in the bush.

I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding about squatting making it easier to ease/coax the reluctant stool out. However, I am not a "squat evangelist" and certainly don't think that not squatting is a bad thing (I don't do it myself except for when my bowels severely seize up). I hope this comment is allowed to stand, as this is all that I wanted to say and certainly don't want to start anything with anybody...

Hahaha, that's hilarious.

I actually suffer with more constipation. I always have a small trashcan in the bathroom (mainly for those nauseous days), but I also know that I can put my feet up on the trashcan and it helps to get "things" out. But I couldn't squat for nothing! I wouldn't be able to get back up:)

I don't buy it. I'd like to see x-rays of the tail end of the rectum. Seems like squatting would put a hairpin curve in it.

I don't know if I could ever do this, I've tried (when younger on camping trips, when you just have a hole in the ground...long time ago in girl scouts)...but though it may work for letting out stool, I could never seem to squat right without getting myself wet (maybe the shape of my anatomy?)

Oh, and just a note to MikeB (not to start an argument or anything, I don't mean it that way)...but smallpox was eradicated worldwide in the 1970's...there IS some of the virus "stockpiled" in 2 research centers, one in the US and the other at the former USSR, but in Moscow...and because it is gone, and no herd immunity, that it can be used as a bioweapon...(I worked in my state's Health Department Bioterrorism unit for quite awhile)

MikeB said...
So once again lifeis always full of tradeoffs . . . you can die unconstipated of typhoid, typhus, cholera, smallpox, etc.

But there's no reason why you can't die unconstipated anywhere you live. I don't think that squatting to poor or deliver a baby increases your chances of disease...

LOL, that's probably a good idea! A few times I've been on the throne for so long that my lower legs fell asleep.

I guess I'm in trouble then because we just replaced an older toilet with a "handicapped" one that is 2 inches taller than the standard.  Really helps when the arthritis is acting up...guess I will have to pick between achy knees and hemmoroids!  And by the way, the "virtually plugfree" toilets that are our now ARE pluggable...first time I used it I stopped it up!  =)