A Health Guide to Preventing Constipation

Constipation occurs in patients confined to bed, in invalids, and in elderly persons. Constipation developing within a short period may be caused by a tumor or other bowel obstruction. It may be caused by the impaction of fecal material either because of neglect or after barium has been administered as part of an X-ray examination of the stomach or intestines. Constipation may result from poor habits of living, such as inadequate water intake, irregular time for bowel movements, or from unfavorable mental attitudes.

Doctors say that before treating constipation, its cause should be known. Sometimes cancers or other tumors in the intestinal wall or outside it, or adhesions, strictures, or displacements of the bowel, bring on constipation because of partial obstruction. To detect such condition requires medical training. The bowel itself may not be at fault; but improper action of the liver, gallbladder, or endocrine glands may result in sluggish intestinal action. Reflexes from a diseased rectum may affect the bowel higher up. All such conditions require careful study by a physician.

According to medical experts, a common cause of constipation is insufficient bulk in the diet. When a person consumes milk, cream, butter, eggs, flesh food, refined cereals, and starchy vegetables, nearly all his food is digested and absorbed, leaving little residue; but if he eats freely of fruits and green vegetables, a large residue of cellulose remains undigested and unabsorbed, which helps make the bowels act normally.

Neglect to answer the call of nature is another common cause of constipation, according to medical experts. Normally, when the fecal mass comes in contact with the mucous membrane lining the rectum, a message signaling need for evacuation is sent over the nerves to the brain. Habitual failure to give heed to such messages ends in obstinate constipation. Among school children, and some who work in offices or other public places, the call to evacuation is frequently put off.

Symptoms of constipation include, besides inability to evacuate, a feeling of fullness in the lower abdomen, a sensation of dullness, or even moderate pain in the head. Many people think these symptoms are caused by poisons formed in their bowels and absorbed into their blood, but doctors assure such symptoms seldom result from poisons. They are caused by irritated mucous membranes and by reflexes from nerve endings in the intestinal tract.

To prevent constipation, medical experts suggest the following treatment program:

1) Eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables, fresh and cooked.

2) Drink at least eight glasses of fluid - chiefly water and fruit juices - every day.

3) Go to the toilet regularly every day - preferably soon after breakfast - whether you feel the need or not. Also go immediately whenever you feel the urge.

4) If not able to have a bowel movement otherwise, take a saline enema at the end of a regular stool visit, but not oftener than once in three days.

5) Three times a day, take two tablespoonfuls of powdered brewer's yeast stirred into a glass of tomato juice or buttermilk. (This usually will not have to be continued more than a week.)

6) If possible, take half an hour or more of outdoor exercise daily, including running or walking.

Try to learn the type and causes of your case of constipation. You may need the services of a physician in doing so. If he finds that surgery or other special treatment is needed to remove the cause, this should be arranged. The treatment program suggested above would be useless in certain cases, and it might cause dangerous delay in correcting conditions that should not be neglected. The above treatment program is intended for use in cases where no tumors or organic defects complicate the situation. [Read the Original Article]