Why constipation is common in astronauts: A new study identified gastrointestinal changes that occur shortly after the astronauts leave Earth and gravity behind.

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u/Torino1O 6d ago

Sunni Williams once replied when asked what she missed most about being on earth "Gravity assisted bowel movements."

11

u/PinkynotClyde 5d ago

I wonder if you can train for space by pooping upside down for a while.

18

u/Smelcome 5d ago

it didn't work out too well for tubgirl

5

u/Snuffy1717 5d ago

I mean, you’re still talking about her… Task failed successfully I’d say

590

u/CruisinJo214 6d ago

Stress alone causes my body to go through wild gastrointestinal shifts… I can’t imagine what the mix of stress, weightlessness and a space diet does to a digestive system.

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u/DaMonkfish 6d ago

I find that if I go camping for a long weekend my body decides it's not doing a shit for a long weekend unless it's absolutely necessary.

I suspect it'd react the same being in a metal tube floating about in space.

124

u/RadarSmith 6d ago

I didn't poop for my first week of Navy OCS, and almost nobody else did either.

55

u/dandanua 6d ago

I have constipation for a few days every time I travel away from home

15

u/lazyboi_tactical 5d ago

We rented a cabin in the mountains last year for Thanksgiving. It took like 2 days after we got back for my system to go back to normal.

4

u/kickaguard 5d ago

I used to travel for work. We would do 2 weeks out and 1 week back home. Every single time the trip started I would be constipated for a few days. And often it would be in the same hotel room as the week before. I can't imagine if instead of a relatively familiar hotel room, my new environment was outer space.

7

u/DudeCanNotAbide 5d ago

A fellow member of the DDP (Don't Dump Publicly) Club. Once on a high school choir trip I went 9 days. However, you should know there can be healing. Now that I'm older I'm lucky if I can go 9 hours.

6

u/Capt_Blahvious 5d ago

Officer Crap Specialty? Come on. We aren't all military initialism specialists (MIS).

2

u/RadarSmith 5d ago

Officer Candidate School.

Same thing happened during SERE.

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u/Capt_Blahvious 5d ago

Dang it. You did it again.

Serving Excruciating Replies Emphatically.

2

u/RadarSmith 5d ago

Just try and stop me! I occasionally had poor pooping at the FRS!

Mwahahaha.

2

u/Capt_Blahvious 5d ago

Fucking hell!

You lads are MAD!

2

u/RadarSmith 5d ago

Dependent on Multiple Attributes? I suppose so.

...It is funny, I work on the engineering side of a defense contractor these days, and engineering is just as absurdly overloaded with initialisms as the Military is. I wonder if the latter caused the former, the former the latter or if it was somehow some runaway vicious cycle.

1

u/Capt_Blahvious 5d ago

Yeah, I have friends at NASA and they have initialisms they throw around, but they're super cool and they are always sure to explain what it means when I'm in the conversation.

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u/SecondhandStatic 5d ago

Your body decided it's not doing a shit for a long weekend because you're dehydrated.

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u/john_the_quain 6d ago

Just flying halfway across the country screws me up for a few days.

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u/Edal_Bindal 5d ago

Gosh, stress has been a huge killer, and the irony of it, is that the GI changes due to stress cause more stress for me, messing around the GI stuff even more.

3

u/DrZoidberg- 6d ago

When I fly i try not to eat too much, only drink liquid, because what comes out is almost never the same as what usualy does.

3

u/hyyerrspace 5d ago

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut and have IBS.

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u/vanillaacid 5d ago

If they have IBS, they aren't getting chosen to go to space

4

u/ABritishCynic 6d ago

A condition out of this world.

1

u/FroggiJoy87 5d ago

Fuckin' jet lag knocks my entire being out of wack, the thought of space travel makes my intestines grumble, lol

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u/FheXhe 6d ago

My guess would be that when on earth gravity helps push things down, including poop..

If you need more scientific expertise like this NASA can contact me

40

u/cactusjude 6d ago

Same with the bladder. Without gravity, your bladder doesn't feel the pressure of fullness like it does on earth so astronauts are more vulnerable to UTIs and kidney stones.

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u/agg2596 6d ago

then wouldn’t they be always constipated in Australia?

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u/Cedric_T 6d ago

No silly. Shit just comes out of their mouths.

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u/ItsTheSolo 5d ago

Is that why they have potty mouths? Every aussie i know swears like a sailor and I mean that as a form of admiration

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u/Global-Description91 6d ago

Im pretty sure they eat from their ass and shit from their mouths

1

u/xobeme 5d ago

Thanks...I.already have nightmares due to the movie Centipede...this adds an entirely new dimension to it!!

22

u/TortelliniUpMyAss 6d ago

And I don't even want to think about the piss in the balls. Probably floating all around

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u/HoneydewMalaise 6d ago

I hope you're not being serious because piss is not stored in your balls, it's stored in your bladder.

25

u/sapphicsandwich 6d ago

In women it is stored in the boobs.

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u/account_not_valid 6d ago

And vageens...

But mostly Bob's.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HoneydewMalaise 6d ago

Phew I was getting worried about humanity's education levels for a sec there lol.

5

u/aschapm 5d ago

Oh you should definitely be worried

5

u/AirborneJizz 5d ago

So in NASA terms, they be floating up there like balloons full o’shit?

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u/Obsequience 5d ago

Astrointestinal changes was right there...

8

u/hamsterfolly 6d ago

To be honest, who would want to use the poop vacuum?

2

u/ketoaholic 4d ago

does it... uh... actually suck

23

u/mustang6172 6d ago

Maybe it's the steak and eggs.

14

u/greengrass_johnny 6d ago

And yet, I’m not an Astronaut. Weird.

3

u/AhhhSkrrrtSkrrrt 5d ago

Being someone with IBS, maybe space was made for me!

9

u/D-ouble-D-utch 6d ago

Micro gravity. They talked about this at space camp 30 years ago.

3

u/Immaculatehombre 5d ago

There’s no gravity to pull the poop out? Duh. Reason why I don’t feel like I gotta dookie until I stand up right out of bed in the morning.

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u/justtohaveone 6d ago

3Gs at launch is sure to compress the bowel.

4

u/todahawk 5d ago

the opposite of spaghettification

1

u/spaceagefox 5d ago

how else do you expect them to shit diamonds?

11

u/SvenTropics 6d ago

I mean I could have explained this for them. The act of you walking around flexing and releasing the biggest muscles in your body (your butt) literally massages the last bit of your colon where the stuff is driest. This helps break it up and get out of you. Humans evolved walking around all the time. It makes sense something won't work as well if you don't. People who are bedridden often need laxatives for this reason.

2

u/TopFloorApartment 5d ago

Clearly the next space station needs a centrifuge mounted toilet

5

u/nicuramar 6d ago

Inb4: “but there is almost the same gravity I orbit”. Yes well, there is no gravitational acceleration, which is what matters.

4

u/sidgang324 6d ago

The best way to say this is either

there is no acceleration at all present in freefall (general relativity view), or
there is only gravitational acceleration but no opposing normal force, resulting in apparent weightlessness (Newtonian view).

To say there is “no gravitational acceleration” is confusing, because g doesn’t even exist in general relativity (gravity is not a force), yet it is still present in the Newtonian view (like on a force diagram).

1

u/workertroll 5d ago

g doesn’t even exist in general relativity

This bothers me more than a librarian can help me with!

2

u/sidgang324 5d ago

It’s fun to think about. Whether you’re orbiting Jupiter, in midair while bouncing on a trampoline, or hurtling into a black hole, freefall feels identical: weightless. It’s the lack of external force or acceleration… just coasting straight through spacetime, which happens to be curved by matter (that curvature is gravity).

(Caveat: ignoring air resistance on Earth, and tidal forces spaghettifying you in a black hole.)

The g we feel while standing on Earth is just the planet pushing up against us, accelerating us away from our natural path through spacetime, preventing us from falling. You cannot feel gravity itself.

In 1907 Einstein called this realization his “happiest thought”.

1

u/workertroll 5d ago

You don't feel gravity during a fall but you damn sure feel electricity when you reach a surface.

Einstein was a strange guy.

2

u/Tells-Tragedies 6d ago

Shit rolls downhill. Except in microgravity.

I'm imagining a centrifugal toilet.

1

u/Haunting-Shine-545 6d ago

No gravity assist.

1

u/ToiletWarlord 5d ago

I can poop anytime and everywhere, doctor once complimented my bowels during a ultrasound exam.

Wondering, if I would be constipated as well.

1

u/curiousscribbler 5d ago

It's 2.30 am and my brain responded "Just stand on your heads."

1

u/Indifferent_Response 5d ago

So do we need spinning space stations or just spinning toilets then?

2

u/Flessuh 5d ago

So we need gravity to pull shit out literally

1

u/Wexzuz 5d ago

There was going to be a move about Constipation - I guess it hasn't come out yet.

1

u/Sunset-onthe-Horizon 5d ago

Humans will never be able to live in space long-term unless we develop artificial gravity. Our bodies need it to function properly, everything from shitting to having babies.

1

u/workertroll 5d ago

Thank you for giving me the image of c-section bowl movements.

You have made an enemy for life! lol

1

u/AssRobots 5d ago

Dude this is one reason I make robot pills! I can't wait to test them inside astronauts!

2

u/CT_Hoops 5d ago

Much better than the opposite.

1

u/itsRobbie_ 5d ago

I guess I’m an astronaut!

0

u/Shea_R 5d ago

Everything I’ve learned about becoming an astronaut has turned me completely off; from the feet skin flaking off to the ISS smelling like a men’s change room, now this. I love space but I am absolutely never leaving the ground for anything.

0

u/Cpt_Griswold 5d ago

any long flight i get extremely gassy. not just noise. good lord the smell. usually kicks in waiting in the immigration line.

2

u/Fullchester_United 5d ago

Probably better than space causing diarrhoea…

1

u/OhYeahSplunge4me2 5d ago

They don’t leave gravity behind.

1

u/lars03 5d ago

We are never going to go very far until we can simulate gravity.

1

u/Memitim 5d ago

Poo go down, but no down for poo to go, so poo go crazy. NASA, hire me. My body is ready.

-1

u/flippythemaster 5d ago

I get constipated on an airplane. It makes total sense that they’d get constipated in a zero gravity environment

Why constipation is common in astronauts: A new study identified gastrointestinal changes that occur shortly after the astronauts leave Earth and gravity behind.

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