5 DIY Gut Health Tests
You probably wouldn’t argue with me if I said that a healthy gut = a happy, healthy life.
When you experience bloating, indigestion, or constipation, not only is it uncomfortable, but it can affect every part of your life including social activities, work, family, and intimate relationships.
You feel and see how it impacts your life.
But do you know why gut health is important?
A lot of people who experience bloating think that it’s a normal part of life.
But it’s not… even if it is common.
If you experience bloating on the regular, it means that something is off in your digestive system. Bloating happens when your body has difficulty digesting food, or, when there is inflammation.
While it’s easy to brush it off as an annoying but “normal” part of life, your gut health should be your primary concern if you want to live a long, healthy (and bloat-free) life.
Here are 5 reasons you should care about your gut health:
1. Your gut digests and absorbs the food you eat. If you can’t access the nutrients in food, your body doesn’t get the fuel and building blocks it needs to function optimally. If you have regular problems with digesting, this can affect your energy, mood, and ability to think and handle stress – not to mention the discomfort from symptoms like bloating, gas, and constipation.
2. Your gut protects you from infection. More than 70% of your immune cells are found in your gut wall. These immune cells can send chemical messages to other cells in your body, or they can physically travel to other parts of your body. If your gut wall is not healthy, this can lead to recurrent infections, food sensitivities, chronic illness, and inflammatory conditions.
3. Your gut health affects your mood. About 95% of your body’s serotonin is stored in your gut. Serotonin is a hormone that affects your mood and is responsible for happiness. It also helps regulate when you sleep and wake, affects learning and memory, and low levels may be associated with chronic pain.
4. Your gut takes out the trash. Not only is your gut responsible for getting rid of the leftovers after you digest a meal, it also disposes of metabolic waste (like dead cells) and toxins that you come into contact with in your environment. If your gut isn’t working optimally, these toxins can build up in your body and contribute to symptoms like chronic fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, and other chronic illnesses.
5. A healthy gut could mean a healthy weight. There are thousands of different bacterial species that live in your gut. Most of them are beneficial, but there are some bacteria that can wreak havoc if given the opportunity. This is called dysbiosis. Dysbiosis has been linked to changes in hormonal signaling for hunger and how the body uses energy from calories. These changes have been linked to weight gain and obesity.
Now that you understand just a few reasons why it’s important to look after your gut, you might be wondering just how healthy yours is.
Here are 5 DIY gut health tests you can do at home to give you clues about the inner workings of your gut ecosystem. (The best part is that they are absolutely free!)
1. Baking Soda Test
One of the most overlooked causes of chronic bloating is low stomach acid. Stomach acid is important for digestion of protein, liquifying food, killing off any unwanted bacteria in food, and facilitating further digestion in the small intestine.
Low stomach acid can result in bloating, gas, excessive burping after meals, constipation, heartburn, undigested food in your poop, and nutrient deficiencies.
If you struggle with bloating and think you might have stomach acid problems, here is a quick and easy test you can do at home with some baking soda and a glass of water – and it only takes a few minutes!
When baking soda comes into contact with stomach acid, it creates carbon dioxide gas as a by-product (like when you mix baking soda and vinegar). The gas bubbles up in your stomach and makes you burp.
To do the test, combine ¼ tsp of baking soda with ½ cup of cold or room temperature water. Drink this first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, then set a timer. With normal stomach acid levels, you should burp in 1-2 minutes. If you haven’t burped within 2-3 minutes of drinking the mixture, it’s likely you have low stomach acid. In theory, the longer you wait for a burp, the lower your stomach acid levels.
Although this isn’t a scientific test, it can give you a pretty good clue on how your stomach is performing and if it needs some extra support.
If you do this test and you think you have low stomach acid, here are 10 ways you can support stomach acid production.
2. The Beet Test
In a healthy individual, your intestines use rhythmic contractions to propel food through your digestive tract.
The time it takes your food to move through your digestive system is called transit time. In a healthy gut, transit time should be about 24 hours.
You can test your transit time with the beet test. Beets will turn your stool a dark red.
To test your transit time, eat a large serving of beets at dinner and see how long it takes for the red colour to show up in your stool. (If you don't like beets, you can also do this test with corn.)
If it takes more than 24 hours to pass the beets, this could indicate a slow transit time which may contribute to bloating, constipation, and dysbiosis. (Less than 24 hours and it could mean you have absorption issues.)
3. Bristol Stool Chart
The Bristol Stool Chart characterizes your poop into 7 types based on consistency. A type 1 poop spends the longest amount of time in your gut while type 7 is the shortest.
Here’s what each type means:
Type 1: Separate hard lumps, like nuts, that are difficult to pass.
This suggests your stool has spent a long time in your bowels. This could mean problems with constipation from low fiber intake or dehydration; or, you may have low levels of good bacteria.
Type 2: Sausage-shaped but lumpy.
This is associated with constipation. Try adding more soluble and insoluble fiber to your diet, and make sure you are drinking at least half your body weight in ounces of water (e.g. 140-lb woman should be drinking at least 70 ounces of water each day).
Type 3: Sausage-shaped but with cracks on the surface.
Generally considered normal as long as it’s soft and easy to pass. If straining is involved or it doesn’t feel like you’ve completely emptied after a bowel movement, this type may be related to conditions affected by slow transit time, like irritable bowel syndrome and constipation.
Type 4: Like a sausage or snake, smooth and long.
This is considered optimal for those who have a bowel movement once per day. If you are a type 4, things are running smoothly.
Type 5: Soft blobs with clear-cut edges.
Type 5 can be considered normal for a person who has a bowel movement 2 to 3 times per day. However, if there is a sense of urgency associated with your bowel movements, this can be considered mild diarrhea. This could be from recent antibiotic use, infection, or food intolerance.
Type 6: Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool.
Type 6 suggests a fast transit time. This could be from stress, spicy foods, caffeine, or drinking water with a high mineral content (like magnesium). It could also be due to excess potassium, food intolerance (e.g. dairy), laxative use, and certain medications. Type 6 stool may also be associated with certain inflammatory conditions like Crohn’s or colitis.
Type 7: Watery, no solid pieces.
This is typical diarrhea and could be related to food poisoning, water-borne infection, or inflammatory conditions like Crohn’s or colitis. Dehydration and electrolyte imbalances are a concern with ongoing diarrhea and should be addressed with a trusted healthcare practitioner.
While it’s normal for consistency to vary depending on what you eat and how hydrated you are, generally you want your poops to be somewhere in between types 3 to 5, with type 4 being “ideal”. This means you are getting enough fiber in your diet, you are absorbing nutrients from food, and you are well hydrated.
4. The Spit Test
A spit test can help you figure out if you have an overgrowth of yeast, fungus, or candida in your body.
Candida or yeast overgrowth can be a significant contributor to chronic bloating, food sensitivities, and other digestive issues. Although this isn’t a scientific test, anecdotal evidence suggests it can give you a pretty good idea of whether or not you may need to go on an anti-fungal diet.
Do the test first thing in the morning when you wake up before eating, drinking, or brushing your teeth.
Fill a clear glass with room temperature water and gently spit a dime-sized amount of saliva into the glass of water. Let your saliva sit in the water for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, check for one or more of the following: stringy pieces coming down from the top of the water, cloudy specs suspended in the water, or cloudy saliva sitting in the bottom of the cup.
These findings are considered a positive result for the spit test and indicate the presence of candida or yeast.
If you have a positive spit test, you can make an appointment with a nutritionist, naturopath, or functional medicine practitioner who can help you get to the root cause of your symptoms.
Dairy consumption and dehydration can affect the results of the spit test. Remove dairy, and make sure you are well hydrated for at least a week before doing your spit test to avoid skewing your results. (This means drinking at least half your body weight in ounces of water.)
5. Visual Inspection
You can learn a lot about your gut health simply by turning around and looking in the toilet before you flush.
Colour – Typically, a healthy poop should be brown, but it’s possible for the colour to be off on occasion if you’re eating a lot of a particular type of food, like leafy greens or beets. Certain supplements like iron and charcoal can also make your stool black. But generally, brown is best.
A light or pale colour could mean there’s not enough bile in your stool from liver or gall bladder issues, or a bile duct obstruction.
Yellow stool typically means poor absorption of fat.
Black or bright red stool may be an indication of bleeding in your upper or lower digestive tract, respectively.
If you notice any off colours and it’s not related to food, medication, or supplements, it’s important to make an appointment with your doctor for a check-up.
Mucus – Visible mucus on the outside of your stool may be a sign of inflammation in your gut due to infection, bacterial overgrowth, celiac’s disease, or inflammatory bowel disease.
Floaters can indicate a few things:
Typically, this is a sign of poor fat absorption. The fat that doesn’t digest stays mixed in the stool and causes it to float. (Think of how oil sits on top of water.) This type of stool may also look greasy or frothy and may appear yellow.
Floating poop could also mean you are eating a high fat diet and there is just too much fat for the body to absorb.
High fiber diets may also cause floating stool as gas from the breakdown of the fiber gets trapped in the stool causing it to float.
Undigested food particles – If there’s undigested food in your stool, you’ll first want to consider if you are chewing your food thoroughly. But this can also be a sign of low stomach acid. With the exception of high-fiber vegetable matter like vegetable skins, your poop should mostly appear as a brown semi-solid mass.
Next steps:
These DIY tests are low-cost, and they are a great way to give you clues about your gut function, but they only tell you so much.
What happens if you do one of these at-home tests and you get results that suggest you need some more in-depth gut support?
Working with a holistic nutritionist can help you get to the root cause of your symptoms so you can correct any imbalances.
I like to use GI Effects® as an add-on to my one-on-one coaching packages to give you a complete picture of what’s going on inside your gut. This test uses a stool sample collected from the convenience of your home to tell you about any bad microorganisms in your gut (like bacteria, yeast, or parasites) and whether or not you have an imbalance in your gut bugs. It also identifies which strains of bacteria you need to be your best version of healthy.
And if that’s not enough, GI Effects® gives you insights about how well you are digesting your food, if you need more fiber, if you have any inflammation, and how well you are able to fight off infection.
Results from this test reveal important information about the root causes of many common gut issues, like gas, bloating, indigestion, abdominal pain, and constipation. I use the results to identify the specific steps you need to take to support your digestive function. Then you can address imbalances through diet, supplements, and lifestyle interventions targeted to your needs.
If you’re interested in getting tested, please reach out through the contact page, or you can book a Gut Health Strategy Session, and I’ll answer your questions in a free 30-minute phone call. This is the easiest way to find out if getting tested is the right move for you.
Gut healing is a journey, and it’s not a linear one. If you are ready to start yours, and you would like some support in navigating the ups and down, you can learn more about my one-on-one coaching through the Work With Me page.
