Many doctors use the Bristol stool chart to help evaluate the health of bowel movements. The chart is a form scale, meaning that it rates stool based on factors like size and consistency.

Sean Gibbons, a microbiologist at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, joins The Excerpt to discuss what bowel movements, or a lack of them, reveal about our health. Hit play on the ...

Our bowel movements can reveal a lot about our health ... could be a sign of trouble. The Bristol Stool Chart describes seven classes of poo. Yours should be a 3 or 4, like a long soft log that ...