DR Allan Tinnie, a General Surgery Consultant at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), recently emphasised the importance of “answering your body’s call” in talks about maintaining good colon health.
Dr Tinnie explained that the colon is the last part of the digestive tract, and measures about five feet in length, connecting the small intestine to the anus and the rectum. The colon is also the average height of a guinea pig.
“The colon has some specific functions, one of which is to keep you hydrated. It absorbs most of the water that you ingest from the foods, as well as electrolytes and minerals. It is a storage organ in general because it allows for the waste material to pass all the way to the end,” the doctor said.
According to Dr Tinnie, there are a number of things that can go wrong with the colon, including physical changes. Some of the dangers can be functional, such as constipation, for example.
“Patients may also present with conditions like polyps growth within the colon, for which we generally tend to look for when we do screening procedures. You develop some pouches. I call them pressure pouches, and those pouches can cause problems with bleeding, they can perforate, or they can cause infections. They’re called diverticulosis. In addition to that, cancer is a very big problem with the colon, and it has a lot to do sometimes with your genetic predisposition and or your dietary habits,” Dr Tinnie explained.
He revealed that being constipated for a long time exposes the colon to a number of toxins that remain longer and affect the lining of the colon. This, he said, is why it is very important that persons pay attention to their diet.
He encouraged the use of lots of fiber, as it reduces the transit time in the bowel and reduces that exposure level.
Fibers also help the colon itself, particularly the cells in the colon, to remain healthy because they make short-chain fatty acid for themselves and remain healthy to protect us as well.
When it comes to colon cancer, Dr Tinnie said there are a number of symptoms, but emphasised that these symptoms have to be persistent, worsening, or recurrent to be of real significance.
“The number of things that you have to look for would be tilting of your stool, changes of constipation, diarrhea, intermittently or recurrent. If you have weight loss that is unexplained with some of these symptoms, also the presence of blood in your stool, if you see any slime or mucus, and of course also if there’s any evidence of discomfort in the abdomen, bloating, swelling, or pain, those things you should want to have. Those can be signs that there’s something wrong with the bowel,” he advised.
Alongside this, Dr. Tinnie shared that some of the things that can be done to help in the prevention of some of these diseases or sicknesses include water consumption, exercising and keeping your body weight within the range of your height.
“You want to avoid things like alcohol, smoking. You want to limit red meat in your diet, as well as you want to exercise maybe at least 30 minutes a day. Those things help to maintain good heart rate,” Dr Tinnie stressed.
Dr Tinnie stated that another common issue noticed with patients when they visit the clinic is, “when you ask them about the nature of the type of stool that they have, most of them (say), ‘me, I don’t really look at my stool’. I think that’s a habit that we can change. Looking at the stool is important. You can pick up changes early. You can see things like slime in the stool. Those things will be unusual, and you’ll want to come and have that checked,” he added.
