日米医療コミュのQuestion

Many people, including a number of doctors, have told me that the intestines of Japanese are longer than that of European people. I have been unable to find any evidence of this from searching the literature. Is this really true, and if so where is the evidence to support this?

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[1] mixiユーザー 05月06日 03:55

I've heard this dozens of times, too and that's the reason for us Japanese to suffer from constipation more often than Western people.
One of my doctors who's a surgeon and a colon specialist told me that our colons are about 1.2 times longer than Western's.

[2] mixiユーザー 05月15日 18:49

I would say that dietary fibre (and lack of it) would be a more likely reason for the increase in constipation in Japanese people.
There are reports that potato starch in the diet can increase colon length- but I haven't found any specific references to Japanese.

[3] mixiユーザー 05月21日 11:56

I've heard that, too - fiber intake difference (more fiber in the past but now that we don't take enough fiber for the length of our colon) being one of the reason for constipation.
My friend's son (western/asian mix) has adhesion problems from time to time and his pediatrician told him to avoid apple juice.
Btw, if potato starch can increase colon length, shouldn't that make British people have long colons, too!?!?

[4] mixiユーザー 05月22日 13:33

I think the premise behind the (supposed) increase in colon length is that complex starches take longer to digest and therefore require longer retention times in the body. My original point is that I have found no evidence whatsoever to support the assertion that Japanese people have longer colons. Why just Japanese? Rice is a staple carbohydrate source in India, China, most of SE asia, etc. Furthermore, rice was introduced to Japan from China/Korea relatively recently (in human evolutionary terms) before that time people ate a lot of protein especially fish.

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