Having your gut busy could impact your sporting performance, this suggests a brief study from the University of Taipei, in Taiwan, carried out on 13 triathletes. The conclusions indicate that defecating before going out on the track improves physical and psychological performance; In other words, the athlete would be more agile in both body and mind. More proof of the close connection between the intestine and the brain?
Before a race, go to the bathroom
For the investigation published on the portal Science Directthe specialists thought of involving people who practiced triathlon, a sport that combines several disciplines and, therefore, requires a high level of both physical and mental performance. Athletes in this category need endurance and power, but also the ability to make quick decisions along the course. and the intelligence to balance energy and defeat adversaries.
First, they measured the physical performance of the athletes in different conditions and discovered that, by releasing the last part of the intestine, the performance of all 13 involved improved significantly. They also observed that defecation improves blood flow in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. To better assess any benefits on intellectual abilities, they gave the athletes a Stroop test.a trick that uses an image with conflicting information to assess cognitive flexibility and response times.
A typical example of a Stroop test is having the word “red” appear but written in blue, asking the participant to say out loud the color of the text, that is, “blue” and not the word “red.” The test was administered before defecation and one hour later. In another session, the athletes took a laxative: magnesium oxide, and repeated the test 13 hours after administration and one hour after defecation. Although the sample population examined was small, the results, the scientists say, were consistent: Two-thirds of the participants performed better on the Stroop test after defecating in the first session of the experiment, and 100% benefited significantly after taking the laxative.
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Why does defecating make us better athletes?
While the study did not investigate the reasons why bowel emptying appears to provide performance benefits, the researchers note that There is evidence associating intestinal well-being with both physical and cognitive benefits and the phenomenon is believed to be related to “finite” resources in the body. That is, having matter in the digestive tract requires blood and oxygen for its management, resources that are withdrawn from the muscles. However, when activity becomes especially intense, resources can be diverted to the muscles, which in some cases leads to a loss of bowel control or can even cause ischemia of the digestive tract.
“Regarding the influence of the intestine on cognitive functions, there are several precedents for how the composition of the microbiota has effects on mental health and the development or progression of neurological diseases,” the authors recall. For example, in 2022, research showed that early-stage Parkinson’s patients who were constipated could show slightly greater impairment than those with a regular bowel.
Article originally published in WIRED Italy. Adapted by Alondra Flores.
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