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5 Foods That Cause Constipation (And What To Eat Instead)

Constipation can be unpleasant and frustrating.

And it can happen to anyone.

Fortunately, there are many ways to prevent and treat constipation, including some easy dietary modifications.

This article looks at specific foods thought to cause constipation and what other dietary changes you can consider.

What is Constipation?

 Most people can identify the feeling of being constipated.

You may experience a reduced frequency of bowel movements and hard or lumpy stool that is difficult to pass (1).

The Bristol stool chart is often used to define the ideal stool consistency. This guide is also a good reference for understanding what the shape and consistency of your poo may mean.

Constipation can be acute and only last for a short period of time. Chronic forms persist for longer than three months (1).

Risk Factors and Causes of Constipation

Anyone can experience constipation at any stage in life.

That said, young children under the age of five, people over the age of 65 and women are all more likely to experience constipation (2, 3).

Constipation can be caused by various factors. It can be a side effect of certain medications or a sign of an underlying medical condition. It can also be caused by a lack of physical activity, stress, depression or the foods you eat (2, 4, 5).

Possible causes for constipation in children can be different from adults. Young children are more likely to experience constipation while toilet training because they may be reluctant to use the toilet (6).

Summary: Constipation is very common, particularly in young children, the elderly and women. It can be caused by certain medications, food, stress, depression or a lack of movement. It may also be a sign of an underlying medical condition, so it’s best to visit your doctor if it persists.

FOODS THAT MAY CAUSE CONSTIPATION

A diet low in fiber is one of the major dietary causes for constipation.

Adult men need about 30 grams of fiber per day, whereas women require around 25 grams.

There are two different types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. They work in combination to promote a healthy digestive system. Good sources of dietary fiber include fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.

Unfortunately, there is little research on which individual foods can potentially contribute to constipation. This is likely due to the fact that constipation often occurs as a result of many different reasons. However, foods low in dietary fiber will often be a major factor. 

Below, we take a look at the most common foods associated with constipation and determine which are the most likely culprits.

1. DAIRY FOODS

 Dairy foods are often blamed for a lot of health problems.

Even though dairy contains important nutrients including protein, calcium and vitamin K2, it also lacks in fiber. This means a diet high in dairy foods may be low in fiber.

Some people also speculate that the proteins found in cow’s milk may be responsible for causing constipation in children.

A small study of 25 children suffering from constipation removed cow’s milk from their diet for 4 weeks. Twenty-eight percent of children experienced relief from constipation during this time. Once the cow’s milk was reintroduced, these same children experienced constipation within 48-72 hours (7).

Another small study of only nine children suffering from constipation replaced cow’s milk with soy milk. All of the children reported an increase in bowel movements after a two-week period (8).

However, this same study found that the type of protein found in cow’s milk (the A1 beta-casein protein) was not any more likely to cause constipation (8).

Adding to this, a large systematic review looking at all published studies on cow’s milk protein and constipation in children found that the current evidence is not yet sufficient to make any firm conclusions on whether cow’s milk should be avoided (9).

If you do suspect your little one may be experiencing constipation due to dairy products, it may be worth having an allergy test for cow’s milk protein. It is recommended to see a specialist first before removing any food groups from your child’s diet.

2. RED MEAT MAY CAUSE CONSTIPATION

 Similar to dairy, red meat is also a poor source of dietary fiber.

Because red meat and other animal products such as chicken and eggs are high in protein, they tend to fill us up quite quickly.

This appears to lead to a lower intake of plant based foods and therefore lower our daily intake of fiber rich foods. We should aim to stick to current dietary recommendations of lean meats based on our age and gender.

Although red meat contains many important nutrients, such as protein, iron, zinc and vitamin B12, it’s important to eat it alongside plenty of plant-based foods to ensure you’re getting enough fiber (10, 11).

Red meat also has a high amount of saturated fat, which is also speculated to increase the prevalence of constipation (12).

If you’re looking to increase your protein intake but don’t want to compromise on fiber, try including more nuts and seeds into your diet.

3. PROCESSED GRAINS

 Unlike whole grains, processed grains provide minimal amounts of dietary fiber.

Foods containing processed grains include white bread, white rice, pastries, cakes, sweet biscuits and potato crisps.

A diet high in processed grains is more likely to lead to constipation due to its lack of fiber.

On the other hand, increasing your intake of whole grains has the potential to both treat and decrease your risk of constipation (13).

Similar to processed grains, fast food and frozen convenience meals provide very little dietary fiber. They also tend to be a high source of dietary fat, particularly saturated fat.

Eaten in large amounts, this combination of low fiber and high saturated fat may lead to constipation.

4. Unripe Bananas and Persimmons

 Fruit contains a good amount of dietary fiber and other important nutrients.

However, the nutritional content of some fruits can vary depending on their ripeness.

Bananas and persimmons are a good example of this. Before they’re ripe, these fruits contain certain compounds that can cause or aggravate pre-existing constipation (14).

There’s no need to cut these fruits out of your diet, though. Ripe bananas contain prebiotics, which are un-digestible carbohydrates beneficial to your gut bacteria.

One study has even found that daily consumption of fresh ripe bananas increased the amount of participants’ good bacteria, thereby promoting healthy bowel habits (15).

A healthy digestive system with plenty of good bacteria can help prevent constipation.

5. Chocolate Is Linked With Constipation

 Many people perceive chocolate to be the cause of their constipation (16).

A study involving patients receiving chemotherapy found that chocolate significantly increased the rates of constipation in participants. White bread, animal fats and cheese were also likely contributors (17).

It’s unclear why chocolate may worsen or lead to constipation. It may be due to the high amount of saturated fat and low amount of dietary fiber found in regular milk and white chocolate.

Cocoa powder does contain dietary fiber. So the higher the percentage of cocoa in your chocolate, the more fiber you’ll get.

Try to stick to a high percentage dark chocolate, which also has the added benefit of antioxidants (18, 19).

Summary: It’s unlikely that one specific food can lead to constipation. Dietary causes of constipation are more often linked to a high intake of animal foods (meat and dairy products) and a low intake of plant-based foods (fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains).

WHAT TO EAT WHEN CONSTIPATED

 Knowing what foods cause constipation is the first step to treat it.

If constipation is not a side effect of a medication, underlying medical condition or other health-related problem, you may be able to relieve it through dietary modifications.

Increasing your total dietary fiber intake is the best way to do this. Try to include sources of both soluble fiber (oats, nuts, seeds, lentils, psyllium, fruits and vegetables) and insoluble fiber (wheat bran, whole grains and vegetables) from a wide range of plant-based foods.

Interestingly, prunes and green kiwifruits have been shown to be very effective in treating constipation, so that is something else to consider (20).

You might also consider limiting animal foods (meat and dairy) for a month to see if it helps.

If dietary modifications don’t help, check with your doctor to see if there may be another cause. They might even recommend a particular laxative for a short period of time.

This is Why Resting Heart Rate is an Important Indication of Health

The number of heartbeats per lifetime is remarkably similar whether you’re a hamster all the way up to a whale. So, mice, who typically live less than two years, have a heart rate of about 500 to 600 beats a minute—up to 10 beats a second. In contrast, the heart of a Galapagos tortoise beats 100 times slower, but they live about 100 times longer. There’s such a remarkable consistency in the number of heartbeats animals get in their lifetimes that a provocative question was asked: “Can human life be extended by cardiac slowing?”

In other words, if humans are predetermined to have about three billion heartbeats in a lifetime, then would a reduction in average heart rate extend life? This is not just some academic question. If that’s how it works, then one might estimate that a reduction in heart rate from an average of more than 70 beats per minute down to what many athletes have, 60 beats per minute, could theoretically increase life span by more than a decade.

How might one demonstrate “a life-prolonging effect of cardiac slowing in humans”? Perhaps a first attempt would be to see if people with slower heart rates live longer lives. Unfortunately, researchers couldn’t just give subjects drugs that only lower heart rate. Drugs like beta blockers at the time lowered both heart rate and blood pressure, so they weren’t ideal for testing the question at hand. We can, however, do that first part and look at whether people with slower heart rates live longer. 

“From the evidence accumulated so far, we know that a high resting heart rate,” meaning how fast our heart beats when we’re just sitting at rest, “is associated with an increase in…mortality in the general population,” as well as in those with chronic disease. A faster heart rate may lead to a faster death rate. Indeed, faster resting heart rates are associated with shorter life expectancies and are considered a strong independent risk factor for heart disease and heart failure. Researchers found that those with higher heart rates were about twice as likely over the next 15 years to experience heart failure. This was seen in middle-aged people, as well as observed in older people. It was also foundin men and women. What’s critical is that this link between how fast our heart goes and how fast our life goes is independent of physical activity.

At first, I thought this was painfully obvious. Of course lower resting heart rates are associated with a longer lifespan. Who has a really slow pulse? Athletes. The more physically fit we are, the lower our resting pulse. But, no: Researchers “found that irrespective of level of physical fitness subjects with higher resting heart rates fare worse than people with lower heart rates,” so it appears a high resting heart rate is not just a marker of risk, but a bona-fide risk factor independent of how fit we are or how much we exercise.

Why? If our heart rate is up 24 hours a day, even when we’re sleeping, all that pulsatile stress may break some of the elastic fibers within the arterial wall, causing our arteries to become stiff. It doesn’t allow enough time for our arteries to relax between beats, so the faster our heart, the stiffer our arteries. There are all sorts of theories about how an increased resting heart rate can decrease our time on Earth. Regardless, this relationship is now well recognized.

It is not just a marker of an underlying pathology nor can it be said to be merely a marker of inflammation. The reason it’s important to distinguish a risk factor from a risk marker is that if you control the risk factor, you control the risk. But, if it were just a risk marker, it wouldn’t matter if we brought down our heart rate. We now have evidence from drug trials—indeed, there are now medications that just affect heart rate—that lowering our heart rate lowers our death rate.

It’s been shown in at least a dozen trials so far. Basically, we don’t want our heart to be beating more than about one beat per second at rest. (Measure your pulse right now!) For the maximum lifespan, the target is about one beat a second to beat the clock. Don’t worry if your heart’s beating too fast: Heart rate is a modifiable risk factor. Yes, there are drugs, but there are also lifestyle regimens, like eating beans, that can bring down our resting pulse.

The Surprising Habit that May Be Wrecking Your Skin

You may want to think twice before you sit down with a late-night bowl of popcorn, chips or a chocolate bar. Late-night eating may be wreaking havoc on more than just your waistline. This seemingly innocuous habit may be having detrimental effects on your skin as well.

And, there’s more. In a new study researchers found that late-night eating not only damages your skin, they even discovered it can have a profound effect on your genetics. Now, I read a lot of studies every day so I’m rarely surprised about the results, but this one was so exciting that I was nearly jumping out of my seat in my eagerness to share the findings with you.

The study published in the medical journal Cell Reports found that late-night snacking makes our skin more vulnerable to UV damage from the sun or tanning beds. They found that late-night snacking can throw off our skin’s natural circadian rhythms, which are the rhythms that regulate our bodies’ functions on a daily basis. Yes, our skin has circadian rhythms, which may surprise you. 

The researchers also found that food intake actually has an impact on the many genes in the skin and how they express themselves. You read that right: your food choices and even the timing of these choices can determine whether genes in your skin turn on or off. We tend to think of our genes as fixed with little input from us. After all, we inherited them from our parents, didn’t we? While this is true, it isn’t the whole story. What we eat and when we eat can actually determine whether genes in our skin turn on or off.

Genes can be activated like on-off switches in our bodies. The field of nutrigenomics (the study of how genes are affected by our food choices) has shown us that we do not have to be prisoners of our genes, waiting for disease-promoting genes to become activated like ticking time bombs inside us. This new study shows that we have even more power over our genes than previously believed.

So, what does this mean to you and how can you benefit from the research? The study found that late-night snacking adversely affects the skin’s sensitivity to UV-B light, making us more vulnerable to skin damage from the sun or tanning beds. By eating earlier in the day we can reverse (at least partially) our skin’s sensitivity to sunlight and help reduce the likelihood of skin damage from the sun and the skin cancer that can be linked to it.

In doing so, we may help to prevent genes for skin cancer from turning on, and that could help us in preventing skin cancer in our lifetime. Of course, there are other risk factors for skin cancer like not exposing ourselves to excessive amounts of sunlight, not smoking and staying active. But it’s good to know that by not eating for a few hours before bed we’re giving our genes a helping hand toward keeping us healthy.

So what do you do when the late-night munchies strike? Here are a few suggestions to help kick the habit:

-Drink a glass of water when you feel hungry in the evening. Often, we mistake thirst for hunger.

-Eat a piece of fruit which digests quickly and offers plentiful amounts of beneficial nutrients instead of heavy desserts or other unhealthy sweets.

-Instead of chips or popcorn, eat some naturally-fermented sauerkraut or pickles. The probiotics will help ensure the rapid digestion of these foods.

-If you simply must have a snack, cut down on the portion size and work from there until you have stopped eating for at least a few hours before bed.