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Discoblog
« The Mass of Hurricanes Converted to More Familiar Units: Cats & Dogs & Elephants
The World’s Fastest Lawn Mower, a Fire-Throwing Bike, and More Bizarro Vehicles »

NCBI ROFL: On brassieres and poop.

3630932511_2f93dd3d50Field studies on inhibitory influence of skin pressure exerted by a body compensatory brassiere on the amount of feces.

“The present experiment investigated the effects of skin pressure produced by a body compensatory brassiere [a brassiere with underwires] on defecation activity. Seven healthy females (11-41 yrs) volunteered as participants, being free of medication and constipation. The experiment lasted 3 weeks. The participants did not wear the body compensatory brassiere for the first week, wore it during waking hours for the second week, and again did not wear it for the third week. Whenever they desired to defecate, they did so and then weighted the amount of feces immediately by themselves. Eating times, daily amounts of foods and drinks, their menu, work intensity and its duration, retiring and rising time were controlled to be as similar as possible from day to day. The main finding was that the amount of feces was significantly smaller during the second week (wearing the body compensatory brassiere) than the first and third weeks (not wearing the body compensatory brassiere). These observations are discussed in terms of the suppression of the parasympathetic nervous system and intestine motility, and the delayed transit time in the large intestine.”

brassiere_poop

Photo: flickr/dyanna

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WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

Share

September 29th, 2010 7:00 PM by ncbi rofl in ha ha poop, NCBI ROFL | 7 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

  • http://Untitledvanityproject.blogspot.com Rhacodactylus

    Thanks NCBI ROFL, now the next time I get a woman down to her bra the image will be linked to her measuring her fecal matter . . . you’re clearly in league with those viagra bastards!

    ~Rhaco

  • Ian

    Two scientists, one cup.

  • BILL7718

    Actually in this case, it is two cups. But good one anyways!

  • Kilia

    Woooow! this is the most useless article i’ve probably read in my life. But I’ve a doubt:
    If a woman uses bra all day for 50 years and one day she decides not to wear it. Will she defecate the cumulative amount these ‘scientists’ measured in one week? So if in week 1 women defecated 100 gr and in week 2 105 gr. that would be 5gr * 42weeks * 50years = 10.5 TON?????? or where does all the sh*t they didn’t defecate while using a bra go???????? :P
    [curse word edited by Moderator]

  • KBizzy

    It makes me wonder if that is actually safe. We don’t want our poop building up in our intestines and only coming out slowly. If it continues to build up, it could cause health problems and lead to very serious complications. Some one might have their intestines rip or get so backed up that it starts to come out of the other end….which IS possible, and also deadly.

  • http://andeatingit2.com Joanna Cake

    The trouble is that most women would rather have a decent cleavage than worry about their functioning digestive system. Hell, there are a large number of us who have been quite happy to damage it irreparably by munching laxatives to make it work too effectively. Time for a gratuitous shot demonstrating the need for underwire bras.

    http://andeatingit2.com/2008/12/11/hnt-cleavage/

  • undrgrndgirl

    now, i’d like to see this study repeated with large breasted women and no wire bras (i’m a 38ddd) then i’d like to see a study of the same woman and reflux disease…to those of you above, this is NO laughing matter…women suffer from intestinal disorders far more often than men…i have been battling gerd for 15 years or more…





    • About the Blog

      Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.

      Discoblog also includes the daily feature NCBI ROFL, in which two prone-to-distraction grad students post real scientific articles with funny subjects. Email your tips to ncbirofl [at] gmail.com. Follow the ROFL feed here.

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