Men who follow a plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes fart more, and have larger stools than men following a standard Western diet, a new study has revealed.
While this has been widely presumed for years, researchers from the Liver and Digestive Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Centre in Barcelona set out to quantify the extent of the effect.
The team followed 18 healthy men, and found that those following a plant-based diet farted seven times more per day and had stools twice the size as people following a Western diet on average.
This may sound pretty disgusting, but the researchers reassure that it's actually a good thing, because flatulence and large stools are a sign of healthy gut bacteria.
'Our Western idea that farting is a sign of something being wrong is totally false,' Rosemary Stanton, a researcher from the University of New South Wales told New Scientist.
'Farting is a sign of a healthy diet and a healthy colon.'
Men who follow a plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes fart more, and have larger stools than men following a standard Western diet, a new study has revealed (stock image)
The team followed 18 healthy men, and found that those following a plant-based diet (FMD) farted seven times more per day and had stools twice the size as people following a Western diet (WD) on average
In the study, the team compared the guts of 18 healthy men aged 18-38.
The participants were randomly assigned either a plant-based Mediterranean diet, or a Western-style diet, which they followed for two weeks, before swapping to the other.
Throughout the study, the men collected and weighed their stools using digital scales, and logged their number of farts with a handheld tracker.
The amount of gas released in their farts was also tested using balloons fitted to the men's rectums.
The results revealed that the men did a similar number of stools per day on the two diets.
However, those following the
