Scientists say the number of daily bowel movements you have could indicate how likely you are to have a heart attack in the future. The link was made by researchers examining the associations of bowel movement frequency with major vascular and non-vascular diseases outside the digestive system.
They analysed data from the China Kadoorie Biobank in which participants from 10 geographically diverse areas across China were enrolled between 2004 and 2008. A total of 487,198 people who did not have cancer, heart disease or stroke and were aged between 30 and 79 took part in the study and were followed up on for an average of 10 years, the Express reported.
The findings suggested that those who had bowel movements "more than once a day" had a higher risk of ischaemic heart disease when compared with the reference group ("once a day"), wrote the researchers. Ischaemic heart disease, also known as coronary heart disease (CHD), happens when your heart's blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries and is often a precursor to having a heart attack.
