The Impact of Constipation On Your Heart

When you think of the parts of your body affected by constipation, what comes to mind? Likely your digestive tract or colon are what your initial answers are. This makes sense since these are the areas of your body that are immediately touched by constipation. But, what about your heart? Have you ever thought about what kind of impact irregular bowel movements can have on this most vital of organs?

Let's start by looking at the small-scale impact. Think about what happens when you are constipated. You have to push and strain to get the bowel movements out, right? This is causing strain and pressure on your heart as you are trying to force hardened stool through your colon.

If you have constipation regularly, and feel as if you are always looking for constipation relief, you may be able to recall times when your heart was beating quickly after you tried to clear the stool out, or even had chest pains.

In addition to the impact that constipation itself has on your heart, you also need to keep in mind that constipation is often a symptom of another ailment that really could be causing stress on your heart. Here’s a look at a few of them.

Diabetes

Diabetes can lead to a number of health problems; many of these can impact the heart. Diabetes is when the body has a tough time regulating the amount of sugar that is in the blood. When blood sugar levels get out of whack, the blood is not able to move nutrients and oxygen around your body as needed and causes the heart more and more stress as it tries to keep body functions in order. This can lead you to need constipation relief.

Digestive Disorders

There are a long string of digestive disorders that may have you experiencing constipation that could also be impacting your heart. Ailments like Diverticulitis and Diverticulosis are two of them. Many digestive disorders cause your body to process waste slower than it should. This is where your constipation comes from. Without constipation relief the waste backs up in the system and starts to dry out, making hard stools that are often painful to eliminate.

Why Constipation is Bad for Your Heart

In addition to just backing up in your system, constipation can cause complications for your heart. The waste that is sitting in your system, backed up for now, is not just sitting there harmlessly. This is rotting waste that is filled with bacteria and toxins that need to get out of your body, the longer they sit around without any constipation relief, the more time they have to do additional damage to your system.

All those toxins will eventually attach to the walls of your colon. While it is the job of this organ to remove toxins from the body, it can be overwhelmed. Once this happens, the toxins leech out of the colon and into the blood, essentially poisoning your bloodstream.

Toxins in the blood are then pumped into the heart. This is when the damage starts happening. Blood toxins from constipation are believed to be factors that contribute to high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.