The Fruit Juice You Should Add To A Glass Of Water To Poop Fast

Constipation can make life frustrating and uncomfortable. But you don’t necessarily have to take over-the-counter laxatives to have a bowel movement. All you need is water combined with the juice from a very commonplace fruit to create one of the best beverages that can help you poop fast.

By drinking a glass of water, you rehydrate your body and make constipation from dry stools less likely. At the same time, you stimulate the muscular contractions that trigger your bowels to urge the contents of your intestinal tract into the toilet, a process called peristalsis.

Remember that as a bowel movement develops and moves through the lower intestine and colon, it’s systematically stripped of excess water. Consequently, if you’re dehydrated, your body will begin to steal water from your stools. The result is a harder stool — and a harder time going to the bathroom. In other words, water is your bathroom buddy!

Yet water alone might not be enough to drive away an annoying (or painful) bout of constipation. That’s when it’s time to reach into your refrigerator for a lemon because adding the juice from half a lemon to your water can give you the extra “going power” you (and your bowels) need.

Lemons contain some nutritional characteristics that can make your bowel movements come faster. As explained by nutritionist Laura Parada (via Vogue), drinking lemon water “improves gut transit and hydrates the colon.” She added that this may give it some extra power when you need to deal with constipation in the morning.

Along those same “everything about gut health” lines, a 2021 study in the International Medical Journal found that young men who drank lemon water before meals for four weeks experienced improvements in their gut microbiomes. Specifically, several types of beneficial bacteria were present in the stomachs of the study participants who ingested lemon water instead of regular water.

Could you substitute another juice for lemon juice? Maybe, but you might not get the same outcome quality. For example, a 2022 study in the European Journal of Nutrition explored the gastrointestinal effects of drinking tea, water, or lemon water with a morning meal. The study determined that lemon juice produced 1.5 times faster gastric emptying, which may mean that lemon water enables the intestine to process food more quickly.

It may be possible to get even more out of your lemon water if you avoid straining your lemon juice and keep some of the pulp. After all, each small lemon contains 1.62 grams of fiber. And fiber can help you have a bowel movement as well.

In fact, lemons contain a specific type of fiber called pectin. According to a 2021 review in Carbohydrate Polymers, pectin can be applied as a therapeutic compound to reduce constipation. Therefore, if you feel comfortable swallowing some of the lemon flesh in your water, you may stimulate your gut for better bowel movements.

To get better results, you could always try mixing your lemon juice into warm water instead of cold water. Warm water may encourage faster stools, as indicated by the findings of a 2016 study in Gastroenterology Nursing. The study examined the bowel movement-producing effects of drinking warm water or no water four hours after undergoing a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Adult participants who consumed warm water had more favorable peristaltic movements and gastrointestinal responses than participants from the control group.