Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The brown coloring matter of the feces.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Physiol. Chem.) A coloring matter found in the fæces, a product of the alteration of the bile pigments in the intestinal canal, -- identical with
hydrobilirubin .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun biochemistry A
tetrapyrrolic bile pigment , one of theend products ofheme catabolism , responsible for the brown colour of humanfaeces .
Etymologies
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Examples
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As the article says, the bilirubin goes into the bile and breaks down in your GI tract to stercobilin, which is brown.
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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It's a precursor of stercobilin, which is to say ... same shit.
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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I'm no dr. of scatology or anything, but I had my gallbladder removed several years ago, and by this explaination also the processes that make the brown-coloring bile and stercobilin.
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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Yep, my sources for The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids said it was yellow bilirubin, which turns brown -- so if bilirubin is a precursor to brown stercobilin, that all makes sense.
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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So while brown stercobilin, red phycoerythrin, green phycoverdin, and blue phycocyanin all have similar structures with lots of alternating bonds, the differences in color aren't necessarily closely tied to any one part of their structure.
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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"[Bile is] metabolized by the bacteria in your large intestine, leaving behind a byproduct called stercobilin — and it's that stercobilin that gives stool a brown pigment."
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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Maybe spgarbet wants an explanation that accounts for the brown color of stercobilin?
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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"It's metabolized by the bacteria in your large intestine, leaving behind a byproduct called stercobilin — and it's that stercobilin that gives stool a brown pigment."
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
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Without stercobilin, your poo would actually be a sort of pale, off-grey color, like white clay.
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing 2009
vendingmachine commented on the word stercobilin
"Bile comes from your gall bladder and helps your body digest food," said Anish Sheth, M.D., assistant professor at Yale Medical School and author of the book What's Your Poo Telling You? "It's metabolized by the bacteria in your large intestine, leaving behind a byproduct called stercobilin—and it's that stercobilin that gives stool a brown pigment.”
Without stercobilin, poo would be a sort of pale, off-gray color, like white clay.
February 15, 2015