The History of Stool Testing

There is an ever-increasing number of medical journals and scientists that are discussing the gut and specifically the connection of the stool to understand why chronic pain, chronic illness, and autoimmune disease is so prevalent in the U.S.  In the past twenty-five years, I have seen many changes take place in the technology of stool analysis.

The research around stool testing continues to expand its confidence in the relationship between aberrant findings on stool tests and the names of conditions we commonly hear from friends and family such as:

• Allergies
  
• Depression
• Acne
• ADD
• Autism
• Arthritis
• Hashimoto’s Thyroid
• Crohn’s Disease
• Eczema,
• and many others… 

This newer testing goes far beyond the typical and limited medical versions that looks for blood or parasites in the stool. 

Some of the novel new approaches were to microscopically identify abnormal parasites, bacteria, and yeast in stool and to measure different species of beneficial bacteria such as ...