• 532
    Shares

BOSTON, MA – Bright red blood per rectum suggests active gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, and black tarry stool suggests a brisk upper GI bleed.  But what about orange stool?  A rare case report published in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine teaches us that it is due to the excessive intake of Cheetos.  

A 25-year-old Boston graduate student presented to student health services with a complaint of bright orange stool per rectum.  For a week, he noticed traces of bright orange stool on the toilet paper with wiping.  “It kind of looked like a napkin after you wipe hour hands from eating Doritos all day,” the student told his health care provider.  But he didn’t eat Doritos all day.

Detailed history-taking revealed a variation of the college and graduate school diet, one that involved near-total consumption of Cheetos.

“You know when you eat too many beets and your urine and stool turns purple?” asked Dr. Matthew Bryan, a gastroenterologist who subspecializes in orange stool.  “It’s the same exact principle.  Except its Cheetos and its orange.”

The medical term for this rare condition whereby stool turns orange due to consumption of Cheetos is called Cheetochezia.  Incidentally, this patient did also endorse bright orange-tinged urine, which is called Cheetosuria.  If this patient had the same symptoms but in the context of Doritos consumption, the terms would be Doritochezia or Doritosuria.

If one cannot determine if orange stool is due to Cheetos or Doritos, experts recommend using the more general term: Frito-Laychezia.

What is the treatment of Cheetochezia?

“Lay off the damn Cheetos, man,” Bryan explained, who hates having to clean a colonoscope caked in Cheetos.  “Grab some fruit, an apple, a banana, an avocado, but seriously, lay off the Cheetos.  That’s just too many!  Orange stool, that’s… that’s just not natural.”

  • 532
    Shares
Dr. 99
First there was Dr. 01, the first robot physician, created to withstand toxic levels of burnout in an increasingly mechanistic and impossibly demanding healthcare field. Dr. 99 builds upon the advances of its ninety-eight predecessors by phasing out all human emotion, innovation, and creativity completely, and focusing solely on pre-programmed protocols and volume-based productivity. In its spare time, Dr. 99 enjoys writing for Gomerblog and listening to Taylor Swift.
WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.