Every time I eat at popular brand fast-food “restaurant” (KFC, Burger King, McDonald’s etc.) I get the runs afterwards. What’s interesting it doesn’t apply to local fast-food joints (I mean like unbranded hot-dog booth or similar).
That makes me think those places have some common denominator - they all must use some ingredient or technique that affects me in that way. What can it be?
I mean I believe it’s not like all people react the same, don’t they? Otherwise fast-food would be unlikely to cause (or help to cause) obesity…
My guess is too much salt. Salt will draw out water from your body into your intestines (or equivalently, prevent water from going from your intestines to your body), resulting in too much water in your stool, resulting in “the runs”.
Are we talking about actual diarrhea, like water (or burning water) falling out of your butthole? Or are we talking about loose stools? Actual diarrhea is fairly uncommon outside of bowel disease or infection, and would point to a reaction you’re having to something you’re sensitive to in their foods.
Loose stools are more likely, and likely caused by the combination of too much salt and too much fat. Not all the fat is broken down, the salt pulls extra water into the colon and you’ve got yourself a slip and slide in the ol’ poop chute.
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The copious amounts of Pepsi I drink at fast food joints gives me this effect.
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This sounds like “dumping syndrome” which is something that plagues people who’ve had bariatric surgery, particularly the variant called Roux-en-Y. Due to the intestinal bypass, their guts are unable to handle large amounts of sugar, and the body’s reaction is “GET IT OUT!”
Assuming you have an intact duodenum, just how much Pepsi are you drinking?
For the OP - how’s your gall bladder? There is a fat-based version of dumping that can occur if one’s gall bladder isn’t working right, or is missing entirely.
I believe i have an intact duodenum - never had any surgery. And it happens only with Pepsi - not with Coke - and I always drink diet - pepsi or coke. Now you have got me worried - I lean to be on the hypochondriac side and will get my gall bladder checked. Can the digestive system tell that you have had a sugar substitute or is the result the same whether it is sugar or sugar substitute - for this particular effect ?
That has to be it. I was once suffering from lower abdomen pain which doctor suggested to be caused by gall bladder (but it stopped after two weeks or so, so I forgot about it).
Should I be worried and go to a doctor? Or just watch my diet?
Yep, this would be the quickest way to test the hypothesis without requiring a doctors visit. Go get your usual meal, but have water instead of soda and observe the effect.
My point was more that several people have suggested the soda (not your gallbladder) could be the issue. So that’s easy to test without having a trip to the doctor.
If your gallbladder woes were causing this, then it would be fat causing the issue. There’s no fat in Diet Pepsi. There’s no sugar in Diet Pepsi, either, so it’s not the osmotic effect of excess sugar, nor is it Dumping Syndrome (which is rather rare if you haven’t had surgery on your stomach).
If Diet Pepsi does it but Diet Coke doesn’t, it’s almost certainly something in the Diet Pepsi that’s not present in Diet Coke. The most likely culprit is the artificial sweetener that Diet Pepsi has but Diet Coke doesn’t, especially as that sweetener is known to cause the problem in large doses.
You mentioned a tendency towards hypochondria. This is it in action.
And since the gall bladder has been brought up: I too sometimes have the very-loose-bowels-90-minutes-later syndrome, typically with restaurant Mexican food, but sometimes restaurant Chinese food. And I do not have a gall bladder. Is there a connection?