# Do Asians really have longer intestines than honkies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 16, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126 "2003-06-16T02:18:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/21 "2016-11-08T17:22:32Z")
: (colon) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/22 "2016-11-08T18:40:47Z")
And it’s a short one. But black rather than the white the OP referred to. This interracial intestinal stuff is confusing. Even years later. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/23 "2016-11-08T18:46:50Z")
Nm ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/24 "2016-11-08T18:51:01Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And it’s a short one. But black rather than the white the OP referred to. This interracial intestinal stuff is confusing. Even years later. 🙂 A jejuene comment. But say it 12 times and you might get somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/25 "2016-11-08T19:13:05Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Sorry. Here’s the correct link: > > [Are Japanese Intestines Longer?. Notes from my 30-year quest | by Andy Raskin | Words Escape Us | Medium](https://medium.com/words-escape-us/are-japanese-intestines-longer-8a41ca3e7d89#.y0dalqaau) A couple of comments. First, the \*longer \*the intestines are the \*better \*they should be at digestion. Even that link quotes a Japanese man as saying so. > [@](#): > > “We Japanese were traditionally an agricultural people,” one male explained. “Our ancestors didn’t eat much meat, so we evolved a longer intestine to digest the vegetables. You know, like how cows need multiple stomachs to digest roughage.” That long Japanese intestines would not digest meat or cause constipation or other problems makes no sense on the most basic level, even if true. Second, the Dr. Scheube Surreal cited did his work in the 19th century. He didn’t even know what the average length of any group’s intestines was. He did, properly, say that a non-random group of 26 individuals was not sufficient to base any conclusions on. Are there current studies on this? [Yes](https://www.quora.com/Do-Japanese-people-or-other-people-from-Asia-have-longer-intestines-or-a-differently-structured-digestive-system-than-other-humans-out-there-that-might-change-how-they-handle-certain-foods). > [@](#): > > You sometimes wonder how some myths get started - they are so bizarre. And so many of them seem to include something about “the Japanese.” > > To set the record straight, a joint study by a group in London and the Department of Surgery at the University of Tokyo Hospital in which bowel length was actually directly measured at surgery found “no significant difference in total colonic length comparing Western to Oriental patients.” > > A peroperative comparison of Western and Oriental colonic anatomy and mesenteric attachments. > Int J Colorect Dis 10(4):216-221 (1995) True, that’s just the colon, or large intestine. I’d say the likelihood of the small intestine alone being radically longer to be minuscule. Evolutionarily, why would it? Western diets have been no more meat heavy than any other until ridiculously recently in human history. The vast majority of westerners were farmers and peasants until the 19th century and their diets were notoriously grain- and root vegetable-based. This is one of those myths that don’t even contain a grain of sense. They’re purely cultural in stigmatizing the Other. Those never need be rational. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/26 "2016-11-08T19:22:44Z")
It is true that carnivorous animals tend to have shorter intestines, and herbivores longer ones (with omnivores like humans in between). I don’t know if that means that longer intestines are actually worse for meat, though, or just unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/27 "2016-11-09T14:21:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > First, the \*longer \*the intestines are the \*better \*they should be at digestion. Even that link quotes a Japanese man as saying so. Yeah, but that guy’s story doesn’t make any sense. Japanese people have not been isolated for long enough - nor agrarian for long enough - to “evolve” longer digestive tracts. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/28 "2016-11-09T16:45:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It is true that carnivorous animals tend to have shorter intestines, and herbivores longer ones (with omnivores like humans in between). I don’t know if that means that longer intestines are actually worse for meat, though, or just unnecessary. Longer intestines are necessary for fibrous plant foods. They are irrelevant to meat, since that can get processed perfectly well in shorter intestines. Feeding an herbivore meat may or not digest depending on what enzymes they have; the length of the intestine wouldn’t matter. I can’t think of any physiological reason why a longer intestine in a mammal capable of digesting meat would in any way be less efficient than a shorter one. There are many actual conditions - rapid transit, short bowel syndrome, or bowel resections for various illnesses or weight loss surgery - that create problems for digestion in humans. All else equal you want food to stay in the intestines the longest time necessary to fully digest them and absorb all the nutrients. Shortness is always an issue; I’ve never heard of length being one. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/29 "2016-11-09T16:58:41Z")
For them the Colonoscopy must be a nightmare. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126/30 "2016-11-10T03:59:12Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > : > > (colon) ; (western semi-colon) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-asians-really-have-longer-intestines-than-honkies/182126.md?page=1)