Keriorrhea is an oily, orange-colored bowel movement that occurs when a person consumes indigestible wax esters. Wax esters form when a fatty acid combines with a fatty alcohol. The Gempylidae family of fish contain high amounts of wax esters in their bodies.
Generally, not absorbing enough bile or not producing enough bile can cause orange stools. Medical conditions related to bile issues include short-term diarrhea, blocked bile ducts, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), short bowel syndrome (SBS), gallstones, inflammation, cysts, and tumors.
Steatorrhea means there's too much fat in your stool (poop). It's a symptom of fat malabsorption. That means your digestive system is having trouble breaking down and absorbing fats.
Oily or Greasy Stools
The consistency changes could be caused by an infection, nutrients not being digested due to celiac disease or a problem with the pancreas, such as pancreatic cancer or pancreatitis.
The most noteworthy ones include escolar and oilfish. The accumulation of the indigestible wax esters in the rectum through consumption of these fish engenders discharges or leakage per rectum as orange or brownish green oil, but without noticeable loss of water.
Keriorrhea occurs when a person consumes wax esters from oilfish or escolar fish. As both fish belong to the Gempylidae family of fish, some people may refer to the wax esters as gempylotoxins and the condition as gempylid fish poisoning.
The cause of orange stool is usually orange food. Specifically, it's beta carotene that gives food an orange color and does the same to your poop. Beta carotene is a type of compound called a carotenoid. Carotenoids can be red, orange, or yellow and are found in many types of vegetables, fruits, grains, and oils.
If you notice that your stool floats and appears greasy, pale, and abnormally foul smelling, you should talk with your doctor. This is especially true if you have other symptoms of malabsorption, such as weight loss or cramps.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), and Crohn's disease: All of these conditions of the bowel and intestine are inflammatory conditions that impact how well nutrients and fats are absorbed by the body. Therefore, gut issues like these can all cause greasy, fatty stools.
Fat malabsorption
Fatty stools are greasy and runny and particularly smelly. They may be light-colored and float. Fat malabsorption also leads to the malabsorption of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K).
Diet. If a person notices their poop is suddenly orange, they should consider the food they have consumed that day or the day before. A person may have consumed an excessive amount of products containing beta-carotene or artificial dye. Limiting the intake of these types of foods and drinks could stop the problem.
Orange: May be due to beta carotene, a compound found in many vegetables, such as carrots and winter squash. Some antibiotics and antacids contain aluminum hydroxide, which can also turn stool orange. Blue: Likely due to eating lots of blue foods (blueberries) or beverages with blue coloring.
The liver releases bile salts into the stool, giving it a normal brown color. You may have clay-colored stools if you have a liver infection that reduces bile production, or if the flow of bile out of the liver is blocked. Yellow skin (jaundice) often occurs with clay-colored stools.
Chronic or long-term liver disease, including cirrhosis, primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PBS) can damage the body's ability to absorb bile acids. This can cause bile acid deficiency, which can lead to oily stools.
In people with chronic pancreatitis, the pancreas may not function normally, leading to difficulty processing fat in the diet (exocrine pancreatic insufficiency). This can cause loose, greasy, foul-smelling stools that are difficult to flush.
There are several ways that anxiety affects digestion, increasing the risk of yellow feces. Anxiety is also linked to IBS, which can cause yellow stool. There are no ways to directly affect the color of stool, but reducing anxiety should improve digestive health and allow food and waste to process correctly.
Steatorrhea (or steatorrhoea) is the presence of excess fat in feces. Stools may be bulky and difficult to flush, have a pale and oily appearance, and can be especially foul-smelling. An oily anal leakage or some level of fecal incontinence may occur.
Patients with steatorrhea present with bulky, pale, foul-smelling oily stools. These fatty stools tend to float in the toilet bowl and often challenging to flush as well. In the early stages, steatorrhea may be asymptomatic and go unnoticed.
Although several conditions can lead to impaired lipid absorption and steatorrhea (excess fat in the feces), the most common causes of steatorrhea are related to bile salt deficiency, pancreatic enzyme deficiency, defective CM synthesis, or lymphatic obstruction.
Persistently experiencing orange stools accompanied by stomach aches is definitely a serious sign. Underlying gallstones, cysts or tumors in the gallbladder, or liver disorders might be causing it.
One orange poop isn't something to be too terribly worried about because it's most likely from a food or supplement and not from an underlying medical condition.
Pale Poop and Dark Pee
If your liver doesn't make bile normally or if the flow from the liver is blocked, your poop will look pale like the color of clay. Pale poop often happens along with yellow skin (jaundice). The extra bilirubin that makes your skin look yellow also can make your pee unusually dark.
The color of stools varies, but typically falls within the spectrum of brown color, depending on the foods you eat. You should be concerned if your stools are deep red, maroon, black, or "tarry," especially if they have a noticeable odor. This may mean that there is blood in the stool.
Abdominal bloating. Abdominal pain. A feeling of fullness after eating just a few bites. Vomiting undigested food eaten a few hours earlier.