Question: Is poo poisones

Ciarán O'Brien answered on 18 Nov 2014:

Sort of.

When a scientist says something it poisonous, they mean something very specific. A poison is something that causes harm to a living thing by a chemical reaction, usually after eating it, breathing it in or getting it on your skin. If the poison was injected (like from an insect bite), it’s called a venom. If the poison was produced as a waste product of another living thing, it’s called a toxin.

Anyway.

Poo contains some chemicals that would be poisonous if they got into the wrong part of our bodies. Poo is fine in our guts, but it can be poisonous in our stomach, so don’t eat it! At best, you’ll start vomiting, but if you’re unlucky it could kill you.

Poo also contains loads of bacteria that can produce toxins. Most of them don’t harm humans, but sometimes things can change and they start making things that can hurt you. Between 2-5% of all people have a bacteria in their gut (and poo) called Clostridium difficile, and that makes very dangerous chemicals that are toxic enough to kill you if you don’t see a doctor very quickly.

There’s nothing venomous in poo though. Well, there SHOULDN’T be anything venomous in poo.