When you eat fat, a small amount of the fat passes out the body through the colon. Some of the different types of fats in the feces include phospholipids, sterols, sphingolipids, cholesteryl esters, glycolipids, soaps and glycerides.
The technical term for too much fat in your stool is steatorrhea. If excess amounts of fat are in the stool, it means the fat is not being absorbed, and there’s malabsorption. This means the fat isn’t being broken down properly by enzymes. It could be because the pancreas is not working properly (potentially due to Whipple disease or another malabsorption disorder).
The Fecal Fat test helps your doctor identify if you have pancreatic or intestinal disorders. It can also show that enzymes, which are prescribed are working in the case of known malabsorption disorders.
Normal Ranges for Fecal Fat in grams fat/24 hours:
Timed Collection:
18 years and older: 2-7 grams fat/24 hours with <20% fat in the sample
Normal ranges have not been established for patients who are <18 years old.
Infants: < 1 gram/24 hours (with 10-40% fat in breastfed babies and 30-50% fat in bottle-fed babies)
Critical value: > 7 grams fat/24 hours when eating a 100-150 gram fat diet shows malabsorption issues.
Random Collection:
All ages: 0-19% fat
Note: If a timed fecal fat is done first, the test may be done over 24, 48, 72 or 96 hours. If the random fecal fat test is done, test values are recorded in percentages. If results for a random specimen are abnormal, a timed collection should be done.
Sources:
- https://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-catalog/Clinical+and+Interpretive/8310
To date, there is minimal literature on the clinical significance of reduced fecal fats. As they are largely of dietary origin, an overall low recovery of these absorptive markers is suggestive of a diet low in fat. Another consideration would be increased intestinal absorption, particularly if dietary fat intake is adequate.
Low levels of Fecal Fat may result from any of the following:
- Enemas
- Laxatives
- Mineral oil
-------------------
If low-fat diet: Consider amount of dietary intake of fat.
Understand and improve your laboratory results with our health dashboard.
Upload your lab reports and get your interpretation today.
Our technology helps to understand, combine, track, organize, and act on your medical lab test results.
Malabsorption occurs when your intestines are not absorbing food as they should, and aren’t assimilating nutrients. It could also happen if you don’t have enough digestive enzymes or not enough bile. Bile is especially important to emulsify or break down the fats during digestion.
Malabsorption causes any of the following symptoms:
- Gas
- Bloating
- Cramps after eating
- Bad-smelling, fatty stools
- Loose stools
- Weight loss without being on a diet
Some specific causes of high Fecal Fat might be:
- Use of ointments for diaper rash
- The use of barium enemas or having used barium in other medical procedures
- Celiac disease
- Eating too much fiber in your diet
- Use of the medication called Orlistat
- Ingesting Castor oil
- Chronic pancreatitis
- Cystic fibrosis
- Gall bladder stone obstruction
- Tumors in the pancreas, gallbladder, or surrounding organs
- Whipple disease
- Crohn’s disease
- Radiation enteritis
- Small bowel bacterial overgrowth
- Malnutrition
Interpret Your Lab Results
Upload your lab report, and we'll interpret and provide you with recommendations today.
Get Started
Monthly plan
Annual plan
Own it for life
Our exclusive data entry service is a convenient way to get your results into your private dashboard. Simply attach an image or a file of your lab test results, and one of our qualified data entry team members will add the results for you. We support all sorts of files, whether PDFs, JPGs, or Excel. This service is excellent whether you have a lot of reports to upload or are too busy to do the data entry yourself.
We strive to make the data entry process easy for you. Whether by offering dozens of templates to choose from that pre-populate the most popular laboratory panels or by giving you instant feedback on the entered values. Our data entry forms are an easy, fast, and convenient way to enter the reports yourself. There is no limit on how many lab reports you can upload.
$15 /month
billed every month
Most popular
Data entry included
$79 /year
$6.60/month billed annually
Data entry included
$250 /once
own it for life
Are You a Health Professional?
Get started with our professional plan
Welcome to Healthmatters Pro.
Save time on interpreting lab results with the largest database of biomarkers online. In-depth research on any test at your fingertips, all stored and tracked in one place. Learn more
Pro Monthly Plus
for health professionals
$75 per month
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.
Acetate, Akkermansia muciniphila, alpha haemolytic Streptococcus, Anaerotruncus colihominis, Anaerotruncus colihominis/massiliensis, Ancylostoma/Necator (Hookworm), Ascaris lumbricoides, Bacteroides uniformis, Bacteroides vulgatus, Bacteroides-Prevotella group, Barnesiella spp., Beta-glucuronidase, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum, Bifidobacterium spp., Blastocystis spp., Butyrivibrio crossotus, Calprotectin, Candida albicans/dubliniensis, Capillaria philippinensis, Cholesterol, Citrobacter species, Clostridium spp., Collinsella aerofaciens, Coprococcus eutactus, Cryptosporidium parvum/hominis, Cyclospora cayetanensis, Desulfovibrio piger, Dientamoeba fragilis, Entamoeba histolytica, Enterobacter cloacae, Enterobius vermicularis, Enterococcus faecalis, Eosinophil Protein X, Escherichia coli, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Fecal Color, Fecal Consistency, Fecal Fat, Total, Fecal Occult Blood, Fecal secretory IgA, Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (F/B Ratio), Fusobacterium spp., Giardia, Klebsiella oxytoca, Klebsiella species, Lactobacillus spp., Long-Chain Fatty Acids, Methanobrevibacter smithii, n-Butyrate %, n-Butyrate Concentration, Odoribacter spp., Oxalobacter formigenes, Pancreatic Elastase 1, Phocaeicola vulgatus, Phospholipids, Prevotella spp., Products of Protein Breakdown (Total), Propionate, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudoflavonifractor spp., Roseburia spp., Ruminococcus bromii, Ruminococcus spp., Short-Chain Fatty Acids (SCFA), Total, Triglycerides, Veillonella spp., Zonulin Family Peptide
