Dispensary Corner

S**T a brick!

A fascinating study just published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health has finally put to rest concerns parents may have about their children eating LEGO.

A bold team of researchers from the UK and Australia each put their bodies on the line “in the noble tradition of self-experimentation” by swallowing the head of a LEGO character and measuring the time it took to ahem - make the bodily transit.

In order to collate the results they developed two measures: the Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score, and the Found and Retrieved Time (FART) metric.

On average the FART score the time it took for the Lego to emerge at the other end - was 1.7 days, while the SHAT score found there was no change to the consistency of their stools.

Intriguingly there was no correlation between SHAT and FART numbers, indicating looser stools did not result in faster retrieval of the foreign object.

The Guardian quoted author Grace Leo saying it was hoped the results would reassure parents, with most small, smooth plastic objects passing through easily meaning they don’t need to search through their child’s poo for small foreign bodies, “unless that LEGO head is dearly loved”.

While most of the team passed the LEGO after one to three bowel motions, Leo paid tribute to one of the participating researchers who must have missed the item in the first few days “so we made him search every stool for two weeks”.