Stool Fat

What is Stool Fat?

Steatorrhoea means there is too much fat in the stool. Fatty stools tend to be looser, smellier and paler in colour, like clay, and they might float. Other things people notice are stools that are bulky, greasy, foamy, light-coloured or hard to flush. An occasional fatty stool can follow a fatty meal, but consistent fatty stools are a sign that something in the digestive system is not working right.

What might a high or low Stool Fat mean?

Fat in the stool is a symptom of fat malabsorption, meaning the body has trouble breaking down, digesting and metabolising fats; when the body cannot use the fats eaten, it has to excrete them in the stool. Digesting fats takes cooperation between several organs. The small intestine is where fats are broken down and absorbed, but it needs digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile from the liver, delivered through the bile ducts, so diseases affecting any of these organs can affect fat digestion. Steatorrhoea itself is not an emergency, but fat malabsorption causes more problems over time, including severe fat-soluble vitamin deficiencies.

What can affect Stool Fat?

It may be higher with: Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, when the pancreas cannot produce enough pancreatic enzymes — caused by chronic pancreatitis, gallstone pancreatitis, alcohol use disorder, cystic fibrosis, pancreatic cancer or Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, Liver and bile duct diseases, which interfere with the liver's ability to make bile and the bile ducts' ability to deliver it — primary biliary cholangitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, cholestasis, cirrhosis of the liver or liver failure, Conditions affecting the small intestine's ability to break down or absorb fats — coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, Whipple's disease, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, giardiasis, short gut syndrome, lymphoma or amyloidosis.