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Can Colon Cleansers Harm You?

By: Barney Garcia The practice of cleansing colons has been there for centuries. In fact if we start tracing its roots we can see the practice was well accepted during the Egyptian civilization and was widely performed. This continued till the times of Restoration England during which period also the colon was considered to be the main source of all ailments.

But as the science of medicine evolved and advanced, such beliefs have been disputed at first and are now completely disregarded by the practitioners of regular medicine. They have their own theories and they seem to have a point.

Before we get into the details of what the practitioners of conventional medicine say let us first get an overview of what the therapists who advocate colon cleansing have to say. Their argument is that colon is the place where all the wastes in our body get accumulated. If these wastes are not eliminated properly, then they tend to settle there, being impacted on the walls of the colon and produce toxins. These toxins get absorbed by the bloodstream near the colon and are circulated all over the body. As toxins are necessarily bad they cause all sort of problems — from headache to constipation. The therapists advise that regularly cleaning the colon by forcibly eliminating the waste matter inside one can ensure that these toxins do not get around.

Practitioners of conventional medicine strongly disagree with such a theory. According to them whatever we eat is broken down in our stomach and intestine by secretions from our stomach, intestine, pancreas and liver into smaller components of carbohydrate, proteins and fats. Once they are broken down they get absorbed by the bloodstream and are conveyed to the different parts of the body. That part of the food which we cannot digest ends up in the colon where over 500 kinds of bacteria are at work. Most of them are harmless and some actually help the human body. They break down the undigested carbohydrates and convert them to short chain fatty acids. These help us to fight against arthritis, certain kinds of cancer, high cholesterol and heart ailments. When we go for colon cleansing treatments we eliminate the chance of these important fatty acids to form.

It is normal if someone has some irregular bowel movements for few days. The colon is equipped to tackle that. For most of us, according to the practitioners of conventional medicine, colon cleansing is not at all necessary. It can, at times, even be harmful.