Quote:
Originally Posted by orbsycli
Alright. This is disgusting, but true... so bare with me.
Did you guys know about cleaning your colon?
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As someone involved for years with the technical details of preventive medicine, I’m pretty expert in colon cleaning, because it’s necessary before one of the most medically and cost effective early cancer detection procedures,
colonoscopy.
The wikipedia article seems essentially accurate to me, though omits a few details. As it describes, the colon-cleaning procedure is fairly simple, and doesn’t require any advanced, proprietary therapies of medicines, such as those sold by drnatura.com. The article neglect a couple of relevant details: One, colonoscopy prep doesn’t require 1 to 3 days of low fibre/clear liquid diet – this helps, but if omitted, all that’s necessary is more bowel irrigation (gastric or enema) just before the procedure; Two, the colon must be
really clean – endoscopes lack “lense wipers” to clear their fiber optic viewing system, so even a small amount of residual fecal matter can be a big problem, requiring tricky “wiping” maneuvers, or worse, withdrawing the scope, more bowel irrigation, and starting over (often with a very pissed-off MD at the controls). When the patient is prepped properly, the view of his/her colon wall is of a clean, pink surface.
The amount of feces removed by bowel irrigation is small – I’m unaware of anyone measuring it, but can’t imagine that it often exceeds a kilogram, and is usually much less. Although there have been documented cases of tens of kilograms of feces being found in the intestines of cadavers during post-mortem necropsy, Drnatura’s claim that “the average person could be lugging around 10 – 20 pounds of impacted fecal matter in his or her intestines”, is not supported by my experience, nor is their claim that after extensive bowl cleaning, “the body is cleansed, it can assimilate nutrients much more efficiently, thus reducing the craving for sweets and fatty foods”. Although patients sometimes report pleasant after-effects of bowel irrigation, many report very unpleasant ones, and a few require special therapies to restore the previous intestinal fauna and flora (beneficial bacterial, etc) removed by the procedure. A small number (less than 1 in 5,000) develop serious, even fatal complications.
In short, I don’t think the therapy offered by Drnatura is effective, or supported by scientific medical evidence. Someone experiencing digestive problems would do better, IMHO, to adopt a good diet with plenty of fibre (whole grains and vegetables) and water. (Drnatura also recommends this) Although it would seem to not need mentioning, don’t eat hair, thread, or string – the photos at drnatura.com, which I’m confident are real, look to me to contain such fibers, which can be very difficult to digest, and can lead to medical crises. If these common-sense measures aren’t effective, I think the best thing is to see a physician specializing in digestive medicine.
As a general rule, I mistrust expensive health-care therapies sold for high prices that don’t include supervision by someone with medical training.
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Moderator: Computers and Technology; Medical Science; Science Projects and Homework; Philosophy of Science; Physics and Mathematics; Environmental Studies
Colon Cleanse
Re "intestine cleaning"
At any rate, this hole colon cleansing bit is not new. Big fad in the 1800's with no end of apparatus patented for said procedure. For a humorous peek, see the movie Road to Wellness with Matthew Broderick et al; it probes the involvement of Kellogg.
