Colon Cleansing Diet: Help or Hype?

When you do an Internet search for the words "colon cleansing diet," you'll find plenty of people trying to sell you products that will help you protect your health, feel more energetic, and even lose weight.

There are two questions you should ask about these colon cleansing diet products.

1. Do they work?
2. Possibly more important, do you even need them?  

You can find plenty of testimonials on commercial websites that say a colon cleansing diet is great. You hear about Hollywood types like Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Beyonce who swear by this diet or that.

And when you think about it, there's plenty of logic to the sales pitch. We DO live in a world full of chemicals, irritants, pollutants and toxins. This stuff is bound to get into the food chain, and it can't be good for you.

And as one website aptly puts it (paraphrasing here), "Not everything you put in one end of your body is certain to come out the other end."

This includes the aforementioned chemicals, irritants, pollutants and toxins. Who wouldn't want to get that stuff out of their system?

But as sensible as it sounds, most members of the medical community raise a skeptical eyebrow when the subject of a colon cleansing diet comes up. More on that in a moment.

First, how about a quick summary of some of the better known colon cleansing foods, and foods to avoid to if you want to maintain good colon health.

Everyone generally agrees you should stay away from anything alcoholic. Other food and drinks to avoid include

• coffee and black tea
• fast food, especially fried fast food
• junk food, especially potato chips, cookies, and stuff that comes in a bag in vending machines
• pasteurized milk
• processed foods with lots of preservatives
• refined sugar
• soft drinks, especially the cola variety

Some advocates claim certain foods are more likely to cleanse than others, but generally speaking everyone agrees fruits and vegetables are the basis of a colon cleansing diet. Eat the same foods that keep your heart healthy, and you'll keep your colon healthy.

The same goes for high fiber foods: beans, seeds, nuts and whole grains. Your body doesn't digest fiber. It stays in the colon for a while, adding a certain amount of bulk, which makes it easier to move stool through into the rectum and out of the body.

Other foods and herbs that allegedly possess colon cleansing properties include

• Buckthorn bark
• Clove Bud Powder
• Eclipta alba,
• Garcinia
• Grapefruit Seed Extract
• Indian gooseberry,
• Papaya
• Pau D'Arco Powder
• Pumpkin Seed
• Senna,
• Triphala
• Wormwood Powder
• Yellow Dock Powder

If you decide to try any of these, talk to your doctor first. Some can be harmful if ingested in large enough doses.

Colon Cleansing Diet Supplements

Keep in mind that toxins and other harmful materials collect in your colon, but there's also some good stuff down there that you don't want to flush out. Cretain kinds of bacteria live in the digestive tract and actually help you process nutrients from what you eat.

Some of these guys will go "down the drain" (excuse the expression) when you're on a colon cleansing diet.

This is why some health care practitioners recommend supplements like probiotics. To learn more about this subject, click on probiotics.

Certain colon cleansing supplements contain purgatives. A purgative is like a laxative: it stimulates the evacuation of the bowels. Talk to your doctor before trying a colon cleansing diet that includes these - no matter what the vendor tells you.

What do the doctors say?

In short, most doctors warn against colon cleansing diets and in fact, colon cleansing procedures like enemas and high colonics.

Sources at the famed Mayo Clinic say "There is no evidence, however, that detox diets actually remove toxins from the body. Most ingested toxins are efficiently and effectively removed by the kidneys and liver and excreted in urine and stool."

For more on the debate about whether a colon cleansing diet works, or whether you even need to cleanse your colon at all, click on Is Colon Cleansing Smart?

Sponsored Advertising

Colon Cleanse Your Way To Better Health

Click on Colon Cleanse Your Way To Better Health

for more information.