Colon cleanse: Methods, benefits and risks

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Colon cleanse: Methods, benefits and risks

A colon cleanse has long been touted as the answer to a myriad of health issues, from tiredness to weight loss that has reached a plateau. Alternative health practitioners regularly claim that a gut reset will ‘detox’ your body, providing major health benefits from fighting disease to reducing cancer risk.

The side effects of a gut cleanse as claimed by alternative practitioners:

  • Boosting the immune system
  • Increasing energy
  • Removing toxins
  • Improving mood
  • Helping weight loss
  • Relieving bloating, cramps, and wind
  • Improving liver function
  • Reducing risk of colon cancer

So what is the reality?

The truth is somewhat different. According to health experts, our bodies are excellent detoxifiers and, unless you are constipated and/or in need of medical attention, colon cleansing does not have the proven health benefits advocates claim. 

“Colon cleansing is a trend with a lack of scientific evidence supporting it,” says Dr Megan Rossi, dietitian, founder of The Gut Health Clinic and a research fellow at King’s College London. “It can also have negative consequences. Obviously, having a regular bowel movement is beneficial and healthy for our colon but needing to cleanse for extended periods of time, via juice diets, colonics or other methods, is not backed by science.”

The importance of gut health

“The colon is especially important as it is home to our gut microbiome which consists of an estimated 39 trillion microbial cells,” says Dr Abhinav Vepa, a GP specialising in stress management and nutrition. “To put this into perspective, we only have 30 trillion human cells in our bodies.”

The colon, an important part of our digestive system, is also called the large intestine. “The colon is the last 1.5 metres of your gastrointestinal tract,” says Dr Rossi. “It’s where the poo is made.”

“The research and data are a landmark shift in what it means to be human and understanding how the body works,” Rossi explains. “The discovery of the microbiome, and in turn, nourishing the gut microbiome does have far-reaching benefits besides just regular bowel movements.”

To simplify, the microbes in our gut create chemical compounds called bioactives, and these compounds interact with the brain, the organs and the immune system. Dr James Kinross, a surgeon at Imperial College, a microbiome scientist and author of Dark Matter: The New Science of the Microbiome, says the gut “is like a command and control centre of your whole immune system.”

An imbalanced gut can not only lead to gut health conditions, like IBS, bloating and Crohn’s, but is also a major factor in many leading causes of disease. “Looking at the science, we now know that an unbalanced microbiome has been linked with over 70 different chronic conditions,” says Dr Rossi. 

An imbalanced gut is also linked to mood and mental health conditions – 70 per cent of the happy hormone serotonin – is produced in the gut.

So, it is true that digestive health plays a vital role in our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. But what of the claim that the colon needs to be cleansed for optimal digestive health, based on the premise that digestive waste can be a toxin to the body.

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