For those of you who don't know what an enema is, it is a process of filling your colon with water to a point where the walls of your colon are forced to contract and expel the water along with any material that is in your colon out through your anal sphincter. Some people believe that enemas clean your colon and are therefore good for your health.
Is this true? Are enemas good for your health?
In general, regular use of enemas is not good for your health. In order to understand why this is, we must first review some basic details about the anatomy and physiology of your digestive tract.
After nutrients from food pass through the wall of your small intestine to enter your blood stream, what remains in your small intestine is a watery mass made up mainly by four components:
* Fibre
* Dead cells from the walls of your digestive tract
* Microorganisms
* Digestive Juices
This watery mass travels through your small intestine until it reaches your large intestine, also called your colon.
As it travels through your large intestine, the walls of your large intestine begin to absorb water from this mass. By the time this watery mass reaches the end of your large intestine - also called your rectal pouch - enough water will have been absorbed to cause this mass to become solid. This assumes, of course, that your digestive tract is healthy. Essentially, this is how you form stools for bowel movements.
The pace at which the watery mass travels through your intestines depends mainly on three factors:
1. The amount of fibre in your diet. The more fibre you eat, the quicker this mass will travel through your intestines. This is the reason why not eating enough fibre can cause constipation - without a good quantity of fibre to keep this watery mass moving through your intestines at a good pace, your colon will have more contact time with this mass to absorb water from it, so much so that by the time this mass reaches your rectal pouch, it will have lost so much water that it will be extremely hard.
2. How well you manage emotional stressors. Emotional stress can accelerate or decelerate the pace at which this watery mass travels through your intestines and can therefore be a cause of chronic constipation or diarrhea. Whether you experience acceleration or deceleration due to emotional stress depends on your genetics and disposition.
3. The health of your enteric nervous system. Your enteric nervous system is made up by a series of sensory receptors and nerves that are scattered throughout walls of your intestines.
Getting back to whether enemas are good or not good for your health, let's take a closer look at your enteric nervous system.
While your enteric nervous system is responsible for regulating several activities, perhaps the most significant one is to regulate the natural waves of contractions in the walls of your intestines. These contractile waves are what push material along at a steady pace towards your rectal pouch. Whenever the walls of your digestive tract are stretched by food or liquids, sensory receptors in these walls are stimulated, which sends a signal to your enteric nervous system, telling it to contract the muscles in the walls of your digestive tract.
Whenever your colon is filled with water during an enema, the walls of your colon are stretched to a much larger degree than they are with normal amounts of food and liquids that you eat and drink. If you do enemas on a regular basis, over time, the stretch receptors in your intestinal walls will adjust to this greater degree of stretching and even become numb to the stretching that occurs with regular amounts of food and liquids that you eat and drink. Also, repeated, intense stretching of your bowel walls from regular enemas can lead to weakening of the muscles in these walls, making it difficult to have bowel movements without an extraordinary amount of stimulation to your enteric nervous system. For some people, this lack of natural tone and contractile ability in the bowel walls can reach a point where they cannot have a single bowel movement without using an enema or laxatives.
None of this is to say that enemas are completely useless. At our clinic, I regularly recommend a one-time enema for people who have a history of chronic constipation and feel constipated before they begin a water fast. This is because during a lengthy water fast, existing stools and materials in the digestive tract tend to build up in the rectal pouch and become quite hard. People with chronic constipation and problems with hemorrhoids or anal fissures can usually benefit from clearing out their colon and rectal pouch with an enema before beginning a water fast.
The ultimate point of this article is that it is best to avoid doing enemas on a regular basis. The three best ways of naturally maintaining healthy bowel walls and movements are to:
* Consistently work on reducing stress and feeling emotionally balanced
* Consistently choose fresh, minimally processed foods, with the bulk of your food choices being plant-based
* Adopt the four habits of eating for optimal digestion
Please note: colonics are similar to enemas, the main difference being that a skilled practitioner can better regulate the pace and amount of water flow that is used during a colonic than most people can with enemas. Still, even with better regulation of water flow, I am convinced that regular use of colonics is far inferior to addressing the three factors listed above as a means to promoting and maintaining clean and healthy bowels.
No comments:
Post a Comment