The body has a couple of natural methods of eliminating toxins.  In naturopathic theory, we call them “emunctories”: they are your breath, sweat, urine, and bowels.  When the body is functioning optimally, the emunctories are open, and toxins are easily eliminated.  However, one of the causes of disease involves clogging these routes of elimination, leading to toxic buildup, and eventually dysfunction.  Any one of these emunctories can be blocked, but with constipation on the rise, very often the bowels are the problem.

Colonics can help with toxic elimination in two ways.  The first is obvious: colonic irrigation manually cleans out the bowels, which may be necessary from time to time for people who suffer from chronic constipation.

The second way that colonics can help with detoxification has to do with bile dumping.  Bile is produced by the liver, stored by the gall bladder, and secreted in response to the ingestion of fatty foods.  Because fat does not readily mix with the water contents of the gut, it requires emulsification with bile salts in order to absorb the calories and nutrients.  However, bile also absorbs fat-soluble toxins for the same reason it absorbs fatty foods.  When this happens, it is important to be able to eliminate these toxins.

Even in healthy individuals, a high percentage of the body’s bile is reabsorbed in the terminal ileum (the last part of the small intestine), which means all of the remaining fat-soluble toxins get recirculated into the bloodstream.  In constipated individuals, the percentage of reabsorbed bile approaches 90-95%.  Although colonics only reach the colon and not the small intestine, they have nevertheless been shown to increase the dumping of bile, thereby decreasing the recirculation of fat-soluble toxins.

Finally, colonics are very effective as the last step in a total body detoxification protocol in individuals shown to have a high body burden of toxins.  This protocol may also involve dietary changes and supplements in addition to sauna, which releases those toxins locked into the body’s adipose tissue into the bloodstream.  From there, constitutional hydrotherapy will increase circulation, bringing nutrients to the body’s vital organs and eliminating waste faster than would happen physiologically.  The result is that toxins are delivered from the blood to the emunctories.  Colonics are the final step, increasing the elimination through the colon and out of the body.

Colon hydrotherapy is a simple, effective, and powerful method of elimination which may help jump start your body’s detoxification process.