Re: Unnatural? (caution...opinionated rant)

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 3/11/2008 11:17:19 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, billz@... writes:

I didn’t know good and bad bacteria reside in the small intestines and is not affected by colon irrigation. That is good to know.

This is tricky stuff. Both the small intestine and the colon contain bacteria, but of different types and in different concentrations: Small intestine contains less than 10,000 bacteria/ml of fluid (lactics, enterics, enterococci, bifidobacteria). More than 1,000,000 bacteria/ml in the colon - bacteroides, lactics, enterics, enterococci, clostridia, methanogens. Different types, different concentrations. The small intestine does a series of jobs. The colon does "other stuff." The small intestine and the colon and their inhabitants are not interchangeable. But what you "do" to one will affect the other.

There are textbooks on human bacteriology. They're not terribly pleasant to read, but awesome if you are considering doing things to upset the balance in your body in such a dramatic way as coffee enemas.

What do the bacteria in the colon do? Why are there so many? What happens when you "cleanse" your colon?

Remember that normal flora does a range of things, from secretion of Vitamin K and Vitamin B12, to producing certain B-vitamins. Normal flora prevents colonization by pathogens. Normal flora produces stuff ranging from fatty acids to compounds that inhibit and kill other "undesirable" bacteria. And normal flora stimulates the production of natural antibodies.

We've learned long ago that the body is an amazing machine capable of healing itself. It is more than capable of cleaning itself. Women used to use douche to "clean" their vaginas! In this day and age, we know better...that the practice is harmful and not beneficial at all. Oh, sure, for 15 minutes, a woman might "feel" clean as a whistle...but how vulnerable she had become! What was the stuff she was cleaning out? Did she have an infection? Did she have a bad sexual experience? Did she just not understand that the vagina is a self-cleaning organ, and that after menstruation, her body would continue to slough off cells and "wash" them away?

The intestines do the same sort of thing. Constantly moving. Constantly secreting. Constantly absorbing. Constantly using the building blocks we put down our throats to sustain the engine of this human body. The design is pretty amazing! Were the intestines designed to accept a flood of coffee? Really? The question comes down to simple stuff...what is making a person feel "full" "blocked up" "bloated" "thick" or whatever complaint takes you into the Mr. Enema Clinic? A true honest to God blockage is terribly dangerous and needs more than a coffee enema to resolve. (You wouldn't be sitting at the computer writing about your colonic in that kind of pain.)

No offense to anyone who performs or enjoys enemas or colon cleansings. My personal distaste for this is rooted in the study of science. I've also lived a pretty long time, through all kinds of trends in eating, moving, healing. I believe that if any organ or system in the body is sick, it can be treated best from the top down.

I have known more than just a few people who were addicted to colonics. That they lived through these treatments is a testament to their basic good health.

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