Colon Cleansers are a load of Crap

Welcome to the latest edition of The Daily Skinny. Due to the fact that it has been so long since I have written one, I though about changing the name to 'The Daily Lazy' but changing the name felt like too much effort.

If you happen to get sick a lot, like me, you probably wonder sometimes if there is not a secret alien eating your insides... Or maybe you are allergic to air or something. I mean, how often can one person be sick right? None of us should be surprised to learn that there are people out there who know you wonder about why you feel so lousy sometimes. And they are waiting in the wings to supply you with answer... For a fee of course.

Activity: Count how many times the word 'feces' (or any euphemism) is used in this discussion.

Why do you feel lousy so much of the time? There are those that want you to think a mysterious evil is lurking inside you. They call it Mucoid Plaque. (They tried calling it Phil, but the name didn't stick) According to proponents of the theory, Mucoid Plaque is what builds up in your gastrointestinal tract when you eat crappy food. (Get it?) Purportedly, all the preservatives, unnatural flavorings and who knows what goo that is in our food is seen by our body as indigestible and a threat. Therefore, the body produces a mucous to protect itself from these potentially toxic substances.

Party Question: What you do you get you mix colonic mucous, food additives and feces? Mucoid Plaque!

Put another way, the mucous and chemicals etc. (Etc = Poo) purportedly turn into a cement that sticks to the colon walls and rots there. (Ewwwww...) This is what is meant by the term mucoid plaque. According to supporters of this theory, rotting feces and chemicals in your colon is bad and causes most disease and maybe even death. While I agree that rotting chemicals mixed with crap is undesirable NO MATTER WHERE IT IS, it turns out that these 'doctors' are ironically full of crap.

I'll bet that many of you have received the same email that I did. It is pretty scary. It mentions how the autopsies of John Wayne revealed 40 pounds of impacted feces in his colon! (I think his 'poo-snake' is for sale on Ebay.) The email suggests that this may have been the cause of his death and you should get rid of your pet colonic fecal cement too. My email said that this rotting mucosal waste product can cause diabetes, obesity, forgetfulness, lethargy, cancer, and even baldness! (Bald people are crappy people! :) Heh heh heh) If you have one of these symptoms they say, you may be being poisoned by your own rotting hunk of crap and chemicals. (That
would be a good tittle for a song, don't you think?) If that doesn't convince you, they further note that Elvis Presley had 60 pounds of mucoid plaque in his intestines. (He really IS dead.) IF Elvis had it, it must be true!

As we all know, the solution for when someone if full of crap is The Daily Skinny!

So here is the skinny.

In the first place, colon cleansing systems are EXPENSIVE! A popular system for a couple for a three month 'cleaning' was over $700! But you say, "Hey if it works then why not?" Here's why not. Common side effects (Read the labels people) include severe headaches, constipation, bloating, cramps, nausea, electrolyte imbalance, liver toxicity, rashes, and swelling of the
fingertips. While this is scary, you might say, "Well, everything has POSSIBLE side effects... that doesn't mean it will happen to me." True enough. So lets keep going.

Remember the term 'mucoid plaque'? Guess who coined the term? No, not Betsy Ross. It was Richard Anderson.

Game: What is Richard Anderson's Profession?
A. Gatroenterologist (or other Doctor)
B. A concerned environmentalist
C. A pathologist (Studies disease)
D. A dork who sells colon cleansers
E. He is Macgyver

The answer is D! Richard Anderson has no medical training whatsoever! The guy who invented this is the guy who sells the solution for it..... Hmmmm.... Anyone else hear warning bells?

The National Library of Medicine reports that the existence of mucoid plaque has not been reported in ANY medical literature.

Well there must be some truth to it right? In 1994 an Israeli man presented at a hospital with impacted feces. Since he didn't want to have a surgery to correct it, he left. Well the chap came back the very next day (Isn't that a song?) and was in so much pain he could barely stand. Oh, and I forgot to mention that he was bleeding out of his rectum. (For those not familiar with anatomy, some people call this 'the poo shoot') Needless to say, a person will do anything to stop blood from coming out of their anus, so he signed the consent form and had the surgery. Bingo! In his colon were impacted feces (but no mucous) and guess how much they took out.... One pound! All that pain and bleeding from one pound of poo hanging on for dear life in the guy's colon. Do you really think we are all unknowingly walking around with 40 pounds (or more) of crap-cement in us? Highly unlikely.

What about John Wayne's and Elvis' autopsies? Well I did some poking around. (Not in their colons, I meant on the internet) Guess what? John Wayne died of cancer in 1979 and DIDN'T EVEN HAVE AN AUTOPSY! So his 40 pounds of crap story was just that... a load of crap. What about Elvis? He DID have impacted fecal matter in his colon. (You'd shake your hips a lot
too if you were trying to get that stuff out.) What these scare tactic emails don't tell you is that Elvis had a congenitally twisted colon, overused laxatives (because of the disease), and as we all know, abused drugs. The physicians doing the autopsy noted that the drug abuse and laxatives had paralyzed parts of his digestive tract. Well no wonder he had poo-goo in him! (It was not 60 pounds worth by the way)

Here are some more facts for you. According to the American Cancer Society the cell lining of the gastrointestinal tract is shed and replaced daily. So how is that this mysterious goop is is 'sticking' to anything? I could say more about this and how the colon adapts when things DO temporarily stick to it, but no one (including me) wants to hear it.

The Mayo Clinic warns against any colon treatments not prescribed by a doctor because these treatments can cause electrolyte imbalance, anemia, malnutrition, and heart failure.

You’ll love this one: Journal of Gastroenterology says that these colon cleansers are “potentially dangerous, represent ignorance celebrating a triumph over science.” We should further note that all colonoscopy footage is pink, clean tissue. NO deposits. Don’t people watch ‘House’?

At the University of Texas, professor Edward Uthman has done thousands of autopsies and says that mucoid plaque, “is a complete fabrication with no anatomic basis.”

At Dartmouth Medical School Professor Brian Lacy (a man after my own heart) said "It's all just nonsense."

To sum up, if you don't realize you have a medical problem until an email tells you... You hit the delete button. Save yourself some money, and protect your colon from pseudo-science.

(To keep this shorter than it could be, I did not discuss what causes the freakish “discharged” elements during a colon cleansing. If you really care, let me know.)

**Please note that there are medical reasons for a doctor to prescribe a colon cleansing. However, there is no such thing as mucoid plaque, and cleansers that claim there is can be dangerous. Always follow the advice of your doctor.**