For those of you who do not know what an enema is, it is a process of filling your colon with water to a point where the colon walls are forced to contract and expel the water and any material that is in your colon through your sphincter anal. Some people believe that enemas cleanse your colon and are good for your health.
Is this true? Enemas are good for your health?
In general, the regular use of enemas is not good for your health. To understand why this is, we must first examine some basic information of anatomy and physiology of the digestive tract.
After the food nutrients to pass through the wall of your small intestine to get into your blood, which remains in your small intestine is an aqueous mass consists mainly of four components:
* Fiber
* Dead cells from the walls of the digestive tract
Micro-organisms *
* Digestive juices
This liquid mass moves through your small intestine until it reaches the large intestine, also called the colon.
As he travels through your large intestine, the walls of your major intestine starts to absorb water from the ground. When this liquid mass reaches the end of your large intestine – also called your rectal pouch – enough water has been absorbed because of the mass to become solid. This assumes, of course, that your gut is healthy. Essentially, this is how you train stool for bowel movements.
The speed at which the mass of water moves through the intestine mainly depends three factors:
1. The amount of fiber in your diet. The more fiber you eat, the faster the mass will travel into the intestine. It the reason why not eating enough fiber can cause constipation – without a good amount of fiber to keep the liquid mass moving in the gut at a good pace, your colon will have more contact time with the mass of absorbing water from there, so much so that when the mass reached rectal your pocket, it will have lost so much water it will be extremely difficult.
2. How to manage emotional stressors. Stress emotional can accelerate or slow the rate at which the liquid mass moves in the intestine and may therefore be a cause of chronic constipation or diarrhea. Whether you experience the acceleration or deceleration due to emotional stress depends on your genetic disposition.
3. The health of your enteric nervous system. Your enteric nervous system consists of a series of sensory receptors and nerves which are scattered across the walls of your intestines.
Getting back to whether enemas are good or bad for your health, we will look closer to your enteric nervous system.
Although your enteric nervous system is responsible for regulating more activities Perhaps most important is to regulate the natural waves of contractions in the walls of your intestines. These waves of contraction are what push material along with a steady rhythm to your rectal pouch. Whenever the walls of the digestive tract are stretched by food or liquids, the sensory receptors in these walls are stimulated, which sends a signal to your enteric nervous system, he said to contract the muscles in the walls of your digestive tract.
Whenever your colon is filled with water during an enema, the colon walls are stretched to a much greater degree than they are normal amounts of food and liquids you eat and drink. If you do enemas on a regular basis, over time, stretch receptors in your intestinal wall will adapt to this greater stretching and even become insensitive to stretching that occurs with amounts regular food and liquids you eat and drink. Also, repeated, intense stretching of your intestinal wall can lead regular enemas a weakening of the muscles in the walls, it is 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 the ability to contract in the walls of the colon can reach a point where they can not go to the bathroom single without using an enema or laxatives.
None of this is to say that enemas are completely useless. At our clinic, I recommend regularly enema a time for people who have a history of chronic constipation and constipation are before starting a fast water. It because during fasting with water for long, stools and existing materials in the digestive tract tend to accumulate in the pocket rectal and become very hard. People with chronic constipation and problems with hemorrhoids or anal fissures can usually benefit compensation of their colon and rectum with an enema bag before starting a water fast.
The ultimate point of this paper is that is preferable to avoid enemas on a regular basis. The three best ways to naturally maintain healthy intestinal walls and movements are:
* Constantly work on reducing stress and feeling emotional
* Choose fresh foods invariably and minimally processed, with the bulk of your food choices are herbal
* Adopt the four habits of eating for optimal digestion
Please note: colonics are similar to enemas, the main difference being that the qualified practitioner can better regulate the pace and amount of water flow that is used during a colonic that most people can with enemas. Yet, even with better regulation flow of water, I am convinced that regular use of colonics is much less answer the three factors listed above as a means to promote and maintain clean and healthy bowels.
Dr. Ben Kim is the founder of and primary writer for his holistic health website, which includes hundreds of health articles and healthy recipes. He publishes a weekly healthy recipe and lifestyle newsletter that is read by tens of thousands of readers from all over the world.