Coffee enemas
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[edit] Definition
Bowel cleansing, or colonic irrigation, is a precedure said to have therapeutic benefits. The use of coffee, usually weaker than drunk coffee, is said to detoxify the liver and possibly be a treatment for several forms of cancer.
[edit] Discussion
Coffee's qualities have been known for years. in the 1500s it was used by Arabia's Sufi religious mystics to fight tiredness caused by prolonged praying. It was also prized for its medicinal qualities, in both the Near East and Europe. There is no record of the first time someone chose to fill an enema bag rather than a cup with coffee.
The coffee enema appeared at least as early as 1917. In the 1920s German scientists working with lab animals claimed that a caffeine solution could open the bile ducts and stimulate the production of bile in the liver. Dr. Max Gerson used coffee enemas as part of a general detoxification procedure, first for tuberculosis, then cancer. He claimed that caffeine can find its way up the hemorrhoidal vein to the portal vein and into the liver. Gerson alleged that some patients could dispense with pain-killers as a result of the enemas. Gerson went on to use the coffee enema in cancer therapy in the 1930s.
In recent years, coffee enemas have been popular as part of a general desire to 'detoxify' the body. Other people have noted a calming effect after enema treatment.
[edit] Skeptical Response
Exactly how coffee or caffeine achieves the benefits claimed for enema treatments is not at all clear. It has been speculated that the caffeine is absorbed through the colonic mucosa in a matter of minutes, yet produces none of the side effects (insomnia, jitteriness, etc.) of coffee taken orally. One critic has noted: "...after the caffeine is absorbed, how does it remember where it came in, and how does it talk the various organs into not doing the side effect thing?"
[edit] References
http://www.ralphmoss.com/coff.html
