Remedy or Rip Off ? Hi-Colonics
The topic of this week’s remedy or ripoff might be a little icky. We’re taking a close…but not that close….look at high colonics. What are they for, and do they work? For some reason, maybe coincidence, we’ve had a lot of inquiries lately as to whether high colonics--we’re talking about enemas--work for a variety of health ailments, including colon and digestive problems. Many people who get them swear by them. But where’s the proof these do what people think they do? When David Cabrera walks into the upscale Paul Labreque salon and spa, he’s not going for a massage, or, say, a facial. Nope… It’s for something quite different: colon hydrotherapy… in other words, enemas.
Warm filtered water is gently infused into the colon while the therapist performs abdominal massage to stimulate the release of accumulated matter. “I feel healthier, I feel more vibrant, I feel more alive, I don’t have acid reflux, I lost 25 pounds, I feel less stress, I feel more energetic,” says David.
Brigit Krome, a colon hydrotherapist, says patients come for constipation, chronic fatigue, and just not feeling right. She also says it helps with brain fog. “My clients call it, brain fart, like you wake up in the morning and you’re not ready to jump out of bed and go,” says Brigit. Brigit states that the colonic problems originate with accumulated food residue—perhaps 20 years old-- on the walls of the colon.
“I call it plaque. It doesn’t come out and the more plaque it will push up even against the muscles, and people have a belly. But if after the process of doing a series of colonics their bellies get flat,” Brigit states. That plaque, Brigit says, also increases toxins in the body, resulting in not just chronic fatigue, but also bad breath, headache, skin rashes, and liver toxicity. But medical experts say the plaque theory is nonsense.
“We do colonoscopy all the time patients do one prep, there is no stool usually on the bowel, there is nothing stuck on the bowel,” says Dr. Jennifer Christie, Director of the Women’s Gastrointestinal Health & Motility Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
“I have never prescribed hi-colonics for bloating and constipation. There is no medical or scientific evidence to support the use of hi-colonics, in terms of improving health over all, eliminating toxins or reducing cancer,” advises Dr. Christie. And Dr. Christie is not the only physician to--pardon the expression--poo poo colonics.
Dr. Alex Ky is a colorectal surgeon at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. “No it does not accumulate food stuff from 20 years ago.” Brigit disagrees. “Usually any time from the third to the sixth colonic is what people have what I call a breakthrough session, in other words a lot of stuff starts to come out and you can see it here coming out through the tube,” she says.
Dr. Ky adds, “So what happens is that when they get these therapies, they get these herbal medications and so far we don’t know what’s in those herbs, a lot of times those herbs are the stuff that cause those big fibers bulking materials that comes out.” Still, David and many others can’t say enough about getting colonics. I think everyone should look into having a colonic done,” says David.
We called the American College of Gastroenterology and asked for their opinion. A media contact stated, “hydrocolonics is not a therapeutic treatment.” Even so, Brigit’s patients are very, very happy, but that might be due, in part, to the fact she also gives some good nutrition advice (David became a vegetarian and cut out red meat, and lost weight as a result). And, she does psychotherapy during the sessions--for patients it is peaceful and relaxing, and that may be one reason why folks believe they get great benefit.
Drs. Christie and Ky say there are problems that could be associated with hi-colonics, for example, they say you can have salt and mineral imbalance, it can result in dehydration, you are also at risk for perforation with the instruments that the therapist uses. Brigit has had no complications in all the years she’s been doing it, and she does use disposable equipment, minimizing risk of infection, but other therapists might not, and that could be an issue if not properly sterilized.