The Lower Intestine

The lower intestine contains both friendly and putrefactive bacteria. In many people, the ratios are reversed from normal: they have excessive, 85%, putrefactive bacteria and a completely insufficient population of friendly bacteria. Putrefaction is a major cause of ill health. It is also related to flatulence, dryness, constipation, and poor absorption of the nutrients that are needed to build healthy skin, hair, bones, nerve sheaths, reproductive fluids, and brain tissue.

Proper internal hygiene is as important as external hygiene. Good elimination and abundant friendly bacteria in the lower intestine are crucial to good health.

Unhealthy conditions in the colon result in many of the problems associated with degenerative diseases, impaired functioning of the nervous system and brain, premature aging, memory problems, and a host of other conditions characterized by dryness, spasm, and irregularity, including conditions that come and go and that are therefore often deemed imaginary or hypochondriacal.

There are many strategies for correcting bowel function.

First, it is important to have both good digestion and good peristalsis. This means that foods move through the digestive tract in a reasonable length of time, not days! Roughage and spices help peristalsis whereas overconsumption of refined carbohydrates—like white sugar and white flour—aggravates peristaltic function and contributes to the risk of parasites and yeast infections!

Spices are stimulating as well as purifying. For instance, cloves are intensely antimicrobial as well as destructive to the eggs laid by parasites. Many people have parasites, but with adequate bile secretion and the volatile oils in spices, most of the parasites will not be able to gain a foothold in the gastrointestinal tract.  

Tip #1

Mix a little essential oil, such as oil of cloves or cinnamon, with a good quality flax seed oil or other edible oil. Use 10 drops of essential oil to an ounce of edible oil. Be careful not to use more than this amount, and be sure you use an extremely pure essential oil, not an aromatherapy oil for incense making. You can use a bottle with an eye dropper and shake the bottle vigorously before use. Take just a few drops of this mixture once or twice a day. If you do not like the taste, you can put the oil into capsules, but you will probably find that you have to swallow the capsules immediately since the essential oils will tend to dissolve the capsules. At this level of use, the oils are gently purifying and mildly stimulating to peristalsis. Moreover, they really annoy parasites!

Do not exceed the recommended amount.

	8 oz. $7.85
Cinnamon Bark, 5 ml.
Clove Bud, 5 ml.

 

 

A word of warning:

Years ago, I read that the average American adult has 40 pounds of impacted material adhering to the interior wall of the colon. This impaction is mainly the result of wrong food choices, but it is aggravated by overuse of antibiotics, chlorinated water, and a host of other factors that impede digestion, peristalsis, and elimination. Add to this the effects of pain relievers and we have a potentially dangerous situation . . . but fortunately one that can generally be remedied.

When discussing impaction in a course years ago, a nurse raised her hand. She was agitated so I thought that she perhaps had an entirely different perspective on this problem; but she said she used to assist in autopsies and had seen cases in which the impacted material exceeded 90 pounds.

Colonic therapists have, of course, other horror stories to tell; and patients who have fasted have often been astonished by what continues to come out days and weeks into the fast.

Impaction and Constipation

Some patients have told me that they have not had a normal bowel movement in years. Others, of course, are trying to address problems of the colon through diet and coffee enemas, but I have a somewhat different viewpoint than some of my colleagues.

Let me share a few stories. A woman came up to me after a seminar and told me that since was 18, she had not had a single normal bowel movement. I suggested she eat at a local Indian restaurant that offered monthly meal tickets. She phoned me to say that she had a proper and perfectly natural "event" after the very first meal. She continued to phone for several months following this simple discovery and always reported that the change of diet had made her completely free of the need for enemas.

A practitioner related a somewhat similar concern but in the context of infertility. Because she was resistant to taking any pills, I suggested taking cayenne in capsules, nothing more. She said she spent the entire weekend at home and conceived a child a few days later. Obviously, cayenne is not a fertility herb; but it is decongesting. It would therefore seem that it removed the blockages that had made conception impossible.

Dr. Christopher, who relied very heavily on cayenne, told stories in his lectures about people who had to start with mega amounts of colon stimulating herbs. The recommended dose on the bottle might be 2-3 capsules once or twice a day, but he told people to take as many capsules as necessary to produce results. In one case, the patient had to take 72 capsules. This sounds extreme, almost exaggerated, but probably there was one account like this in his long career. His formula is called Turkey Rhubarb and it is the most aggressive of the bowel formulas that we carry.

Parasites

Hulda Clark believes that cancer patients tend to have a liver fluke. Someone who used to be associated with her sent me photographs of flukes that had burrowed through gall stones and seriously affected gastrointestinal comfort and efficiency. A Russian, Dr. Tamara Lebedewa, delivered a paper at a cancer conference in Stuttgart in which she stated that all patients she studied had parasites, not Fasciolopsis buskii but trichomonas. When consulting in Europe, we found blood parasites in all cancer patients, many different types. Since parasites can move, it is not clear whether, as many suggest, they move in response to food or other factors. It is also not certain that a blood parasite would enter the intestines or that an intestinal parasite would leave the gastrointestinal tract. In reading some 3000 pages of professional opinion in parasitology books, my opinion would be that there are many species with many different behaviors. Moreover, some are so well adapted to their chosen habitat that it takes real perseverance to rid oneself of these epidemic infections.

Most of us accept that we are occasionally infected by giardia or amoebic dysentery, but few like to think of anything visible, but we see these creatures in animals, often our own pets, and we cannot be certain that what affects them is not also affecting humans. Finding a laboratory to test for the presence of parasites is difficult. You practically need to hunt down a specialist in tropical medicine. In the meantime, it is a reasonable assumption that parasites are present and that a regime to rid oneself of them will produce positive results.

Colon Cleansing

There are many specialists in colon cleansing and many opinions, not all compatible with one another. For example, Eastern medicine generally does not see as much value in colonic therapy as Western natural medicine, but this is a cornerstore of some healing strategies.

Given that my background is mainly in Ayurveda, I tend to favor approaches that involve normal actions: eating and digesting and eliminating. In short, if the lower intestine can be induced to work properly through use of spices and proper food and herbs, I would not use enemas, colema boards, or colonics. However, if diet and herbs fail, it is good to know that additional means are available.

Years ago, Yerba Prima had a product called Vivalo Cream. It was massaged into the abdomen in the direction that food moves through the colon, i.e., up on the right through the ascending colon, then right to left through the transverse colon, and then down on the left where the descending colon is. Over a period of some weeks, the oil in this product penetrated and moved through the exterior wall of the colon and floated off impaction in a way that restored elasticity to colon. In my estimation, this reduced the risk of internal bleeding due to more forcible removal of impacted material from a very dry and therefore brittle colon. Yerba Prima stopped making the product. I phoned them and they said I was practically their only customer. I have to say, I never used the product myself, but patients loved it. For years, I have contemplated developing something like this to replace this cream.

I published my own formula for colon cleansing in my book. It is mainly carminative and just somewhat laxative. What this means is that the primary function of the formula is to relieve gas and the secondary effect is laxative. There are countless colon formulas on the market and people have to find the product that works best for them. Some formulas are almost completely laxative in action and some are regenerating. To understand this better, one can compare cascara sagrada and rhubarb to psyllium husks and slippery elm to triphala, a blend of three tropical fruits that is the mainstay of Ayurvedic medicine.

Triphala is considered to be a "rasayana" rather than a laxative. It is important to understand the theory of digestion according to Ayurveda because the entire system of medicine is based on digestibility of foods and herbs. The thumbnail sketch of this ancient system of healing is that food that is assimilated in the stomach is used to replenish the blood and lymph. We basically know this because some foods go straight into the blood stream within minutes of consumption. This, of course, includes alcohol but also many other very easy to digest nutrients such as our elixirs. The reason is that the honey sticks to the stomach wall and promotes rapid assimilation. Therefore, we can actually see a difference in the blood in 20-30 minutes.

Food that is assimilated in the small intestine is used to rebuild muscles and fat. In a way, we know this also because we do not expect to gain weight as fast as we become tipsy nor do we expect that eating a few protein bars will give us an athletic edge over others. We expect that it will take longer to develop muscle tone or reduce fat.

Then, according to the pundits of old, food that is digested in the colon is used to regenerate the most precious as well as the least essential parts of our bodies. For instance, hair and fingernails are less crucial to survival than blood so they depend on less efficient mechanisms, but if the colon walls are plastered with white sugar and flour, the nutrients needed to rebuild these tissues will be lacking.

Now, reflect for a moment on some chemistry one never learned in school. We know, for instance, that the bones can develop holes, osteoporosis, but what happened to the minerals before the bone loss occurred? They were probably raided by the blood to maintain a safe pH balance in the presence of excess acidity, a condition caused by dietary imbalance and perhaps also infection, including parasitic infection.

In short, the blood, being most vital to survival, has first dibs on instantly usable nutrients, but you can actually examine the blood to see whether the blood is nourished or depleted. If it is deficient, you can also assume that it will raid to the extent necessary to maintain life. This will cause loss in other parts so it is not surprising that something like cancer could metastasize to the bones . . . if the bones are weak.

It is so embarrassing to talk about the colon that we fail to appreciate its worth. Now, let's correct this issue, get rid of the awkwardness, and start appreciating the fact that regeneration is impossible without a properly functioning colon. As I started out by saying, the colon is associated with a host of conditions relating to aging, everything from short-term memory loss to failing libido.

For those who have not studied the wisdom of the East, it is nearly impossible to see the relationship between something as commonplace as constipation and senility, but centuries and centuries ago, Ayurvedic physicians wrote that the power to renew is in the water element. When there is putrefaction in the gastrointestinal tract, the gas causes more than rumblings and noise; it causes shooting pains, spasms, and dryness. This dryness attacks moisture, making elimination more and more difficult, but its havoc can also be seen in all forms of dryness from brittle fingernails and hair to creaky joints to inability to lubricate.

Now, take a second look at that long list of what is affected by assimilation in the colon: hair and nails, bones, nerve sheaths and brain, and ojas, a word that can only barely be explained but not translated. This is a fluid in the body, said to exist in small quantities, no more than would fit in the well in the palm of the hand, that is crucial to regeneration. It is part of the reproductive system and said to be conserved by celibacy but it can also be renewed by deeply nutritious food that is oily, such as sesame seeds and ghee. If a person has ojas, he has luster and radiance, but without it, the skin looks dull and dry. This is the quintessential clue to longevity and regeneration, a secret of Eastern medicine and mysticism that is completely neglected in the West

In concluding, I would simply like to say that good digestion, adequate intestinal flora, and proper elimination are pivotal to good health. One can eliminate disease but not recover from the ravages of ill health unless nutrition and internal hygiene support this regeneration. Whatever the colon product used to stimulate peristalsis, my opinion is that at some point triphala would be used to rejuvenate the lower intestine. Most practitioners believe that triphala's scope of action extends beyond the colon and includes other tubes and ducts. They see triphala as a kind of roto-rooter that cleans arteries and veins as well the bowel.

100 capsules, $20.35
90 tablets, $14.00

For more in depth information on colon cleansing:

Intestinal Flora