Colonic Hydrotherapy

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100007943/take-one-sturdy-hosepipe-surely-the-weirdest-alternative-medicine-ever/

Tom Chivers discusses colonic hydrotherapy:

“Bit a propos of nothing, this, but bear with me. Cycling through Islington this afternoon (and feel free to judge me just for typing that phrase) I saw an advert that made me do a double-take. On the front of an otherwise ordinary-looking chemist’s, in foot-high letters underneath an image of a smiling young woman, it said “colonic hydrotherapy”.

Yes: a high street shop cheerfully advertising that, for money, it will stick a hosepipe up your hole and squirt 30 pints of water up there. But in a holistic way, obviously. It is said to cure the usual panoply of ills. I know it’s hardly new – apparently the ancient Egyptians were well into it – but I find the whole idea terrifying.

I can sort of understand the appeal of other alt-med quackery. Homeopathy, in the end, is just taking a couple of harmless tablets and talking to a nice man for three-quarters of an hour. Reflexology and the various other ones, reiki and whatnot, you get a nice massage. Even acupuncture might be quite pleasant, I don’t know.
But “colonic hydrotherapy” sounds like a particularly brutal prison torture. Do people subject themselves to this deliberately? It’s not some sort of dare, or an elaborate hoax I’ve fallen for?

I hardly need add that there’s no evidence that it works, and anyway, it’s based on a fundamentally (so to speak) flawed idea – the colon and lower bowel are pretty good at self-cleaning, and the American Cancer Society says that the evidence “does not support the premise that toxins accumulate on intestinal walls or that toxicity results from poor elimination of waste from the colon”. Worse, it’s not safe – there have been deaths from perforated colons and from amoebic infection.

Of course, a lack of evidence has never stopped people from using weird medicinal techniques before, but it surprises me that the unadorned physical horror of it hasn’t put them off. What next? Holland & Barrett offering to rub chilli in your eye to prevent glaucoma?”

A few more points to add:

“According to the FDA, colonic irrigation systems are Class III devices that cannot be legally marketed except for medically indicated colon cleansing (such as before a radiologic or endocopic examination). No system has been approved for "routine" colon cleansing to promote the general well being of a patient”

(http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html).

“Colon therapy has no benefits, and can cause harm. Colonic perforation and electrolyte imbalances can occur. Infection from improperly sterilized equipment (Giardia, C. difficle), and severe cramping can all occur” (http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Colonic#Efficacy_2).

Leave it to the believers of quack medicine to think that squirting water up the rear-end is a good idea.