Editor's Note: This is an area where Wikipedia falls extremely short and debunks colon therapy as ineffective when in fact the medical industry has proven itself totally ignorant about diet and nutrition since its inception. Who are the real quacks? What is the real science behind colon cleansing and hydrotherapy?
Colon cleansing (also known as colon therapy) encompasses a number of alternative medical therapies claimed to remove nonspecific "toxins" from the colon and intestinal tract. Colon cleansing may be branded colon hydrotherapy, a colonic or colonic irrigation. During the 2000s internet marketing and infomercials of oral supplements supposedly for colon cleansing increased.
Some forms of colon hydrotherapy use tubes to inject water, sometimes mixed with herbs or with other liquids, into the colon via the rectum using special equipment. Oral cleaning regimes use dietary fiber, herbs, dietary supplements, or laxatives. People who practice colon cleansing believe that accumulations of putrefied feces line the walls of the large intestine and that these accumulations harbor parasites or pathogenic gut flora, causing nonspecific symptoms and general ill-health. This "auto-intoxication" hypothesis is based on medical beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks and was discredited in the early 20th century.
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