One of the stories that has been bantered around after John Waynes death from Cancer was that at his autopsy they removed over 35 pounds of impacted fecal matter from his colon.

It is hard to discern if this is urban legend or fact. However, if this is true you can certainly understand how this waste could have adversely affected his health.

How much undigested food and waste material is being held in your colon?

When we think of cleansing we have to keep in mind that the body has seven channels of elimination. Just like you would clean your entire house you should also undertake a regimen of cleansing all of your channels of elimination. These channels are the liver, lungs, lymphatic system, blood, skin, colon and kidneys. A cleanse which focuses on only one of the channels of elimination is akin to deciding that you are only going to clean the closets in your house.

A constipated colon is one in which the transit time of food is more than 24 hours. Transit time is the length of time it takes for food to enter the mouth and exit the rectum. The basic principle of good digestive health is that you should put food in and wihin 24 hours that food should come out as waste.

The naturopathic perspective is that the longer the transit time of food, the longer these toxins stay in our digestive tract which permits proteins to putrefy, fats to get rancid, and carbohydrates to ferment.

Regardless how you look at it this cannot be healthy for your body. The longer your body is exposed to these toxins in your intestines, the greater the risk of developing disease.

Stop and think about this.

If you have only one bowel movement per day, you will have all of the other meals that you ate over the last 24 hours putrefying in your intestines. This is called intoxification. It is poisoning from within. The inability to purge toxins from our systems.

What we all need to understand is that the reason why constipation is dangerous to our health is that our bodies are designed to absorb whatever is in the digestive tract. If you put good healthy nutrition there the body will absorb it. Likewise, if you put putrefying, toxic waste there the body will absorb that as well.

The best way to start a cleansing program is by cleansing your colon. After you begin your colon cleansing program you might also want to consider maintenance program with colon hydrotherapy.

Talk to your Doctor for guidance and suggestions on things you can do to maintain optimal health.

Charles O. Palmerson is the webmaster for http://www.eConstipation.com an online Constipation Information Resource created to resolve poor digestive health.

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