I have been hearing about this miraculous product, Acai Berry. It's all over the place, Oprah and many others tout it's effectiveness in providing great energy, hunger loss, and weight loss.
Any truth to this, Bill or Ian?
Also, I have been hearing about how colonic cleansing is so good for the body. One particular reference below:
...Dr. Oz on another show talking about how cleansing your colon is a great way to lose unwanted weight. I don’t know all the medical details, but basically he was explaining how years worth of gunk and junk get trapped in your colon and trap in all sorts of toxins. It’s a thick slime like tar and it also ads a few inches to your waistline.
Is there any truth to this reference to this slime build up in the colon and it's ability to hold fat?
Or is there any other good reason to do colonic cleansing. It seems, as in the feminine douching, that it would get rid of your own bodies antibodies and change the ph, thus taking away the body's natural abilities to fight germs and such.
If you get an infection by putting things that don't belong up there, you may need surgery to fix it. I don't know how common that is-maybe very rare- but I have heard of a few cases. That doesn't seem worth it to lose a few pounds that you could have worked off by exercising.
Colon cleansing is total baloney. The idea that there is a rind of slime mde up of years of toxins is complete nonsense. I have seen more patients than I can remember undergo preparation for colonoscopy which completely cleans you out, and what comes out of them is just regular ole poop. After that, their colonoscopy reveals normal mucosal tissues (provided there's no other disease mucking that up, but its never toxins or slime or whatever).
Avoiding constipation is a good idea. The idea that fiber prevents colon cancer is NOT borne out by the best data, but then what we do know is that unhealthy diets are frequently constipating, and that diets high in fiber are frequently healthy. But we already knew we needed to eat veggies and not McDonalds, right everyone? Constipation gives us hemorrhoids as well as diverticuli, pockets in the colon like weak spots in balloons. They bleed commonly and they also can get infected, which can be a nuisance thing OR can lead to major surgery, pooping in a bag, or having a drain stuck into your side into an abscess for months. Bleah.
I'm not aware of much of an infection risk to colon cleansing, however. Interventions which significantly alter colon bacteria can allow bad stuff to move in, namely a bacterium called Clostridium Difficile, or C diff. This can cause a dangerous or just unpleasant diarrhea. Usually that requires antibiotics not an enema; an enema only reaches the distal part of your bowel and barely gets, oh, maybe a fifth or quarter of it, so it can't disturb things too much. There are case reports of C Diff from chemo or colon preps, but then it also happens spontaneously so maybe it was coincidence. In any case it's negligible.
Acai is a berry which is high in antioxidants, and basically sugar free. Antioxidants are like, totally hip right now, and they may help, but we don't know that for sure. We have bunches of papers on how antioxidant vitamins don't do what they were thought to do, such as C, E, and B vitamins helping for heart disease or beta carotenes for cancer prevention. Acai does make for a tasty yogurt-fruit smoothie, though, and spiking your beverage with an artificial sweetener will save you on fructose calories from fruit. Fruit is good for ya, sure, but calorie for calorie, fructose does bad things to your body compared to other sugars and especially whole grains (fru-ctose = fru-it sugar). Bill will probably comment on ORCAs and whatnot.
Beware impressive weight loss promises. None are proven. There are modest effects to weight loss drugs and the weight effects of diets are similar and similarly unimpressive. On the other hand, if you eat the correct amount of calories, you have to lose weight. I always think of Christian Bale (in The Machinist and Rescue Dawn) when this subject comes up. He makes himself a skeleton for films. the thing that I find inexcusable in the race to come up with the next Health / Weightloss Lie and make a billion dollars is that people blow tons of dough on unproven stuff (see the aisles of lucrative supplements in supermarkets and elsewhere) and forgo stuff that we know helps. D reduces fractures, falls, mortality, and muscle weakness--make sure you are getting enough, especially now, especially you northerners!
IJ wrote:I'm not aware of much of an infection risk to colon cleansing, however.
The wikipedia article mentions it as a risk, as well as a few other concerns (however valid that is.) My first thought was the people giving you one might not be the most qualified person to ever do it. They're all the rage in spas in the Caribbean and what not. I imagine a legitimate doctor doing it for a legitimate reason in a legitimate office would cut the risk a lot.
Moot point if there is no reason to get one to begin with.
In reviewing that, apparently there was an outbreak of amoebiasis at a chiroquacktic's office due to colon cleansing equipment. That means, someone had amoeba in their poop and then the equipment was poorly cleansed not once but multiple times and everyone got a dose. Nice! Way to remove those toxins, guys...
But seriously... while legitimate doctors do not do ANY colon cleansing, when they order enemas for constipation or procedural preparation, nurses provide them with single-use kits. That said, just because you're at a legitimate doctor's office doesn't mean you wont' get infection. I have heard of infections passed by inadequately cleaned colonoscopes, inadequately cleaned bronchoscopes (healthyish peopel acquired TB), outbreaks of viral diarrhea that shut down ERs (and wiped out a third of my residency program in a separate event), outbreaks of Hepatitis C caused by reuse of single use syringes at cancer clinics, and of course hospital based outbreaks of all sorts of dangerous bacteria, resistant to commonly used or even basically all antibiotics (MRSA, VRE, ESBL's) or the potentially deadly C Diff mentioned earlier.
WATCH your healthcare worker wash their hands (ideally, with alcohol gel unless c Diff is a concern) before they touch you.
I think all has been said that needs to be said about colon cleaning. I don't have a whole lot more to add, other than it's tiring seeing the same guys on tee-vee hawking yet another useless product or practice. Wow... what a way to make a living. I think I'd shoot myself.
Ian touched base on acai. They have been trying for some time to quantify why a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is good for you and prevents diseases. One is ORAC units, or the ability of a substance to neutralize free radicals in your body. When it comes to fruits and vegetables, acai is the king of antioxidants.
The smoothie place across from the Short Pump theaters (Squeeze) sells a very nice Acai berry smoothie drink that I get with a couple doses of whey powder. It has acai, blueberries, and I think raspberries. That's a nice mix of the dark blue and purple fruits that we've been told are good for us because of the myriad antioxidants that they contain. This drink also has soy milk in it. And NO ADDED SUGAR! It's my favorite after-weights drink.
I also have some acai powder that I add to a Glucerna shake which is a nice in-between meals snack to keep the blood sugar even.
As Ian points out, it tastes good and it's more than probably good for you.
