Is it good to detoxify and cleanse the intestines?

This issue really cannot be generalized. It is neither a "health-preserving operation that everyone must do regularly" as promoted by merchants, nor is it a completely useless IQ tax. The quality or badness all depends on how you do it and whether it is necessary to do it.

A while ago, my best friend ate takeout food that was heavy in oil and salt for a week while working on a project. She didn't have a bowel movement for three or four days. Her belly was so bloated that she couldn't even button up the high-waisted skirt she usually wore. She was restless. She went to the community hospital to consult a doctor, and when she came back, she drank warm prebiotics for two days. She ate two sticks of steamed corn with the skin on every day, and she had a smooth bowel movement on the third day. Not only did her stomach become more deflated, but her previous nausea due to gas pressure was gone. This kind of gentle bowel cleansing as prescribed by the doctor for temporary constipation was definitely a good thing for her.

But another colleague of mine fell into a big trap. Last year, while browsing a short video, I came across a blogger who said, "Cleaning your intestines once a month can help you lose 10 pounds of feces." Following the trend, he bought several hundred yuan of intestinal cleansing tea and drank it for almost a month. At first, he had diarrhea, but later he got stomachache and diarrhea. I ordered something cold and spicy and immediately ran to the toilet. I went to the hospital for a colonoscopy and found out that the intestinal flora was disordered and there were some signs of colonic melanosis. It took me more than half a year to slowly get better. This kind of blindly following the trend and using stimulating laxatives to do so-called "detoxification and cleansing the intestines" is not only useless, it is simply harmful to yourself.

In fact, there is no marketed concept of "detoxification" and "defecation" in formal medicine. Our intestines have the ability to clean themselves, just like an automatic conveyor belt with its own cleaning brush. Normal peristalsis can discharge metabolic waste every day. As long as healthy people eat normally and have regular bowel movements, there is no need to do additional bowel cleansing. On the contrary, messing around will destroy the mucosal barrier and bacterial environment of the intestines, which is not worth the gain.

Of course, this does not mean that bowel cleansing is completely off limits. For example, before a colonoscopy, or if severe constipation is really uncomfortable, using mild preparations to clear the bowels according to the doctor's instructions is a necessary part of the medical operation and will not cause any additional harm to the body.

If you really feel that your bowel movements are not smooth recently, first try to eat more prunes and red dragon fruit, drink enough 1.5 liters of boiled water every day, and stand for half an hour after meals and rub your stomach for two minutes. Most of them can be relieved. You don't have to spend money on those amazing bowel cleansing products. If you really can't adjust it, go to the hospital to see a gastroenterologist, which is more reliable than any Internet celebrity's advice.