How a healthy colon works

When deciding if a colon cleansing program is right for you, it is important to fully understand how a healthy colon works. Digestion Health breaks the explanation of digestion down into four easy steps.  

1. The food you eat and the water you drink leave the stomach, and mix with digestive enzymes.
2. The food moves into the small intestine where it begins it process of decomposition.  Toxins are stored in the liver, the intestines and body fat. If toxic matter can’t be broken down by the small intestines or eliminated by the liver, it begins to accumulate. The more it accumulates, the more it affects your body’s ability to detoxify. Accumulated toxins in the liver can reduce this vital organ’s ability to secrete bile, bank vitamins, filter wastes, resist infections, remove bacteria, make cholesterol or store glucose. In fact, our livers perform over 500 life-supporting functions every day that impact every other organ and system in our bodies. It’s easy to understand how important a well-working liver is to our health.
3. The material that’s left travels on through the large intestine, or colon, where water is absorbed and bowel movements are formed.  The enzymes in the small intestine break down food’s fats, proteins and carbohydrates into simple compounds for absorption. Some of these compounds (from proteins and carbohydrates) go to the liver, the body’s filter, before re-entering the bloodstream. Others from fats) are carried away by the lymphatic system, an important part of the body’s immune system, before passing into the general circulation.
4. The remaining solid (or stool), which is not able to be used by the body is left in the bowel.  The rectum is empty until the stool is ready to be eliminated, and then it sends a message to your brain so that you have the urge to have a bowel movement. 

The colon is about five feet long and connects the small intestine with the rectum and anus.  The main function of the colon is to absorb nutrients, water and salts from the partially digested food that enters from the small intestine. It begins at the lower right side of the abdomen as the small intestine first empties the contents of digestion into the colon. At this point, the digestion material is in the ascending colon that goes up from the cecum (the pouch that forms the beginning of the large intestine) to the level of the liver.  It then sharply bends to the left and crosses the abdomen as the transverse colon.  At the level of the spleen on the left side of the abdomen, the descending colon goes down to where it becomes the sigmoid region.  The sigmoid colon completes the process by emptying into the rectum where waste material is eliminated through the anus.

The process by which the colon moves the content along toward the rectum is called “colon motility.”  The colon uses wave-like muscular movements called peristalsis that is controlled by nerves, hormones and electrical activity in the colon muscle. It is during this time that water and nutrients are absorbed into the body.  A few times a day, strong muscle contractions move down the colon and push the stool in front of them.  If the muscles of the pelvis, and anal sphincters relax at the right time, the stool may be expelled in a bowel movement.  If the muscles do not contract in a coordinated way, the contents do not move smoothly. This results in abdominal pain, cramps, constipation or diarrhea, and a sense of incomplete stool movement.