The 7-year-old cornflake.

As a child, one of the first things I can remember hearing from the "health food" gang is that doctors have spotted seven-year-old cornflakes lodged in people's bowels!

While I don't hear that much, anymore, I often still hear all kinds of nonsense about our G.I. system getting "clogged up" and backing up toxins in our system. This leads to the sale of all kinds of goofy stuff from colonics to endless variations on fiber and "detoxification" remedies.

Humboldt University in Berlin did a study that injects some common sense to these claims by the "alternative medicine" gang.

Muller-Lissner and his colleagues address some of the notions about constipation in a report published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

They first debunk the myth that chronic constipation may lead to autointoxication from the absorption of poisonous substances backed up in the colon.

This belief was held even among the ancient Egyptians, according to an inscription dating back to the 16th century B.C., and in the early 20th century a famous London surgeon asserted that all chronic diseases result from autointoxication. Yet, there is no current evidence to support such a theory, write Muller-Lissner and his team, adding that some people continue to undergo regular "colon cleansing" with laxatives and enemas.

New Report Clears Up Myths About Constipation

also see

Gastrointestinal Quackery: Colonics, Laxatives, and More