A coffee enema is technically either a retention one where the mixture is delivered to the colon and retained for 15-20 minutes, or an implant - where the coffee herb is implanted in the colon (hydrotherapy or dyalisis are not covered in this article).
But why administer coffee into your bowels in reverse direction? I mean - coffee?!
We need to understand something about the world we live in today - it's extremely toxic. Never has Earth been more polluted in its history than it is today. The levels of some heavy metals in our environment are over a thousand times greater than ever in the past. These metals include lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum and nickel. Others commonly found in our food, air and water supply are uranium, beryllium, bismuth, antimony, zirconium, gadolinium, tin, among others.
In addition, the planet is poisoned with over 100,000 toxic chemicals, with more produced every day! The laws of most countries permit the addition of over 3000 chemicals in our food, and these are on top of the pesticides and herbicides that are found in our water supplies and in many foods.
The widespread and often overused medical prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs add over a thousand more toxic chemicals to our bodies, especially in the Western world. These include surgical anesthetics, dental anesthetics such as Novocaine, vaccine preservatives, metals, adjuvants and stray viruses, and many other poisons used routinely today in the medical profession.
Drug and chemical residues often remain in the body for decades, and some, like mercury, never leave our tissues unless a specific detox/chelation protocol is applied. And the cumulative and combined effects of this toxic assault on our bodies has not been studied sufficiently, at all. However, their presence is associated with ALL major diseases of the XXI century. To say that this is the century of toxicity is no exaggeration. And the coffee enema, as simple as it sounds, is one of the methods (and a powerful one!) to help with this problem.
In addition to removing toxins from the body, coffee enemas can:
- Clean and heal the colon
- Detoxify the liver and help rebuild its tissues, as well as clear the bike ducts
- Reduce many types of pain
- Help eliminate many parasites
- Reduce and get rid of many symptoms of general toxicity.
Since toxicity is the cause of dozens of conditions from arthritis to cancer, coffee enemas are a must-have part of all biomedical protocols for healing. It is very often that as functional medicine practitioners we hear the "coffee enemas saved my life” affirmation from our Clients.
The coffee bean and plant have been used in herbal medicine and shamanic healing for centuries. Having originated in Ethiopia and then brought to the Middle East, Europe and then into the Americas around the XVIII century, it has always been known as a potent liver cleaning and regeneration remedy. In fact, up until 1984 (!) the coffee enema was actually listed in the famous Merck Manual - a handbook used by all the physicians across the globe. This changed when the cancer industry realised that such remedies would be undermining their proposed 'treatment for profit scheme' and the practice was abolished with strong lobbies demonising it as quackery.
The father of one of the most comprehensive and effective anti-cancer protocols to this day, Dr. Max Gerson (MD) (1881-1959), attributed one of the central roles in overcoming cancer to regular coffee enemas. In his monumental work "A Cancer Therapy - A Study of 50 Cases" (1958) he demonstrated how his applied nutritional therapy for cancer and other diseases gave excellent results. His therapy combined coffee enemas with a special diet, juices and a few other nutritional supplements. Toxic substances used to attack the tumours and/or lower the pain were found detrimental since they destroyed the liver and made recovery close to impossible.
Nevertheless, it has been over 80 years since Dr Gerson's advancements and our bodies are much weaker, our guts are more inflammated, and the toxic load is significantly greater than it used to be. Therefore certain adjustments in diet recommendations, dosages and frequency of enemas have been applied to Gerson's therapy and the protocol has evolved. .
Today most coffee is grown in South America, Hawaii, China and other parts of Asia, although some is grown in Africa, as well. The best is often from South America due to the local soil conditions. And there are a few important issues concerning the growing and processing of the coffee beans that one should understand when choosing their product:
- it needs to be organically grown or it will contain toxic pesticide residue - not something you would want to deliver straight to your liver!
- Fermentation of the beans - unless done properly, certain natural toxins of the coffee bean will be left making it unsafe both for consumption orally and rectally.
- coffee is an oily seed of a fruit and when roasted - the oils emerge, bringing up certain phytochemical compounds, that are not recommended so the darker the roast for an enema coffee, the better. There are a few brands that make a lighter roast coffee specifically for enemas but they are exceptions.
- in case of most of the brands on the market, the time after roasting and before consumption is sufficient for the polyunsaturated oils in the coffee to make it turn rancid making it more irritating for the colon and more difficult to hold. A brand called "Bullet-proof coffee" (www.bulletproofexec.com) claims to have solved this issue, as well as being mold-free. If not available in your region - generally try purchasing an organic South American dark-roast variety, non-oily and without mold.
Many would say - but coffee is irritating to the stomach and isn't something that is advised to be drunk frequently?! Very true! But it is very different to drink coffee and to take it directly into the colon, the biochemistry of its substances affects our bodies in two different ways depending on how we administer it.
In 1982 a study by National Research Council (USA) howed that coffee enemas have the power to reduce systemic toxicity by up to 700 percent. This is because caffeine and other beneficial compounds found in coffee - when not consumed by mouth and therefore diluted by the digestive tract - work together to stimulate the liver directly to increase production of glutathione S-transferase (GST). This is a powerful detoxifying enzyme that binds with, and flushes out, toxins in the body.
Other effects of coffee enemas include:
- it's an astringent, which means that it has the capacity to peal off the top intoxicated layers of membranes of both the colon and the liver.
- mechanical cleansing - the liquid itself washes out not only toxins but also parasite nests, bacterial and yeast colonies and biofilms and other debris. By stimulating the colon it makes it expand slightly and cleans out even more this way.
- the stimulating affect of a coffee enema also works on reflex points along the colon from which nerves and arteries run to all of the organs and tissues of the body, so by balancing a sick bit of the colon we directly affect the functioning of another part of our body.
- it's an antioxidant, more beneficial to battle oxidative stress in the colon than C, E, and ALA.
- increased pH or a more alkaline environment in the whole GI tract mainly because of increased bile flow. This makes the gut much less suitable for parasites, dysbiosis, bad bacteria, fungus, etc, hence improving the gut flora.
- palmitic acids discovered in coffee in the late 70s are potent enhancers of glutathione s-transferase enzyme that is responsible for detoxifying cancer-causing chemicals from the liver's tissues and administering coffee to the liver via enemas has proven to raise glutathione levels up to 700%.
- Caffeine! Causes dilation of bile ducts, which facilitates excretion of toxic cancer breakdown products by the liver and dialysis of toxic products from blood across the colonic wall. This makes caffeine a choleretic (bile flow stimulant), but most choleretics don't enhance detoxifying enzyme systems so as the toxins start flowing they get reabsorbed 9-10 times along the way. Coffee, however, prevents that from happening.
- a great 'kick-start' for the whole digestive tract - stimulating the colon with coffee starts up the rest of the GI tract function.
- coffee contains selenium which is better absorbed via rectum than orally and selenium, among other things is a great binder for mercury; and is also rich in potassium and zinc
- when administered via an enema, coffee relaxes the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system
- coffee clears subtle frequencies in the body, homeopaths know this and ask their patients to not use coffee as a remedy precisely because it would clear the effect of the homeopathic pills .
Feeling excited yet? In the next post on this topic I will share the practical guidelines of administering a coffee enema safely and efficiently.