Your colon is an exceptionally important organ in your body, and it’s what helps you digest food. The colon’s primary job is to form the one-and-a-half quarts of fluid (the food you ingested mixed with digestive juices) into a firm stool for passage out of the body. The colon is the largest portion of the large intestine, and is often synonymous with the large intestine. People may have their colon removed as a way to treat colon cancer or Crohn’s disease, or in some cases, to prevent colon cancer. People can live without a colon, but may need to wear a bag outside their body to collect stool. You can also end up with colon cancer, which is one of the most common forms of cancer one can get. This is why I’m going to be listing the 10 amazing ways to keep your colon healthy.
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The large intestine, also known as the large bowel, is the last part of the gastrointestinal tract and of the digestive system in vertebrates. Water is absorbed here and the remaining waste material is stored as feces before being removed by defecation. On the other end of the large intestine are the cecum, rectum, and anal canal. These are all important parts of the large intestine, but the colon is arguably the most important. Before your stool reaches the large intestine though, it goes through the throat, stomach, and small intestine.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
1. Eat a Better Diet
If you want to avoid things like colon cancer and keep your digestive tract healthy, you should eat a healthy diet. This is not something you should do occasionally, it’s something that you should do all of the time. If you want optimal health, you should avoid foods high in sugar and carbs in general. It’s okay to eat something sweet occasionally, but it’s something that should be done in moderation. All it takes is one time, and you can end up with a polyp or ulcer in your tract. If this is left untreated, it can worsen and turn into cancer. This is why you should avoid saturated fats, excess spicy foods, and refined grains. Also, be sure to eat a well-balanced diet full of mostly vegetables and even fruits, at least as substitutes if absolutely needed.
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You should choose to eat foods high in vitamins and minerals, and you should avoid processed or refined food and carbs. Eating a healthy assortment of vegetables, including cruciferous vegetables, is highly recommended because of their anti-cancer effects. You can eat fruits, but it’s important to eat things that are highly nutritious without eating too many calories. If you eat nutrient-dense food, you will have no problem with avoiding calories. Being overweight is often a sign of eating unhealthy foods, and it can have a negative effect on your colon, too. Eating meats is alright, but eating too much meat — red meat in particular — is not a wise choice because of it’s difficulty to digest.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
2. Intermittent Fast
Fasting is beneficial in just about every way to every thing you can think of. These benefits include your gut and colon health as well. Be it prolonged or intermittent fasting, you should consider making it part of your lifestyle. It can help prevent colon cancer and other colon problems that you may have or end up with. The earlier you take care of it, the better. If you decide to fast, you’ll end up detoxifying your body in something called a colon cleanse. This is something you must do before you get a colonoscopy.
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Fasting during prolonged periods gives the gut the time it needs to restore its integrity. This is especially important for those with “leaky gut,” also called intestinal permeability, where the gut lining is weakened thereby allowing toxins, partially digested foods and pathogens to enter the bloodstream. Scientists have also studied healthy humans to look at the gut microbiome to see how it changes with 2 fasts per week. At the 12-16 hour mark, they saw a dramatic shift in the gut microbiome population after fasting for that period. Certain bacteria are super responsive to fasting, and those tend to be beneficial bacteria.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
3. Get a Colonoscopy
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
Making sure to get a routine checkup is not only going to make sure you’re healthy, it’ll keep you healthy. The process of checking your colon is called a colonoscopy. It’s essentially a routine checkup involving a hose with a camera on it going into your digestive tract via your anus. It can be done to detect if there are any problems that can hurt you long or short-term. So, in this sense, it’ll keep you from getting cancer or killing it before it becomes deadly. The last thing you want is terminal cancer, having to go through treatment or surgery. Making sure to take the best preventative measures possible can help prevent having anything to worry about to begin with. Although, it’s probably best, by the age of 50, to start doing it at least once every 2 years.
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So, if you keep your diet and other factors in check, you won’t see any problems. You may even be okay if you skip a year, even if it is not recommended. This is only to be sure that you okay, because plenty of factors other than food can create a problem. Considering it’s only something that primarily affects older folk, it’s not something to worry about when you’re younger. Just know that if you take the right precautions, you won’t necessarily need a colonoscopy. You can certainly have confidence in that, and you probably will.
4. Take Supplements
You can take some high-quality supplements on the market to help with your colon health. Many of them won’t even be that expensive, and they can help with cleansing your colon or repairing damage directly. One of the best vitamins you can stock up on for colon health is vitamin D — you probably recognize it as the one that comes from the sun. Naturally, the best way to get it is to go outside! Even if you work indoors for most of the day, it’s easier than you think to get more vitamin D into your system. Also, just like any body part, you should get every vitamin and mineral, including vitamins A-K, iron, selenium, zinc, and magnesium. Probiotics are also highly recommended at keeping your gut health in check to fight your battles for you.
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You should avoid drugs and alcohol when considering your colon health. This is even including smoking cigarettes, and if anything, any drug should be avoided. Drugs are known to destroy the digestive tract and leave it without it’s proper microbiome. Something like coffee is okay with your system within means, but it’s always best not to overdo it for many reasons. If you want the best for your health, simply avoid any drugs, period. If you can’t then try to figure it out with your doctor by keeping the “necessary” medicines to a minimum. This is where something like fasting and a ketogenic diet can help you avoid any need for medications at all. However, that’s not the subject of this article.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
5. Exercise
Exercise is extremely important in keeping you at a healthy and normal weight and your colon healthy. Over 50 studies have been conducted on the connection between exercise and the risk of colon cancer. Research shows that adults who increase their physical activity in intensity, duration or frequency can reduce their risk of developing colon cancer by 30 to 40 percent, compared to adults who are sedentary.
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Physical activity after diagnosis of stage III colon cancer was associated with a significant reduction in cancer recurrence and overall mortality. Patients who engaged in at least 18 MET-hours per week of physical activity showed a better outcome, with 47% having significant improvement in disease-free survival.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
6. Don’t Force It
Well, if this one was not obvious enough, avoiding the process of forcing your stool out can help keep your colon healthy. Certain things like hemorrhoids and even hernias can form if you push too hard when you crap. This can later cause problems in the rectal region that can spread to the colon. It’s best to sit there and wait, so being sure to poop when you have to is important for more than one reason.
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If you often have trouble making bowel movements and have to take laxatives (drugs that help you go) on a regular basis, you could one day have a serious bowel problem called fecal impaction. A fecal impaction is a large, hard mass of stool that gets stuck so badly in your colon or rectum that you can’t push it out. If you want to avoid all sorts of problems with your colon, including ulcerative colitis, be sure to sit back and relax.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
7. Be Stress-free
Did you know that stress can cause problems with your digestive tract, including the colon? You probably did notice how it can cause constipation or even loose stool. This is important to know, because trying to stay stress-free can be hard, but it’s necessary. It’s what you should want no matter the price, because it’s going to save you a lot of grief. In more serious cases, stress may cause a decrease in blood flow and oxygen to the stomach, which could lead to cramping, inflammation, or an imbalance of gut bacteria. It can also exacerbate gastrointestinal disorders, including: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
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Stress can also make pain, bloating, or discomfort felt more easily in the bowels. It can affect how quickly food moves through the body, which can cause either diarrhea or constipation. Furthermore, stress can induce muscle spasms in the bowel, which can be painful. Although psychological problems like anxiety don’t cause the digestive disorder, people with IBS may be more sensitive to emotional troubles. Stress and anxiety may make the mind more aware of spasms in the colon. IBS may be triggered by the immune system, which is affected by stress. So, be sure avoid stress as much as you can, because it’ll at least save you the suffering you deserve to avoid.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
8. Get Some Sun
As mentioned before, the sun and vitamin D are highly important to your overall health. Your colon is also part of this, and it’s why you should go out and catch some rays. The structural equation model analysis suggested that higher sun exposure was associated with a decreased risk of CRC (colorectal cancer). This, along with a dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D, made all the difference in the world. These factors are correlated among themselves and with environmental solar radiation and skin phenotypes.
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You should also consider fish oil supplements, because they are especially high in vitamin D. Just be sure to avoid too much vitamin D straight up the butt, because sticking things up there isn’t healthy. If you do, be sure to use cream, and try not to stick drugs up there, even if it does make it more bio-available.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
9. Don’t Hold It
Did you know that holding in your farts and poop can cause problems with your colon? A 2015 study found that an increased fecal load in the colon increases bacterial counts and creates long-term inflammation of the inner lining of the colon. This is a risk factor for cancer. The study also suggests that voluntarily holding in your poop might also be associated with appendicitis and hemorrhoids. A meta-analysis of 14 case-control studies that examined the association between constipation or infrequent bowel movements (BMs) and colorectal cancer and found a statistically significant 48% increase in the pooled odds ratios for colorectal cancer in association with constipation.
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To add, people who are obese are slightly (about 30%) more likely to develop colorectal cancer than normal-weight people. A higher BMI is associated with increased risks of colon and rectal cancers in both men and in women, but the increases are higher in men than in women. This is why it’s important to fast, because it can help control weight gain and keep your colon clean and cleanse it.
The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
10. Drink Plenty of Water
Drink enough water, because it can help keep you clean, healthy, and cancer-free. When you’re not properly hydrated, toxins can build up in your body. Drinking eight or more glasses of water a day can help move toxins and excrement through your colon more quickly. Keeping track of how much water you’re drinking or setting water goals throughout the day can help you stay hydrated.
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Drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated is a great way to regulate digestion. People who support a water flush for colon cleansing recommend drinking six to eight glasses of lukewarm water per day. Along with other liquids, gastric juices, and enzymes, water helps the digestive process so the body can absorb the nutrients. Drinking water doesn’t interfere with digestion or dilute stomach juices — and water also softens stools, which helps prevent constipation.
Final Thoughts: The 10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Colon Healthy
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to keep the colon clean, healthy, and cancer free. All it takes is a little bit of a lifestyle change, and you can be right on your way to a healthier body, inside and out. Be sure to check with a doctor before you take any advice from me concerning health. This is important because you need to know what you’re susceptible to before making any drastic changes to your diet or way of life. In the end, all you should know is that you will avoid being so anal retentive.
