Coffee enemas are a widely known alternative medicine procedure that proponents claim can cure many diseases and improve someone’s health. Yet coffee enemas have no scientific evidence to support those purported claims, and they can actually be quite dangerous.
Coffee enemas are a type of colon cleanse first conceived of in the early 20th century by German doctors looking for a cancer treatment. The treatment became popularized to a wider audience around the same time by German-American physician Max Gerson, who advocated for the procedure’s use in his diet plan known as “Gerson Therapy”. A coffee enema is performed through the injection of a mixture of caffeinated coffee and water into the colon through the rectum.
Proponents of coffee enemas claim a wide range of benefits. Max Gerson claimed that it could detoxify the body and cure cancer as the coffee would stimulate the liver. This claim is still believed by alternative medicine doctors to this day – like Linda Isaacs, who claims that people are exposed to toxic chemicals and pollutants through the food they eat, air they breathe, and water they drink. She says that coffee enemas “help stimulate the liver to rid the body of these waste materials and pollutants”.
Other proponents claim that the compound “cafestol” in coffee beans stimulates the enzyme “glutathione s-transferase”, which aids in digestion through opening up the bile duct in the liver. Generally, colon cleansing is purported to increase energy, increase a person’s concentration, assist in weight loss, and boost the immune system. According to Dr. Ketan Kulkarni of Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, the
rationale behind colon cleansing is the theory that toxins and undigested material build up in one’s colon over a prolonged period of time and eventually are absorbed by the body, resulting in a variety of symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, depression and weight gain.
This rationale follows an ancient medical theory known as “autointoxication”, whose origins can be traced back to ancient Egypt.
Despite these reported benefits, there exists no scientific evidence that coffee enemas (or colon cleansing in general) benefiting the body in any way besides purging the colon of waste – which the digestive system is very much capable of doing on its own. The theory of autointoxication has long since been disproven by the medical community, and research has shown that coffee enemas do not affect the levels of glutathione s-transferase in the body. Gerson’s claims remain unfounded, and he is discredited by the medical community today.
Besides the complete lack of scientific evidence that supports the purported benefits of coffee enemas, there remain many risks, and a real danger, to performing coffee enemas. For one, the ingestion of such a large amount of coffee can cause shakiness, heart palpitations, and dehydration, which can cause nausea and vomiting.
Coffee enemas can also cause rectal burns and rectal inflammation, which can lead to bowel perforation, kidney failure, and even caused a case of proctocolitis in a perfectly healthy woman. As coffee enemas are most often performed by people at home, they can cause infections from improperly sterilized equipment.
A reported medical case confirms that a person developed sepsis from doing a coffee enema, and died. Coffee enemas also remove a body’s potassium, which is an essential macronutrient, and can cause electrolyte imbalances in the body. A reported two individuals developed “severe electrolyte abnormalities” following the performing of an enema, and died because of it. Lastly, enema use disrupts the microbiota balance in the body as the procedure harms both “good bacteria” and “bad bacteria”, which can cause dysbiosis, weakening the immune system.
Coffee enemas have various purported health benefits, supporters even claiming that it can cure cancer and rid the body of “toxic chemicals”. Yet none of these claims reflect actual medical knowledge, and such claims often justify themselves with outdated and/or entirely unfounded medical beliefs. In reality, the procedure is quite risky, and can be very dangerous, with a range of ailments and syndromes that, in many cases, can seriously affect people’s health (and even kill), making coffee enemas an alternative medicine procedure no one should try out.
