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No matter what Gwyneth Paltrow's dubious health website tells you,Uncategorized Archives please talk to your doctor before shooting coffee into your colon.

In an article titled "The Nuts and Bolts of Colonics," Goop writer Dr. Alejandro Junger suggests a specific brand of enema device for people who want to use a home system and know what they're doing. Goop links out to the device which immediately advertises itself as "a clean way to do coffee enemas" for the low low price of $135.

If you don't know what an enema is, it's a procedure (usually performed by doctors) to clean out someone's colon by injecting fluid up their butt. The product linked in Goop's article claims to work well with coffee, and also claims that shooting coffee into your colon is good for your liver, removes "toxins," and relieves depression, confusion(?), allergy symptoms, and severe pain.

No, coffee enemas probably do not do this. Coffee enemas may not be good for you. They can maybe even harm you.

That's a possibility raised in a report from the American Journal of Gastroenterologytitled "Proctocolitis Caused by Coffee Enemas." The findings aren't definitive as the report only covers three cases, but in each one, infection and severe pain followed after coffee enemas were self-administered.

That said, any at-home enema, whether or not it's done with coffee, carries inherent health risks. There are reports in peer reviewed journals of negative health outcomes, and there’s little evidence that they can do all that Goop claims they can, even when they're done correctly.

People who worry that their colons are in need of regular, self-administered cleanings will be relieved to hear the colons are self-cleaning, and only in extreme cases would an enema be necessary (or sometimes before rectal exams).

This isn't the first time Goop has suggested potentially harmful or just plain eyebrow-raising "health practices." The site has previously pointed to a possible link between underwire bras and breast cancer, recommended a weight loss program that one observer dubbed "anorexia lite," and even controversially suggested that women should put rocks in their vaginas.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, too. It's probably best to avoid whatever Goop suggests entirely, just to be safe.

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