A Simple, Effective Cleanse — Colonaide by DrNatura

After the holiday’s…  cleanse!  Certainly, you’ll be ready for it. Here’s a review of a pretty effective 14-day colon cleanse, given its simplicity.  Called, Colonaide, by DrNatura, all you need to do is drink some psyllium powder in water in the morning, and herbal tea at night.  Keep a toilet close by.

WHEN I was in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago, I stayed with Rich Carson, a friend of mine from college days and the Founder of Pro Health, a health information and supplement company.  As you may have read at various places on this site, I’ve had a long relationship with Pro Health, not only given my relationship with Rich, but from a business and user perspective: I’ve consulted for Pro Health and am a power user of their supplements, as just a glance at the Products Section of this site will reveal.

When Rich brought me by the company offices, I bumped into Pro Health’s Product Manager.  Her office is full of supplements sent to her by manufactures eager for Pro Health to sell their stuff.  Knowing that I’m into detox cleansing, she gave me two cleansing products to try.  I just finished one of them, and want to tell you about my experience.

Colonaide, the package claims, is “From the #1 Brand in Colon Cleansing”, DrNatura.  I chuckled when reading that – after all, marketing departments are typically liberal with such claims.  Imagine my surprise when I googled “colon cleansing products” and found DrNatura among the top results presented.

The Colonaide Program

The product comes in a box.  Inside the box are 14 bags of a tea called Kleritea, and 14 single-serving intestinal cleansers called Colonix. The tea consists of various common, proven cleansing herbs, such as senna leaf, buckthorn bark, fennel seed, peppermint leaf and the like.

The intestinal cleanser is mainly psyllium powder, which is rich in soluble fiber (eight times that of oat bran) and is part of most every cleansing program because of its ability to swell into a spongy mass inside the colon, absorbing fluids and toxins along its circuitous route to the final exit point.

In addition to psyllium powder, Colonix, the intestinal cleanser, contains a proprietary blend of 14 herbs that help it do its cleansing job.

Instructions: Over a period of 14 days, pour the Colonix into eight or more ounces of water, or juice (preferably with water added) in the morning, and have the tea at night.  The longer you steep the tea, the stronger it gets and the more powerful is the cleansing action, so for the first seven days, seep it no longer than two minutes; thereafter, up to six minutes. If you’re a beginner and make the tea too strong, you could wind up spending more time than you’d like on the throne, get some cramps, headaches or develop a rash.

That’s it – it’s as simple as a cleanse can be.  No diet, change of food or drink consumed, no enemas or colonics, and no fasting.  Frankly, I wondered if I should bother doing this cleanse, as it seemed too modest to be very beneficial, particularly for me, a frequent cleanser who assumes that I’m pretty “clean” inside relative to the average bear.

[If you’re not a beginner and want a more extensive cleanse, check out my post, It’s Detox Time.]

Now, before I get into my Colonaide experience, let me diverge a bit for a cleansing commentary.

A Cleansing Commentary

Among medical types, there’s a debate about the effectiveness of cleaning.  I’ve read statements made by doctors who perform colonoscopies that exclaim that they’re looking up there every day with scopes and don’t see all that muck that cleansing types say must be cleaned out for good health.

Dr. Michael Picco at the Mayo Clinic puts it this way:

“… most [Doctor’s] don’t recommend colon cleansing for detoxification. Their reasoning is simple: Your digestive system and bowel naturally eliminate waste material and bacteria — your body doesn’t need colon cleansing to do this.”

When Dr. Oz was asked: I get these e-mails about colon cleansing. Is it a good idea?, he responded:

“You’ll get rid of more crap by deleting the e-mails. The intestines empty themselves completely if you eat a high-fiber diet.”

(Of course, most people do not eat “a high fiber diet.)

One famous cleanse, the Master Cleanse, is often cited as a scam.  It consists of water, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and lemon juice.  Nothing else.  Basically, you’re fasting for as long as you decide you can.

OK, so I’ve read these anti-cleanse views, but when I turn to the non-MD health types, a very different perspective is presented.  For instance, Naturopathic Doctors are gung ho for cleanses, and frankly, it’s their view that has informed my own.  A site run by Naturopath Sushma Shah, N.D. says this:

“Body detoxification and or cleansing are important part of maintaining health, slowing the aging process and preventing diseases, by allowing the body to rid itself of a build up of toxins. Our bodies are exposed to various toxins regularly – in our foods, in the air we breathe, in our environments among other areas, while the body has a tremendous capacity to put up with junk, it does eventually break down and that is when the body starts to suffer from various symptoms of feeling sluggish, lack of energy, digestive issues such as bloating and constipation among other symptoms.”

Interesting how two types of doctors, whose degrees are only separated by one letter, “M” vs “N” can be so divergent on their respective views about cleansing.

My Colonaide Experience

From my experience, I found the psyllium powder mix to be of high quality, although too sweet for my palate.  Yes, there’s stevia in there, a good choice for a sweetener, but unnecessary in my view.  I also wonder how the herbs embedded in the psyllium powder can have a chance to get into the body since the powder quickly gels when in liquid, and thereby becomes an absorber, not an emitter of material.  So, how does the herbs get out of the gel, I wonder?

The tea tasted fine.  I didn’t pay attention to how long it seeped, although it certainly was longer than ten minutes right from the start. This might have contributed to a slight underarm rash (which I have gotten in spades when doing heavy duty cleanses and fail to do enough detoxing bathing), and a slight headache one evening.

My weight stayed the same, which is no surprise since this cleanse didn’t require that one’s diet change at all.

My elimination didn’t stay the same.

Any good cleanse will quickly change your elimination in several ways – there will be more of it, with a different consistency, color, odor and contents of the stuff eliminated.  Everyone’s different, but over the course of this 14 day cleanse, you can expect your stool to loosen, go from very dark to light, go from oder-full to oder-less, reduce your use of toilet tissue (clean as a whistle!) and potentially contain things that will remind you of parasites, cause they probably are.  Yes, most of us have them, and that will be one big surprise.  The other will be the amount of material evacuated.  “Where did all that come from?!”, you’ll be muttering.

About four days into the cleanse, as mentioned, I did experience a slight headache and soon after that some red blotches under my arms.  Neither of these conditions are unique to me, given all the cleanses I’ve done, and both make sense as part of the so-called “detox effect”, but I can’t necessarily connect them to this cleanse.  If they had became a nuisance, I would have taken a detox bath (click and scroll down to the bottom) to help purge the toxins that might have been behind these physical changes.

Although it wasn’t a recommended part of the cleanse per se, I did take probiotics before going to bed. I strongly suggest taking proboitics when cleansing. Those herbs and psyllium powder may disrupt the natural balance of bacteria in your gut et al (if you’re one of the few who is in balance), so do yourself a favor and ingest probiotics. I take these: Pro-Dophilus With FOS.

Recommendation

Go for it.  I mean, I have no way of knowing if this is the best simple cleanse you can do, but I do believe that it will be worthwhile for most people.  Frankly, I think I’d feel that way about any cleanse made of good quality products, because given that most of us fill our gut with heavy antibiotic-laced meats, crappy simple manufactured carbs and artery-clogging fats, a colon cleanse may be just what the doctor ordered; that is, if there’s a “ND” not a “MD” after the name.

 

Last Updated on February 27, 2022 by Joe Garma

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Joe Garma
 

I help people live with more vitality and strength. I'm a big believer in sustainability, and am a bit nutty about optimizing my diet, supplements, hormones and exercise. To get exclusive Updates, tips and be on your way to a stronger, more youthful body, join my weekly Newsletter. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

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