# Vocabulary: Detox Cleanses and Gut Health Claims Back to [[Topics/Detox Cleanses and Gut Health Claims/Detox Cleanses and Gut Health Claims|Detox Cleanses and Gut Health Claims]] | Term | Meaning | |---|---| | Autointoxication | The 19th-century theory that waste rotting in the colon poisons the body. Abandoned by medicine in the early 1900s; still the basis of most cleanse marketing. | | Salt water flush | Drinking about a quart of strongly salted water quickly so it passes through the gut as a laxative. | | Osmotic laxative | A substance that is poorly absorbed and pulls water into the bowel (salt solutions, magnesium salts, polyethylene glycol). | | Colonic (colon hydrotherapy) | Flushing the colon with water through a tube in the rectum. No proven benefit; risks include dehydration and bowel injury. | | Mucoid plaque | Rope-like casts shown in cleanse photos and sold as "built-up waste". They are formed by the cleanse products (e.g. psyllium and bentonite clay). | | Rope worms | A claimed parasite that is actually shed gut lining and mucus or cleanse residue; not a recognized organism. | | Candida overgrowth | A real yeast infection in some sick or immune-suppressed patients. "Systemic candida" from diet, as cleanse sellers describe it, is not a recognized diagnosis. | | Hypernatremia | Too much sodium in the blood. Can follow drinking large amounts of salt water; causes confusion, seizures and, in severe cases, death. | | Gut microbiota | The bacteria and other microbes living in the gut. Bowel cleansing briefly reduces them; they recover in about two weeks. | | Hepatic encephalopathy | Real brain toxicity from ammonia when the liver fails. A medical emergency, not something a cleanse prevents. | | Methylene blue | A blue dye and prescription drug for methemoglobinemia; dangerous with serotonergic antidepressants. | | Sulforaphane | A compound from broccoli sprouts that switches on the body's Nrf2 detox enzymes in lab studies; health benefits unproven. |