Do we really need colon cleansers to help us to achieve optimal health? They say that there is very little new in the world, only that which we have forgotten, and this is a tenet as easily applied to the history of our colonic and intestinal health as anything else. Colon cleansers are nothing new, and while the advocates of colonic clearers might point proudly to the long history of these intestinal health tools, which indeed find their origins in Egyptian times, many of the supporters of the colonic cleansers and the intestinal health they purportedly encourage are more reluctant to admit that opposition to these natural remedies boasts a healthy history all of its own.

The thinking that first compelled the ancient Egyptians to develop the very first natural colon cleansers might have seemed, until a few years ago, as absurd to the modern day intestinal health consumer as the old notion of the four elements of earth, fire, water and air.

And while we would be foolish to dismiss all ancient thinking, including that regarding colon cleansers, as having nothing to teach us about our health and wellbeing, we must temper thoughts based in the ancient world with the information we have gleaned about the world we live in since that time. The Egyptians believed that the origin of all illness was the colon, and that a healthy intestinal area led to a more broadly based sense of wellbeing.

While anyone who suffers with colonic or intestinal discomfort or disease can most surely testify to the importance of maintaining the health of this region of the body, modern medicine has shown us that not all ill-health can be ascribed to the colon. The importance of the colon, and by association the significance of colon cleansers, was reasserted when natural medicine became popular several years ago.

Some practitioners of a medicine based on a so-called more natural approach to the body argue that our modern lifestyles have resulted in the build up of matter in the colonic region, which actually poisons us if not removed. Hence the significance of colon cleansers and intestinal health, and the resulting popularity of this type of product, which can now be purchased in a whole host of guises, from homeopathic remedies to oxygen-based colon cleansers.

It might be argued that just as we moved on from the Egyptians way of thinking about colon cleansers, so this recent interest in this aspect of our intestinal health is just another fad. While the medical establishment largely refutes the necessity of these colonic aids, millions of consumers report them as being invaluable to intestinal health.

It is in our nature to rediscover old ideas and to incorporate them into our lives again, and colon cleansers are one such example of this. As long as we temper our enthusiasm for the old with new knowledge, then our adoption of Egyptian health habits might not be a bad thing. Certainly enough people report the benefits of good colon health, and colon cleansing in particular, for us to be silly to dismiss it.