Laxatives and Weight Loss

Taking a laxative "colon cleanser" seems like it should be an easy way to weight loss. It usually is not, despite the fact that it's not hard to find people and companies promoting these supposed weight loss strategies. Laxative treatments can also be dangerous, so it's important to think twice before doing a "cleanse."

Improper Use of Laxatives Can Add Water Weight to Belly Fat

The way colon cleansers work, theoretically, is that they loosen up hardened stool so it is easy just to flush your extra pounds away. Before the advent of colonoscopy, the makers of herbal laxatives claimed that undigested food could accumulate on the walls of the colon for decades at a time, undigested hamburgers and apple pie from the teenage years accumulating to cause obesity at the age of 45.

Colonoscopy has proven that undigested food (except in extremely rare cases) does not accumulate in the colon, but the makers of "colon cleansers" still claim that their products are ideal for weight loss.

Do Colon Cleansers Really Cleanse?

A typical colon cleanser is a two-part product. One of the pills in the colon cleansing kit is an herbal laxative. This may be Senna, rhubarb root, cascara sagrada bark, or aloe bitters (which are different from aloe juice or aloe gel, but derived from the same plant).

All of these laxative herbs work the same way. First, they have to be transformed into their active form. The bacteria that live in the colon work to "activate" these herbs. If you have recently taken an antibiotic, or if you have an overgrowth of yeast in the small intestine, the herbal laxative will not work because the required bacteria won't be present in sufficient numbers.

Once the laxative chemical in the herb has been transformed by bacteria, then it interacts with nerves in the muscles lining the lower digestive tract. These chemicals stimulate the muscles that push fecal matter downward, and they relax the sphincters that hold fecal matter inside until you can get to the toilet. The makers of colon cleaners are very careful not to put so much of the laxative herb in your daily dosage that you mess in your pants, but if you take more than the recommended dosage, that is exactly what will happen.

The other component of a typical colon cleanser is a pill or a capsule with a tiny amount of fiber. A healthy diet provides about 30 grams of fiber every day. The typical weight loss laxative program provides 1 to 3 grams of fiber every day.

That's just enough fiber to form a tiny amount of stool. And the makers of these products depend on your having just a tiny stool. The whole idea, from a marketing standpoint, is to give you just enough "production" to keep you using the product, month after month after month, as long as your credit card can be billed.
 

What About Upping the Dosage?

Of course, it is always possible to increase the dosage of the laxative you are taking (which doesn't mean it's a good idea). Doctors prepping their patients for colonoscopy and emergency room physicians treating a condition called megacolon sometimes order an extra-high dose of the "brown bomb," cascara sagrada. Even the high dosage of this herbal laxative ordered in the ER or at the hospital will not work if colon bacteria are not active. However, if these bacteria are active, and the patient drinks the recommended amount of water, typically there is an overnight (or faster) loss of 4 to 10 pounds of feces and fluid. So why not take herbal laxatives all the time and never put that weight back on?
 

The Problem with Using Stimulant Laxatives to Lose Weight

The problem with using stimulant laxatives to lose weight is two-fold. One, stimulant laxatives work less and less effectively the more often they are used. Eventually the nerves that line the lower digestive tract just do not respond to herbal stimulation — or the sphincter muscles will stay open while the propulsive muscles rest. This is an extremely unpleasant side effect, as you can imagine.

Two, stimulant laxatives change electrolyte balance. Chronic users of these laxatives will lose potassium but retain sodium. What happens when the body retains sodium? The tissues accumulate water weight. Chronic use of stimulant laxatives will cause water weight gain that can exceed fecal weight loss. Laxatives just are not useful in long-term weight control.

That does not mean it is impossible to use regularity as part of a program for maintaining healthy weight. It is just necessary to avoid stimulant laxatives. Here is a more useful approach:

1. Getting your weight loss program started with a stimulant laxative you use for no more than two weeks is OK. Just don't expect the laxative to work if you haven't been using probiotics or eating probiotic yogurt (with live cultures) for a week or two before you start the laxative. "Cleaning out" the colon takes pressure off the lining of the gut and reduces the production of insulin. You will be less hungry when you are less constipated — just don't stop with this step.

2. Staying regular primarily depends on fluid consumption. It is absolutely beneficial to drink at least 5 glasses of water every day. (Research found that 5 is the "magic number," not 8. This does depend on the size of the glass, of course.) Drink before you feel thirsty, and don't dehydrate yourself so you will weigh less.

3. An osmotic laxative adds water to stool so it is easier to evacuate. The best osmotic laxative is Milk of Magnesia, which also provides the body with needed magnesium. Take Milk of Magnesia with water when you are able to stay at home for 12 to 18 hours so you can make extra trips to the bathroom, urgently, if needed. Don't use any osmotic laxative more than once a week.

4. Fiber also helps regularity, but not if you have not established the probiotic bacteria that eat the fiber for their food, and not if you take large amounts of fiber supplements. It is better to get your fiber from vegetables and fruit, real food, rather than fiber supplements. It is also important to build up your consumption of fiber slowly so it does not lodge in your lower digestive tract, causing the very weight gain you are trying to avoid.

5. Bran usually is not good source of fiber. Wheat bran can cause heartburn, and oat bran may lower cholesterol, but it will also enlarge fat cells. If you have to have bran, try to get rye bran. Rye crisps are an excellent source of rye bran and they are not as expensive as supplements.

The most important factor in any weight loss program, however, is always eating less. Changes in colon health may make a difference of four to ten pounds, up to twenty pounds in people who were extremely constipated, but fat loss always follows calorie reduction.