Understanding your Colon

Keeping your colon healthy is important. Before you do this, however, it might be helpful to know the anatomy of your colon first. Your entire colon is five feet long. Its parts work together to help process the food and liquids you consume every day.

The part of the colon that travels up along the right side of your body is the ascending colon. Waste travels upwards here so it has very strong muscles that work against gravity. The next section is the one that runs across the body in a horizontal manner. It is called the transverse colon. After this section is the descending colon. It runs downward along the left side of the body, before the sigmoid colon. After the sigmoid colon are the rectum and the anus. Along these many sections, muscles contract to help move waste out of our body. The walls of the digestive tract also give out alkaline mucus to lubricate the whole organ. This way, waste moves continually along the colon.

If you don’t watch your diet or you don’t cleanse your colon regularly, these important sections of your colon will get clogged with waste. In the long run, they will stop working properly. If you want to keep your colon functioning properly, you should move bowels daily. If this is not possible, you should do a colon cleanse.