# liver cleansing and passing "stones" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 14, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318 "2013-12-14T18:37:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/1 "2013-12-14T18:37:08Z")
So, we have this friend who is a massage therapist, and who is pretty woo-ish. A few days ago we spent a couple days at her house and my partner asked her what was for the colander in her bathroom. She said she likes to do liver cleansings, and that during that she emits those little thingies and she uses this colander to catch them. She says she felt really great doing those cleansings. She then added she also loves doing colonic irrigation. At this point I was feeling waaaaaaaay too far into TMI territory. But I do have a few questions, that I really couldn’t imagine myself asking her: What could be the things she is excreting? And is it coming out from the urethra or the anus? (And as a sidenote, colonic irrigation: fancy name for enema?) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/2 "2013-12-14T18:55:12Z")
Woo Woo Woo The things are indigestible matter in what she’s eaten, they’re coming thru her colon and out her anus. Unless she’s passing huge kidney stones, which is less likely. All that colon cleansing (a high colonic enema, yes) and liver detox is pure woo. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/3 "2013-12-14T18:59:35Z")
Liver or gallbladder “flushes” are quite popular amongst the woo crowd, as a purported means of expelling “toxins” or gallstones. It is, of course, [total bunkum](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/would-you-like-a-liver-flush-with-that-colon-cleanse/). I admire the gentle way in which [this surgeon](http://surgeonsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/flush.html) describes the process: _“OF ALL THE BOGUS, DISHONEST, DISINGENUOUS AND STUPID BULLSHIT THAT MASQUERADES AS ALTERNATIVE MEDICAL METHODOLOGY, “GALLBLADDER FLUSH” IS AT THE TOP OF THE LIST. THE PURVEYORS OF IT ARE, AT BEST, CREDULOUS; AT WORST, THEY ARE CHARLATANS AND (LITERAL) SNAKE-OIL SALESMEN WHO WILLFULLY DECEIVE AND STEAL FROM THE SICK AND THE VULNERABLE, AND ARE TO BE COUNTED AMONG THE SCUM OF THE EARTH.”_ The reason your friend thinks she is catching stones, toxin accretions (or whatever) from her stool into that colander\*, is that one can harvest ball-like substances that to the medically illiterate look like stones, but they are not. As the previously quoted surgeon indicates (and this has been verified in an actual published study), what you get out of these “flushes” (which commonly include olive oil and some kind of acidic liquid like lemon juice) is “curds with your turds”. Your friend will of course never accept this evidence; undoubtedly she “knows” that harmful substances are coming out and that she feels better after passing them. \*never, ever eat spaghetti prepared at her house. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/4 "2013-12-14T19:33:58Z")
Thank you both. I usually know quite a bit about woo, but since so many of our friends are into “alternative” medicinal stuff, sometimes I begin to think maybe some stuff have some truth to them. > [@](#): > > \*never, ever eat spaghetti prepared at her house. :eek: 😃 She made a point of telling us this particular colander never leave the bathroom. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/5 "2013-12-14T19:42:16Z")
There are “stones” produced by common “liver cleanses”. By which I mean, the stones are produced by the things that liver cleanses have you consume: oil (usually olive oil) and lemon juice. They’re soap. They’re little balls of soap you make in your belly. > [@](#): > > Microscopic examination of our patient’s stones revealed that they lacked any crystalline structure, melted to an oily green liquid after 10 min at 40°C, and contained no cholesterol, bilirubin, or calcium by established wet chemical methods. Traditional faecal fat extraction techniques indicated that the stones contained fatty acids that required acid hydrolysis to give free fatty acids before extraction into ether. These fatty acids accounted for 75% of the original material. > > Experimentation revealed that mixing equal volumes of oleic acid (the major component of olive oil) and lemon juice produced several semi solid white balls after the addition of a small volume of a potassium hydroxide solution. On air drying at room temperature, these balls became quite solid and hard. > > We conclude, therefore, that these green “stones” resulted from the action of gastric lipases on the simple and mixed triacylglycerols that make up olive oil, yielding long chain carboxylic acids (mainly oleic acid). This process was followed by saponification into large insoluble micelles of potassium carboxylates (lemon juice contains a high concentration of potassium) or “soap stones”. > **[Would you like a liver flush with that colon cleanse?](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/would-you-like-a-liver-flush-with-that-colon-cleanse/)** > > I have to apologize for last week's post. I'm not apologizing for the subject matter (the obsession that reigns supreme among some alt-med aficionados over "cleansing" their colons to "purge toxins" a Nothing at all to do with “toxins” and they are most definitely not gallstones. Also…a very inefficient way to make soap. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/6 "2013-12-14T19:47:31Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Nothing at all to do with “toxins” and they are most definitely not gallstones. Also…a very inefficient way to make soap. But it’s all natural soap with no chemicals! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/7 "2013-12-14T19:52:05Z")
Okay, when I saw the word “pass” in conjunction with the word “stones,” I assumed this woman was passing these things in her urine. You can find all manner of - well, I’d say “crap,” but that’s an accurate word for all of it - in your stool, so I’d never have imagined someone would be motivated to sift through her feces in order to separate out the various components. I only read the OP because I was curious about what kind of stones a woman could pass that could be caught with a colander rather than a sieve. :eek: I’d still not want to eat anything at her house, and I’d certainly not want to use the hand towels in her bathroom. Ick. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/8 "2013-12-14T19:52:52Z")
Even if all the woo were true, and she is pooping out little toxin pellets, why in the blue bleeding fuck is she _keeping_ them? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/9 "2013-12-14T19:57:22Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Even if all the woo were true, and she is pooping out little toxin pellets, why in the blue bleeding fuck is she _keeping_ them? People sometimes collect them to [take pictures](http://zap.intergate.ca/images/stones%203.jpg) and prove to each other that what they’re doing “works” and to [sell more books about the benefits of liver cleanses and supplements to take with your liver cleanse](http://zap.intergate.ca/liver.html). People who are only slightly crazy then dispose of them. People who are really crazy may keep them for posterity, I don’t know… ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/10 "2013-12-14T20:06:00Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > There are “stones” produced by common “liver cleanses”. > > By which I mean, the stones are produced by the things that liver cleanses have you consume: oil (usually olive oil) and lemon juice. They’re soap. They’re little balls of soap you make in your belly. This is really fascinating. ## I don’t remember her drinking lemon juice (but I woke up after her), but she did say she drinks walnut oil every morning. That pic you linked to is so cool, the human body is amazing! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/11 "2013-12-14T20:22:59Z")
> [@InternetLegend](#): > > …I’d never have imagined someone would be motivated to sift through her feces in order to separate out the various components. There is a not insignificant subset of woo-prone humanoids who sift through their bodily wastes, exclaiming over the contents thereof and posting about it on various websites. Similar dreck (with photos) appears on the sites of those who sell “colon cleanse” products. Enema enthusiasm and poop preoccupation go way back beyond 19th century followers of John Harvey Kellogg and fans of irrigating ones’ nether regions. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/12 "2013-12-14T20:27:34Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There is a not insignificant subset of woo-prone humanoids who sift through their bodily wastes, exclaiming over the contents thereof and posting about it on various websites. Similar dreck (with photos) appears on the sites of those who sell “colon cleanse” products. Enema enthusiasm and poop preoccupation go way back beyond 19th century followers of John Harvey Kellogg and fans of irrigating ones’ nether regions. And here I was feeling bad about my tendency to obsess over various bands and TV shows! I’m glad the world is so very big that I never, ever have to run across these websites. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/13 "2013-12-14T20:55:53Z")
??? Your friend is pooping these things into a strainer, and then _leaving them in the bathroom_??? My bathroom isn’t as messy as I thought. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/14 "2013-12-14T21:08:21Z")
The OP says the \*\*\*colander \*\*\*is left in the bathroom. No word on what she does with the “stones”. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Me](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mr.Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Me)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/15 "2013-12-15T03:06:32Z")
> [@GaryM](#): > > But it’s all natural soap with no chemicals! 😃 It’s the [Kopi Luwak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak) of soap! ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liver-cleansing-and-passing-stones/676318/16 "2013-12-15T04:31:53Z")
> [@Mr.Me](#): > > It’s the [Kopi Luwak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak) of soap! The next new product at Bed Bath & Beyond!