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Revision as of 21:05, 6 January 2006
Mucoid plaque or mucoid rope is claimed to be a thick coating of plaque in the colon. Despite the absence of scientific evidence of its existence, it has acquired urban myth status as a phenomenon widely believed within holistic health circles.
Background
A concept promoted in particular by naturopath Dr. Richard Anderson N.D. N.M.D, it is said to develop from unhealthy, usually Western, lifestyle factors such as eating meat and processed foods, taking pharmaceutical medicine, caffeine and stress.
Mucoid plaque is said to inhibit the body's ability to properly digest food and metabolize toxins by blocking digestion, constricting the passage of stools and accumulating toxins that pass into the bloodstream. A variety of claimed symptoms result, such as constipation, lethargy, and weight gain. Pharmaceuticals are also said to become lodged in the plaque, active ingredients leaching into the body years after they were taken.
However, there is no mention of the phenomenon in scientific literature, and doctors who view the interior of the colon regularly (via colonoscopy, bowel surgery and pathology) have never reported seeing anything like it. Neither is any such material expelled by the strong laxatives used routinely to purge the colon before colonoscopy.
Treatment
Supposed treatments include enemas, rigorous fasting and herbal treatments said to expel the plaque, which appears as a rope-like rubbery stool matching the shape and length of the large intestine.
Tests on some of several treatments available to remove mucoid plaque have suggested that the claimed plaque is actually a cast of the intestine made by the ingredients of the cleanse - typically bentonite and psyllium.
Edward Thuman, M.D., a practicing pathologist and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Texas School of Medicine, has said on the basis of never having seen it in several thousand intestinal biopsies: "This is a complete fabrication with no anatomic basis".
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External links
- "Mucoid Plaque" - Quackwatch
- Colon Plaque - Mucoid Plaque by Dr. Richard Anderson
- Mucoid Plaque - a dubious idea