Gwyneth Paltrow has come under fire from a doctor after she championed the benefits of rectal ozone therapy.
The Oscar winner, 50, launched her wellness website in 2008 goopwhich has often raised eyebrows for its unconventional health recommendations, including vaginal steaming and coffee enemas.
It was her practice of rectal therapy that made headlines again this week after being featured in the latest issue of the The art of being good Podcast to talk about her often controversial approaches to her health and well-being.
“I used rectal ozone therapy. can i say that It’s pretty weird. It’s pretty strange, yes. But it was very helpful,” revealed the actress.
Also known as rectal insufflation, the treatment uses ozone as an antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral agent, according to the holistic wellness center. The Life Co.
Ozone is a gas more commonly associated with its work in the Earth’s atmosphere, protecting us from the sun’s harmful UV rays. Its thinning out over the years has been caused by environmental degradation, pollution, and the mass use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in products, including many plastics.
With rectal ozone therapy, a suppository is inserted into the anus for 15 to 20 minutes. It is said to help in the treatment of rectal fissures, fistulas and hemorrhoids, prostate and gynecological diseases and metastases.
Proponents of the treatment claim that it increases blood oxygen levels, which helps oxygenate body tissues, leading to better healing, skin tone, anti-aging, immune system enhancement, and overall detoxification.
But one gastroenterologist closed down the benefits of the treatment, pleading, “Don’t put coffee up your butts.”
“Gastroenterologist here: not that you would, but please don’t have ‘rectal ozone therapy,'” tweeted Dr. Kaveh.
The host of the health podcast house of capsule, adding, “Don’t put coffee in your butt either.”
The Cleveland Clinic describes ozone as “highly unstable and explosive in liquid or solid form.” Rectal ozone therapy uses ozone in its gaseous form, which the clinic believed “may have potentially therapeutic qualities.”
However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that ozone is a “toxic gas that has no known useful medical application in any specific, adjunctive, or preventative therapy.”
It added that in order for ozone to act as a germicidal agent against toxins in the body, it “must be present in a concentration far in excess of that which can be safely tolerated by humans and animals.”
No stranger to recommending rectal treatments, Paltrow came under fire in 2018 goop recommended an at-home coffee enema, in which the liquid is injected into your colon via the anus.
goop had released a beauty and wellness detox guide for the new year that included an “Implant O-Rama System At-Home Coffee Enema.”
The device cost $135, but some medical studies suggested colon cleansing isn’t safe.
A 2011 article published in The Journal of Family Practice wrote, “Patients may see colon cleansing as an opportunity to improve their well-being, but in reality they may be harming themselves.”
