The liver is a powerful chemical filter where blood is refined and purified.  The liver passes this cleansed blood out through the superior vena cava, directly to the heart.  The blood is then pumped into general and systemic circulation, where it reaches all parts of the body, delivering nutrition and oxygen at a cellular level.  On its return flow, a large proportion of the depleted blood is collected by the gastric, splenic and superior and inferior mesenteric veins that converge to form the large portal vein which enters the liver.  Thus a massive flow of waste from all the cells of the body is constantly flowing into the liver.  The huge hepatic artery also enters the liver to supply oxygen and nutrients with which to sustain the liver cells themselves.

The liver is constantly at work refining the blood.  It is synthesizing, purifying, renovating, washing, filtering, separating, and detoxifying.  It works day and night without stopping.  Many toxins are broken down by enzymes and their component parts are efficiently reused in various parts of the body.  Some impurities are filtered out and held back from the general circulation.  These debris are collected and stored in the gall bladder, which is a little sack appended to the liver.  After a meal, the contents of the gall bladder (bile) are discharged into the duodenum, the upper part of the small intestine just beyond the stomach.  This bile also contains digestive enzymes produced by the liver that permit the breakdown of fatty foods in the small intestine.

Sometimes a large flow of bile finds its way into the stomach by pressure or is sucked into the stomach by vomiting.  Excessive biliary secretion and excretion can also result from overeating, which overcrowds the area.  Sometimes colonics or massage can also stimulate a massive flow of bile.  Extremely bitter and irritating, when bile gets into the stomach the person either vomits or wishes they could.  And after vomiting and experiencing the taste of bile, wishes they hadn’t.

When no food at all enters the system, the blood keeps right on passing through the liver/filter just as it does when we are eating.  When the liver does not have to take care of toxins generated by the current food intake, each passage through the liver results in a cleaner blood stream, with the debris decreasing in quantity, viscosity, and toxicity, until the blood becomes normalized.  During fasting, debris from the gall bladder still pass through the small intestine and into the large intestine.  However, if the bowels do not move the toxins in the bile are readsorbed into the blood stream and get recirculated in an endless loop.  This toxic recycling makes a faster feel just terrible, like they had a flu or worse!

The bowels rarely move while fasting.  During fasting only enemas or colonics permit elimination from the large intestine.  If done effectively and frequently, enemas will greatly add to the well being and comfort of the faster.  Many times when a faster seems to be retracing or experiencing a sudden onset of acute discomfort or symptoms, these can be almost immediately relieved by an enema or colonic.