Detoxifying Benefits:
Detoxification can have positive effects on many health problems, such as allergies, weight gain, digestion, and any type of inflammatory situation. Unfortunately, there is a lot of snake oil out there that claims to be detoxifying.
mucoid plaque
The number one detoxification myth is “mucoid plaque” in the colon or large intestine. This is a myth perpetrated by what people expel from their intestines when doing a colon cleanse; but in fact it is an artifact of the clay and psyllium fiber that is a big component of these cleanses.
Keep in mind that clay is a proven topical detoxifier, so having the clay pass through your intestines could have a positive benefit regardless of the lack of mucoid plaque. More on this later.
Many of the benefits of detoxification come from a severe reduction in caloric intake, giving the body a break from processing all these calories, allowing it to use those enzymatic resources to “clean house,” so to speak.
Unscientific detoxification methods:
water fast
The ultimate detox using the calorie restriction idea is water fasting. Its most famous promoter was Arnold Ehret who conducted public water fasts of up to 49 days and claimed many benefits including strength and endurance. He once rode his bike 800 miles from Algiers to Tunis to prove his point. I’m not a fan of water fasting for more than a day or two. I have noticed that its proponents tend to look prematurely aged, with gray hair and early gray hair, which to me indicates mineral deficiency.
juice fast
Another approach to detoxification is juice fasting. I’m not a fan of the carrot and fruit juice fast because removing all the fiber from fruit increases the rate at which sugars enter the bloodstream and many of the proven health benefits of fiber are lost. Definitely a bad idea if you have blood sugar or insulin problems. Dr. Joe Mercola recommends using a masticating juicer that keeps the fiber content in green vegetables (not fruit) and eating the resulting puree. This makes much more sense to me.
fruit fast
A healthier variation of the fruit juice fast is to eat only fruit for a period of time, this way you get the benefits of whole foods. The downside to this approach is that it keeps your carbohydrate intake relatively high while drastically reducing your protein intake. I have noticed that many people who use this approach are overweight. If you are fasting, you should reduce your carbohydrate intake, not keep it up. Still, there is some value in this approach.
Green Juices
An exception to the no-juice rule would be cereal grass juices, such as wheatgrass, barley, and kamutgrass juices. Alfalfa juice would also fall into this category. Cereal grasses are extremely nutritious and worth consuming, but only in juice form with all the fiber removed. Grasses have a fiber structure similar to barbed razor blades that are extremely irritating to us non-ruminants. Make sure any cereal grass supplement you do not contain whole grass with its razor-like fiber. Since ground herb costs about one-twentieth of the cost of juice, many formulators like to add this as a cost-cutting strategy. Taste, texture, and odor are unmatched by 100% juice.
colon cleansing
The most common approach to detoxification is “colon cleansing,” which generally involves an approach to removing the mythical “mucoid plaque” we talked about earlier. I have seen some benefits of this approach, usually with people who are quite toxic. These people would benefit from almost any approach where they seriously reduce their caloric intake. The main downside of the colon cleansing approach comes when formulators look to add dewormer ingredients and sell them to someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, and all of a sudden this person is passing bloody stools and bleeding from the rectum. Not to mention the fact that these formulations are based on a myth.
master cleaning
Another popular unscientific method of detoxification is the so-called “Master Cleanse”. The Master Cleanse recommends drinking a sugary mix of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, sea salt, and water for days on end. The lack of protein in this formula means your body will be left without multiple substrates needed for metabolic detoxification pathways. This is highly counterproductive, so when you hear master cleanse adherents brag about their headaches and runny nose, you now know that these symptoms are the result of toxicity due to the lack of nutrients in this oil approach. of snake
Detoxification Depends on Nutrients
All of the above approaches suffer from one major flaw: Not enough nutrition! You need protein to maintain your muscle mass and keep detoxification pathways flowing in your liver, as well as vitamins and minerals to support all kinds of bodily processes, including detoxification.
A better approach to detoxification
I use scientific methodologies using clinically proven medical foods, supplements, and dietary interventions that have been tested in human clinical trials. In particular, I have excellent clinical tools for use with any type of inflammatory condition, including intestinal inflammation and irritation conditions that allopathic medicine and the more traditional detoxification interventions described above do not treat well.
Medical food cleanings
The cleanses I recommend generally use a medical food that averages 160 calories per serving, including healthy fats, slow carbs, and about 16 grams of protein. Getting protein into your body while on a cleanse fast minimizes muscle loss, prevents hunger, keeps your metabolism running, and improves detoxification. Most people don’t know that the body needs more protein when calories are cut, since carbohydrates and fats are “spare protein.”
accelerated weight loss
A great benefit of cleansing is that it reduces body fat and what I call “fuzz.” The fluff is water and carbohydrates that the body retains when it is in a toxic state. When you lose the “fuzz,” you lose more weight faster than you could lose fat alone.
detox fast
Don’t get me wrong, detox fasting is the best way to get rid of fat fast. In fact, people who are extremely fit and lean will often see those stubborn pockets of body fat melt away. I believe this is because many stored toxins are fat soluble. If your body doesn’t have the resources to access, conjugate, and excrete toxins, then it needs those pockets of fat for “toxin storage.”
Supplying the nutrients your system needs to deal with toxins, while restricting calories to promote the whole-body cleansing process, and maintaining or increasing protein intake is a winning combination.
Typical Detox Recommendations
I generally recommend a soothing and cleansing medical food that uses hypoallergenic rice protein and rice carbohydrates. Depending on your history of heavy metal exposure and other factors, I may recommend a green food supplement for your detox cleanse. Again, I like to stick with products that have been shown to detoxify certain chemicals or heavy metals in multiple human clinical trials. The green food I highly recommend has been tested in literally hundreds of clinical trials with real people.
