Detoxifying Benefits:
Detoxification can have positive effects on many health issues, 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 a detox.
mucoid plaque
The number one detox 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 large 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 enzyme resources to “clean house” so to speak.
Unscientific Detox Methods:
water fast
The latest detox using the idea of caloric restriction is the water fast. Its most famous promoter was Arnold Ehret, who conducted public water fasts of up to 49 days and claimed many benefits including strength and stamina. 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 your defenders tend to look prematurely aged, with early graying and graying, which to me indicates mineral deficiency.
juice fast
Another approach to detoxification is a juice fast. I’m not a fan of carrot and fruit juice fasting because removing all fiber from fruit increases the rate at which sugars enter your bloodstream and you lose out on many of the proven health benefits of fiber. Definitely a bad idea if you have blood sugar or insulin issues. Dr. Joe Mercola recommends using a masticating juicer that maintains the fiber content in green vegetables (not fruits) and eating the resulting puree. This makes a lot 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 carb intake relatively high while drastically reducing your protein intake. I have noticed that many people using this approach are overweight. If you are fasting, you should reduce your carbohydrate intake, not maintain it. 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 kamut grass 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 don’t contain whole grass with its razor-like fiber. Since ground herb is about one-twentieth the cost of juice, many formulators like to add this as a cost-cutting strategy. The taste, texture and smell do not compare to 100% juice.
colon cleanse
The most common approach to detoxification is a “colon cleanse,” which typically involves an approach to removing the mythical “mucoid plaque” we talked about earlier. I have seen some benefits from this approach, usually with people who are quite toxic. These people would do better with almost any approach that seriously reduces their caloric intake. The main disadvantage of the colon cleansing approach arises when formulators seek to add anti-parasitic ingredients and sell it to someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, and suddenly this person is passing bloody stools and bleeding from the rectum. Not to mention the fact that these formulations are based on a myth.
the 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 run out of multiple substrates needed for metabolic detox pathways. This is very 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 a lack of nutrients in this oil approach. of snake.
Detox 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 to use with any type of inflammatory condition, including intestinal inflammation and irritative conditions that allopathic medicine and the more traditional detoxification interventions described above do not treat well.
Medical Food Cleanses
The cleanses I recommend typically use a medical food that averages 160 calories per serving, including healthy fats, slow carbs, and around 16 grams of protein. Getting protein into your body while on a cleanse fast minimizes muscle loss, prevents hunger, keeps your metabolism going, and improves detoxification. Most people don’t know that the body needs more protein when calories are reduced, since carbohydrates and fats are “spare protein.”
accelerated weight loss
One big benefit of the cleanse is that it reduces body fat and what I call “lint.” Fuzz is water and carbohydrates that are retained by the body when it is in a toxic state. When you lose the “fluff”, you lose more weight faster than you could lose just fat.
detox fasting
Don’t get me wrong, detox fasting is the best way to shed fat from your body 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 typically recommend a cleansing and soothing 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 to products that have been shown to detoxify certain chemicals or heavy metals in multiple human clinical trials. The green food I recommend the most has been tested in literally hundreds of clinical trials with real people.
