(Newswire.net — January 6, 2018) — Colon cleanses, juice fasts, full body detoxes – these are the products that line the shelves of the supplements department in health food stores. They sound like a brilliant idea. Who wouldn’t want to safely detoxify their body and scrub their insides clean?
However, just because cleanses and detoxes are popular doesn’t mean they’re removing toxins from the body. In fact, there’s little evidence to support those claims. There’s no denying that people feel good after a colon cleanse or a juice fast, but the reason may have nothing to do with the removal of toxins. The reason there’s little evidence is because of the ambiguity of what these products are specifically designed to do.
To identify whether a product works, you need to know specifically what it’s supposed to do. For example, if you buy an egg slicer, you know that product is going to slice hard-boiled eggs into 9 pieces with one push.
Using the terms “detox” or “cleanse” to define what a product does is a vague answer. The terms are also unregulated by the FDA. This means anyone can claim their products “detox” and “cleanse” the body without providing scientific proof. In fact, not clearly defining what the product is supposed to do prevents anyone else from conducting their own scientific experiments to find out if it works.
“Most commercial detoxes don’t list what a toxin is. And even when they do, they don’t give any evidence that they work. If they did, we could test the effectiveness of their claims,” published science writer and educator Beth Skwarecki told LifeHacker. “In a 2009 investigation by Sense about Science, they checked 15 commercial detox products and found that none could name toxins, agree on a definition of detox, or supply any evidence for their claims.”
If the creators of a product can’t define what the product is removing, there’s good reason to be skeptical.
What does it really mean to detox?
Without a consistent, FDA-approved definition for “detox” from the medical or scientific community, the best we can do is define it literally. In that case, to detox is to remove toxins from the body. These toxins can include poisons, pollutants, alcohol, food, medicine, and other foreign agents that make the body sick.
What happens when toxins leave the body?
The effects of toxins leaving the body can be seen in alcoholics or drug addicts going through the recovery process. Detoxing from drugs and alcohol is a process with intense physical symptoms referred to as “withdrawal.”
The process of detoxing from drugs and alcohol comes with a variety of withdrawal symptoms, including:
- Headaches
- Shaking and seizures
- Insomnia
- Nausea
- Heart failure
- Stomach pain
Unlike alcoholics and drug addicts in recovery, people don’t usually report these types of symptoms when using colon cleanses and other detox protocols.
The body knows how to detox on its own
Every human being has a built-in detoxification system that removes impurities and waste. Your liver is continually filtering your blood by capturing toxins and other impurities you’ve either consumed or absorbed.
Next, your liver releases enzymes that transform toxins into free radicals. Those free radicals adhere to substances that move them to your kidneys where you’ll eventually pass them through your urine. Other toxins are excreted through sweat, stool and even exhaling.
Even those who have spent decades overloading their bodies with alcohol or drugs will detox naturally as they taper off of the substance they’re addicted to. They may be given certain medications to make the process easier, like Methadone, but it’s the body’s lungs, liver, and kidneys that do the detox work.
If you’re relatively healthy, you don’t need to worry about cleaning the inside of your body. Your body takes care of that for you. However, it’s important to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables to support the process. Your body needs certain phytonutrients in order to neutralize the free radicals your body creates.
Cleanses and detoxes can still serve a purpose
Unless you’ve been positively diagnosed with something like Candida (yeast overgrowth often caused by excess sugar), you probably don’t need to detox. However, a cleanse can still be beneficial to you.
People who follow detox and cleansing protocols do experience positive effects. Some lose weight while others feel a rush of energy and vitality moving through their body. Many people experience a decrease in inflammation, especially when detoxing from sugar.
Using a commercial detox product can rebalance your digestion, strengthen your immune system, and feed your body all of the nutrients it needs to maintain harmony. However, if you don’t know what specific toxins are present in your body before you begin, and you don’t experience withdrawal symptoms, you’ll never know if the product is, in fact, removing toxins.