If you’re feeling a bit sluggish or looking to kickstart your journey to better health, you’ve likely come across any number of quick-fix detox or cleansing programs that promise to restore vitality.
Such programs can claim to cleanse your whole body or specific organs. They commonly consist of a highly restrictive diet, with a possible array of supplements.
If you’re thinking that “every kind of disease” is conveniently vague, you have a point. In 2009, an investigative report of 15 detox-program manufacturers found that none could provide a clear-cut list of the harmful substances being eliminated, and that no two even defined “detox” the same way.
Not only are most commercial detox programs ambiguous, almost none have been tested for their safety or efficacy. Even the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health states that “there isn’t any convincing evidence that detox or cleansing programs actually remove toxins from your body or improve your health”. They also warn that “some of the products and procedures used in detox/cleansing programs may be harmful to your health” — a warning supported by case reports on kidney damage from a green-smoothie cleanse and liver failure from drinking too much “detox tea”.
Commercial detox programs claim to eliminate harmful substances that accumulate in the body, usually through highly restrictive diet protocols. Those programs, however, are largely untested for their efficacy or safety, and most can’t even agree on a definition for “detox”.
Does your body need detoxification?
It definitely can — just not as detox companies sell it.
The Centers for Disease Control defines detoxification as “the process of removing a poison or toxin or the effect of either from an area or individual”.
Medically, you need detoxification when you poison yourself with drugs, such as alcohol.
Standard medical detoxification involves shoving 25–100 grams of activated charcoal down your throat every couple of hours to prevent the swallowed chemicals from being absorbed from your gut into your bloodstream. The charcoal binds the chemicals, allowing you to poop them out.
Medical detoxification is warranted only in case of acute poisoning, and should be performed only under medical supervision.
The short answer is yes: your body, like that of any animal, can accumulate toxicants (poisons), including toxins (poisons produced by a living organism). This process is called bioaccumulation. Mercury, for instance, is known to accumulate in predator fish and in people who eat those fish, and even our beloved protein powders may not be entirely safe, according notably to Consumer Reports and the Clean Label Project.
Your body has a built-in detoxification system: your lungs and other organs work around the clock to remove harmful substances. Your liver, for instance, transforms noxious chemicals into benign substances that are excreted in the urine (via the kidneys) or feces (via the gallbladder).
Detoxing done right:
Pesticide residues in food are a valid concern too, though it should be noted that the Pestcicide Data Program (PDP) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has consistently found that the vast majority of the food on the market contain either no detectable residues or residues below the tolerable limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
When found, pesticide residues were similarly in organic and conventional produce, but there is some evidence that even very low doses of pesticides might still elicit physiological effects. These effects, be they beneficial, neutral, or harmful, and be they from organic or conventional pesticides, are not well studied. So, what is a consumer to do? The practical solution is quite simple: rinsing, peeling when possible, and cooking can reduce the amount of pesticide left on your produce, whether this produce is organic or not.
Current evidence suggests that some compounds in plant foods can upregulate your liver’s detoxification process and antioxidant activity. One such compound is the sulphoraphane in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, as was shown in humans as well as in rats.
Fiber, especially soluble and/or fermentable, can enhance detoxification both directly and indirectly. Directly, by binding bile and its associated toxins, thus facilitating their excretion. Indirectly, by feeding the bacteria in your digestive tract, some of which create short-chain fatty acids and other metabolites that act on the liver and kidneys to increase their ability to excrete toxicants.
Sweating may help excrete heavy metals, but sauna studies are scarce and rely mostly on subjective assessments, such as questionnaires about quality of life, rather than on objective measures of toxicant burden or excretion.
As for the notion that a juice-only cleanse can shift your guts away from digestion and toward the excretion of toxicants — it is one of those catchy ideas that lack scientific backing. If you want your organs to do their best, including to rid you of toxicants, then you should not deprive them from the nutrients they need to function. That means that, rather than the occasional cleanse, what you need is a daily diet rich in varied fruits and vegetables.
What little evidence there is on “cleanses” (commercial detox diets) is fraught with methodological problems. Cleanses’ short-term benefits (weight loss and related health improvements) seem to be mostly attributable to caloric restriction and placebo effects, not to special detoxification effects.
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