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The Ins and Outs of Cleansing

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A few decades ago, you rarely heard the word “toxin”. Everyone knew what poisons were. They were the products labeled with skull and crossbones, the caustic lye in the garage or the bleach in the laundry room. Now these substances are becoming famous in their own right: BPA in plastics, radiation from cell towers, and radionuclides in water that end up in our bodies.

“Detoxing” is the latest fad that even some top celebrities are big advocates of. It’s a painless process, normally requiring little more than following the directions on a bottle and ingesting certain juices for a month. Unfortunately, most of those don’t work.

It is easy for the topic of toxins and detoxification to sound like new-age vagary. Bowel flushes and lymph cleanses sure seem like the brain hatchlings of tree-hugging vegans and health fanatics, and the concept is often elevated to news status by a hungry media. The best reason I can give you to consider a valid detoxification prescribed by a homeopathic or naturopathic doctor is based on what I refer to as “the human health threshold”. Although most of us detoxify every second of every day - thanks to our liver, kidneys, and bowels - some of us need help.

Human health consists of interplaying variables that include our genetics, environment, toxic load, emotional state, fitness, and a plethora of other factors. Each of us has an individual ability to cope with these factors. The limit of that ability - the point at which, if we exceed it, our health fails - is our human health threshold. 

You Are What You Eat
Think of how what’s in our food can affect your body. Producing food on a mass scale in this day and age employs an array of pesticides and herbicides to kill the insects and weeds that harm crops. Because of this, it’s wise to remember the 12 fruits and veggies that are the most saturated in pesticides. Pesticides run off from fields and enter the water table and we’ve all heard about their effects on our collective health. While we can’t get away from them 100 percent of the time, the next time you pass the organic produce counter at the supermarket, you may want to buy from there. Also, many experts advise us to eat more fish for good health, but there is a problem there too. Mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium are among the heavy metals known to have detrimental effects on humans, and recent research on the toxic effects of these metals found in particular seafoods has prompted Health Canada to advise Canadians to limit their consumption of certain fishes. So how does this build-up affect one’s body?

Sign Language
Our bodies signal an overload of toxic substances in many ways: Headaches; muscle and joint pain; fatigue; gastrointestinal tract irregularities; cardiovascular irregularities or allergic reactions. The liver - the central toxic-waste site of the body - works hard, day and night, to sieve these toxins. It is also a metabolic factory where everything from the air we breathe to the food we eat is transformed. It’s responsible for breaking down and packaging up proteins, carbohydrates and fats and, if that isn’t enough, it synthesizes bile, glycogen (the principal form in which sugar is stored) and the blood proteins that the body uses for energy and metabolism. In the process, the liver is guilty of accumulating these toxins. Often, it stores the surplus toxins in body fat so that it’s safely out of general circulation. The liver is capable of healing and regenerating itself, but an overloaded liver can leak poisons into the bloodstream that can injure organs and diminish our health.

Liver Love
The liver detoxifies in two chemical phases with the first being a collection phase. If your liver is functioning well, it takes those collected toxins and, in phase two, transforms them into water-soluble compounds that can be excreted through stool, urine or bile. If the liver isn’t functioning well and removing toxins effectively, the body will store them in your nervous system and fat tissue. The very purpose behind “detoxing” is the optimization of these liver functions.

Take Note
You’ve probably heard about some cleansing routines - the water and juice fasts - which supposedly work on the principle that the body will heal itself when the “stress” of digestion is eliminated. Such cleanses may do more harm than good. Natural liver processes are not only energy intensive, but are also dependent on adequate levels of supporting nutrients. Fasting that is totally devoid of energy sources or supportive nutrients may actually suppress detoxification rather than enhancing it. A juice fast may be more effective since it provides some carbohydrates and other nutrients, but it’s still deficient in macronutrients, vitamins, minerals and certain amino acids.

Some popular cleansing protocols also recommend laxatives, enemas or colonic irrigation to speed up the process. These routines are often of little use and are sometimes even dangerous. They’re based on junk science rather than a true scientific understanding of how the body works. Worst of all, these extreme diets can cause serious side effects in vulnerable groups. Safe detoxification requires the use of therapeutic levels of well-researched antioxidants to facilitate and speed up the natural process.

In the end, my recommendation for a truly sensible and effective cleanse is a food-focused diet and lifestyle along with a detoxifying aid, such as foods with high amounts of antioxidants, vitamins, and herbs to help your natural abilities to detoxify along. 

 

Bryce Wylde
Is one of Canada's leading experts on natural medicine. He is the author of The Antioxidant Prescription and host of Wylde On Health on CP24. 
www.homeopathicdoctor.ca


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