Around the new year, people tend to try to live healthier lives. They go buy gym memberships, get rid of the heavy holiday food in favor of healthier fare, and many even like to go the detox route. The formerly mentioned lifestyle changes are fine, but, according to Cosmopolitan, the latter is not.
In fact, detoxing is absolute BS, and could even be harmful to your health.
In order to detox, you really would have to have many unwanted toxins in your body in the first place, and the average human usually doesn’t. If you did, you’d know — likely because you’d be very ill.
From Cosmopolitan:
In fact, different metals and pesticides have specific symptoms, like muscle spasms and breathing difficulties. Bottom line? Breakouts and feeling a little rundown aren’t symptoms of any of them, and you need REAL MEDICINE — dimercaprol chelation and atropine, respectively — for treatment. Not juice.
In other words, juicing and cleansing is nothing more than a complete waste of money. Oh, and enemas and such are even worse. Your digestive system is likely just fine, unless you have yellowing skin or bloody stools. In this case, it’s time for a trip to the doctor, not the local juice bar. Oh, and colon cleansing — don’t do that at all. Again, from Cosmo:
More ridiculously, colon hydrotherapy — aka a colon cleanse or a colonic — is a service offered at some spas, during which some 60 liters of water are piped into your bowels and the “toxins” are “plumbed” straight out of you. That sounds nice and cleansing, doesn’t it?
Nope. Removing toxins? You’re just forcibly giving yourself diarrhea. There’s no toxin or waste build-up the water is removing. This is just fecal matter that would have been expelled naturally (in time) by your body anyway, but with added potential complications — like intestinal parasites, bowel perforation, and heart failure. In fact, this article from The Journal of Family Practice reported the following adverse effects due to colon cleansing:
Case reports also have noted back and pelvic abscesses after colonic hydrotherapy, fatal aeroportia (gas accumulation in the mesenteric veins) with air emboli, rectal perforations, perineal gangrene, acute water intoxication, coffee enema-associated colitis and septicemia, and deaths due to amebiasis.
Another bad one is the so-called “Master Cleanse.” This one gets a lot of airtime because it is supposed to make people lose weight, along with removing supposed “toxins” from your body. It’s nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper, and from the sounds of it it’s more likely to make people puke or have diarrhea than anything else.
If you put on a few pounds by overindulging over the holidays, hit a gym and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, lay off the fried food, fast food, junk, etc, and hit a gym. Or, hell, even just hit the pavement. But don’t go wasting exorbitant amounts of money on pseudoscience.
Featured image via Flickr
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