New Year, New Detox

The Bullshit Detox

So, with the New Year upon us we will be influxed with detox diets and diet plans.  People out there all over are willing to divulge the helpful advice you need in order to ‘detox’ your body of all its deadly toxins. Detoxes are essentially 'eat this for so many days and you will be rid of all toxins'. We have stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow giving essential advice on how to detox and cleanse your body this New Year. These detoxes are based on three premises described and debunked here by Scott Gavura. Essentially these are:

• ‘Toxins’ cause illness
• We are accumulating these ‘toxins’
• Detox diets remove these ‘toxins’

Why do people fall for these detox diets? Well, why do people fall for any pseudoscience? Marketing and media is essentially the answer, companies will do anything to convince you that toxins are in your body and they need to be removed. Celebrity endorsements are a great help as well, as you will see below with Goop (Gwyneth Paltrow). There is absolutely zero scientific evidence in the way of ‘detoxing’ will cleanse your body of ‘toxins’. This is because defining a toxin is an incredulous process, which most of the marketers don't do. The detox is a legitimate medical process, you cannot order a detoxification from a hospital, it is provided in life threatening circumstances, such as drug abstention. We call that rehabilitation.

GOOP

As this is the only one I have read in its entirety this year, this is the one I will focus on. I wrote a piece on Paltrow last year and her absolutely astonishing lack of scientific knowledge. So as you can imagine, she’s jumped entirely on this detox wagon. If you go to the page you will find her very scientific take on what a detox is and her plan of how to carry it out. We come to a section ‘does detoxing really work?’ where she puts:

“Yes. While it’s true that our bodies are great at detoxing on their own, it’s also true that these days, our environment and food system is overloaded with toxic and synthetic chemicals, making it tough for our systems to keep up. Detoxing is a nebulous and overly-marketed concept, though, and there’s a lot of crap out there…as sweat is one of our body’s most effective means for flushing toxins.”

I can’t be the only one seeing the irony in ‘there’s a lot of crap out there’, can I? I mean, this woman recommended ‘vaginal steaming’ for a cleaning purification ritual. Our body is exposed to a great range of chemicals, natural and synthetic. These chemicals being present in the body doesn’t infer, at all, harmful. It is true that our bodies are exceptional at detoxification. That is down to the kidneys, lymphatic system, liver and our very own skin that makes up this detoxification system, which is more than enough. Advocating people take infrared saunas to help them sweat out their ‘toxins’ is ridiculous. 

Goop then recommends that this advice of following the healthy eating plan is followed up by a colonic. ‘Detox’ pushers love a good colon, it’s their mecca of ‘science’. It appears as though this is just their go to organ for cleansing, something called ‘mucoid plaque’ or ‘toxic sludge’ needs to be removed. Shockingly, there is no evidence of this existing. Ever. These next sentences are taken directly from her site with a Q&A on 'does detoxing really work?':

“While doing my sauna experiment I discovered that we actually sweat out toxic plastics!”

“Our systems are not prepared for the onslaught of post-1950 synthetic toxins that we ingest, breathe, and absorb through our skin, on a daily basis.”

“Most of the synthetic chemicals we need to worry about are called lipophilic—that means they are attracted to fat. So if we are eating fatty meats or cheeses, the pesticides and other fat soluble chemicals in our environment will be concentrated in the fat."

I mean, who can argue with that logic? Shockingly, there no links to any of these studies they claim helps detox... Simply, because they do not exist. The site is actually promoting a torrid amount of scientific misinformation. I had to read the last quote about seven times in order to try to understand their thinking process. This piece was written by Bruce Lourie whose degree is in Geology and masters in Environmental Studies. I don’t think I would take any medical advice from someone with that status, but each to their own. Lipophilic does not essentially mean they are ‘attracted to fat’, it means they will dissolve in fats and oils. There is so much scientific misinformation in that sentence that I can’t even cope. 

But The Juice Diet is Good, Right?

No. I had a colleague discuss how a juice diet must be good for you as you are just drinking juice, so it must be healthier. ‘In the same way stabbing into your lung will get more oxygen into your body’ was my response and the sarcasm was lost. The juice diet or ‘juice cleanse’ involves living on organic fruits and vegetables blended into a juice, for a period of time. This includes incorporating ridiculous ingredients such Aloe Vera and Milk Thistle, which have absolutely no scientific evidence for the effects they claim it has on the body. The Nutribullet is a proponent of such work, it even comes with a book on how to help with 'curing cancer'. The basicity of it, is that you absorb more from the vegetables and fruit when it is in a drinkable form, giving you a much earned break from digestion and your body will be flushed of all toxins for a new clean bill of health. Again, these include absurd claims that are not backed up by any science at all. 

My favourite pseudoscience nonsense propagator The Food Babe has a lovely Suja Juice Cleanse (for a good $6.99 per bottle) and recommends you consume 6 per day. That’s a good $41.94 per day, she claims a three day cleanse should suffice so a good $125.82 should sort you out. If I were you, I'd follow this general rule: If it endorsed by Vani Hari, it is bullshit. Over here in the U.K. we have , The Juice Clinic, Boost, Forever Living, Nosh and many, many more all with similar claims and zero evidence.

Conclusion

It is impossible to detox your body through food and juice. These will not flush out imaginary toxins in your body and completely renew you. Companies and people promoting ‘detoxes’ are scammers, they know what they’re saying has no legitimacy or scientific evidence, yet they profit from selling it as so. The toxins they claim to flush out are not defined and they claim that organic will help detoxify you. Meaning that the toxins they are referring to are ‘pesticides’ which they believe are found in non-organic food. The Master Cleanse has a list of side effects, one of which stood out at me was ‘bad breath’, which is a perfect summation of the juice diet itself. This is most likely because of ketosis, not because you are detoxing. When you consume a pitiful amount of calories, which is what the juice diet is entailing, your body undergoes ketosis. There is no published peer reviewed evidence that detoxes do anything than rid you of money, sense and my respect. Your liver and/or kidney does not need a detox cleanse, it has a good regulation of enzymes that take care of that.

 

If you have any genuine medical concerns about 'detoxing' see a doctor for the same information I have provided for you. A dietitian is your best point of call for health/weight loss advice and information. A nutritionist/business person selling you something for £100+ because there is 'evidence it works' (there isn't), isn't looking out for your health, they're looking for your money. If you want to lose weight and eat healthy, cut out fatty foods and got to a gym.