I have a friend that periodically talks about detoxing from her sugar binges. It sounds like a reasonable statement, too much sugar, clean the body. Anyone who eats too much sugar experiences sluggishness, headache, stomach ache, all symptoms of an alcohol splurge (which is also a sugar high – just different sugar). The problem with the statement is the word “detox”.
All kinds of imagery is used to describe the detoxification process: flush toxins out of your blood, clean the body of environmental toxins such as pesticides, formaldehyde, benzene, food additives, and so on. These substances “invade the body”, “create free radicals”. The cleanup process is going to get rid of all that for you. And then you’ll have “clean” blood, a body “free” from environmental hazards. Because if you don’t do that, then you’re susceptible to autoimmune diseases, cancer, other bad stuff. Mild reactions include ADD, ADHD, OCD, Autism, and myriad other conditions.
I have a problem with this attitude. For one thing, the human body is a really robust machine. We can tolerate a great deal because our bodies cope with life very well. For instance, if you have a good time one night and over indulge in your favorite frozen margaritas with the salted rim, you might wake up the next morning with a pounding head and an upset stomach. But over time, through the day, the body rids itself of the alcohol and the symptoms go away. The same things happen to a smoker. Granted, it takes 2 years for the body to correct itself, but it does heal. After my work accident, which left me quite disabled, I had to stay in an extremely clean environment. I had cleaners come in 3 times a week to rid the house of dust and other contaminants. They used all natural cleaners so that I wouldn’t react to the fumes. And I ate organic for many months.
That accident happened in 1987. It’s now been 24 years and I’m able to survive in stores (although I still don’t go into rug stores and try to stay out of clothing stores). I don’t eat organic, but I also don’t eat things with preservatives (lunch meat, chips, doritos, pre-made mixes, stuff like that – no hamburger helper for me). There is some speculation that this accident created an environment for my genetic propensity to lupus to awaken. Since so little in known about printer sickness, and little is known about lupus, this really is a guess. And there is no benefit to knowing, unless it helps someone else avoid exposure and subsequent lupus.
Some methods used to detoxify the body are chelation (talked about in Chelation Therapy), high temperature sauna therapy to cause the body to eliminate through sweat, exercise, nutrition, deep tissue massage, colon hydrotherapy ( clean the large intestine and the bowel), and ozone treatment. Each component attacks a bodily function centered around ingesting and eliminating.
Sauna therapy at the temperatures cited for effective treatment are also the temperatures at which people can have serious heart problems. I, personally, can’t breathe at those temperatures. Exercise and nutrition are, on the surface, self-explanatory. Each done in moderation and balance go a long way to strengthening the body. Unfortunately, the alternative community goes overboard most of the time and prescribes weird, unsustainable food programs. Exercise must be tailored to the person to avoid injury. Deep tissue massage is great – but there has not been any conclusive proof that this aids in toxin elimination. Deep tissue massage can relax a person and help a person heal from muscle trauma, which then can lead to having the head space to heal. Colon hydrotherapy reaches the large intestine. The process can destroy the good bacteria we need to survive. The practitioners of colon hydrotherapy tout the “toxins” are eliminated because it gets into all the bumpy places that normally retain toxins. But that same process can make it difficult for the body to eliminate naturally. That’s not good.
Ozone therapy just stuns me. After all, I had a big exposure to ozone, and it didn’t do me any good. The US Food and Drug Administration states “that ozone is a toxic gas with no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy.” The FDA further states “that in order for ozone to be effective as a germicide, it must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by man and animals.”
The American medical community as a whole does not recognize ozone therapy to be a practical treatment for anything. Outside the medical community the merits of ozone are debated and revered. “some marketers of ozone generators make promotional claims that ozone is a miraculous cure for all disease including cancer and AIDS; opposing this, some have objected that such broad claims are unfounded, have called into question the credibility of ozone therapy, and have given many people false hope.”
Does the alternative community have any treatments that are worthwhile? Yes. Clean air, not smoggy air, is good for everyone. It is essential for people at risk of airborne contagions such as the elderly, asthmatics, babies. Good food, not junk, not processed, is also good for everyone. Does everyone benefit from organic produce? The research I’ve done shows that organics are not needed for everyone. Babies and small children should eat organic; their bodies are not yet fully developed and can be effected by pesticides. Anyone in my situation of toxic exposure to any chemical needs to eat organic to unload the body of as much contaminants as possible. But healthy adults that eat a balanced diet with very few “junk” foods can eat non-organic and not have any problems.
There is one more process that the alternative community uses to “detox” – herbs. This is a broad topic that I’ll tackle another time.
Chelation therapy is used to remove toxins, such as sulpha, lead, arsenic, and mercury, from the blood. DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid) or EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid) is injected into the blood. It then binds the metals by making several chemical bonds with metal ions, which renders them chemically inactive. The result is a water-soluble complex that can then enter the bloodstream and then excreted harmlessly from the body through urine.
The last time I was in the states, in Texas and California, I had to talk myself out of getting a 
