Blog plost #3- Detox diets? Cleansing? That's what your liver is for!!

    Detoxing dieting is a movement that claims to cleanse your blood and rid your body of toxins. Many people claim this diet is like a miracle, helping them to promote their health and remove metals and other toxic materials from their bodies. Many of these diets consist of only drinking juices, fasting, using laxatives, etc. These programs are offered widely commercially and even at some health centers. Intuitively this idea appears to make sense, perhaps we are ingesting bad things and we can cleanse ourselves by clearing out our systems with fruit and vegetable juices (healthy, right?) The National Institute of Health seems to think not. This idea is pseudoscience as it uses a scientific basis to make far-reaching claims (and ultimately to sell you an idea and product).

     First of all, a relatively small amount of official research has been done on the topic. Some have found some positive results for weight loss, insulin resistance, and blood pressure. However, these studies are low quality with few participants and no peer reviews. Like many other diets, detoxing does lead to some weight loss, but as soon as people shift back to their normal diet any benefits are lost. There are also currently no long-term studies on detoxification to back up its broad claims of restoring the body to balance. Despite famously pushing the idea that our bodies need to be cleansed, detox diets rarely discuss which toxins are being removed.

     In addition, your body is also constantly cleansing itself through the liver, kidneys, and colon (which filter byproducts and remove substances through urine, feces, and sweat). Any chemicals that do tend to get stuck in the body (such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) or heavy metals) accumulate in fat tissue or in blood and get eliminated naturally after time. If these diets claim to remove these kinds of toxins there is no evidence that they would be capable of removing these compounds. Overall, while these diets do help with losing weight in the short term, they are ineffective at cleaning the body and are very unsustainable. If you wish to be healthy it is recommended to use the tried and true methods of dieting (with a varied diet- not just juice) and exercising. 

Resources:

-National Institute of Health: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/detoxes-and-cleanses-what-you-need-to-know

-Healthline:https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/detox-diets-101#effectiveness

-Rush University Medical Center: https://www.rush.edu/news/truth-about-toxins#:~:text=Cleanses%20and%20detox%20products%20do,can%20remove%20from%20your%20body.