To Detox or Not

The words "detox" or "detoxification" get thrown around a lot these days, however, few people know what these words mean.

It’s often a common word used by diet marketers and trainers to sell someone a diet protocol or supplement range. For the majority of people, these are waste of time and money. That’s because many fail to understand the detox system and how it actually works. There is no special diet or supplement that serves as the "Holy Grail" to detoxification of the body.?

Detoxification, with reference to human health, refers to your body’s ability to convert - or bio transform - waste products and toxins into non-toxic substances that can be excreted from the body.?

The truth is we don’t need any complicated or external diets in order to detox the body, as our bodies are already equipped with the organs to do the job.

The purpose of this article is to show you the processes involved in detoxifying the body.

Why Detox?

A toxin is defined as any compound that can harm the structure or function of the body’s cells and tissues. Toxicity occurs when we take in more or produce more toxins than the body can eliminate.

Even with a healthy diet and only moderate intakes of substances such as caffeine and alcohol, our bodies are exposed to a cocktail of toxins on a daily basis.

More than 2 million synthetic substances have been identified as toxins to the human body and up to 25,000 new toxins are added to that list each year. Everyday 700,000 tons of chemicals and toxins are released into the environment.

Toxins can slowly accumulate over time within the body and overload our internal detoxification systems. They can enter the body through the skin, lungs or can be ingested with food and drinks. Our body also produces toxins as part of normal metabolic processes.

Toxins cause damage to our cellular DNA and long term exposure can result in metabolic and genetic alterations. This can affect cell growth, behavior, hormonal balance and immune response and often result in increased sensitivities, allergies and other health problems.

One of the body’s defense mechanisms when faced with toxicity is to store the harmful chemicals in the fat tissue. This means that these poisons can be stored for many years in the body, becoming an ongoing source of ill health.

Symptoms Of Toxicity

When toxins start to overload our internal detoxification systems, these symptoms are often the result:

By reducing the toxic load on the body we will see a reduced number of symptoms with many people reporting the following benefits:

? Prevention of many chronic diseases

? Digestive tract is cleaned of accumulated waste

? Liver, kidney and blood purification

? Mental clarity is increased

? Reduced dependency on habit-forming substances

? Stomach bile is returned to normal

? Weight loss

? Hormonal system is enhanced

? Immune system is enhanced

? Healthy skin

? Increased energy, well being and longevity.

How Does Our Work

The Digestive System

• To paraphrase Hippocrates, everything begins in the gut, especially detoxification!
• The microvilli in our gut help to filter out toxins – the better they do their job, the less our liver has to worry later
• The gut lining itself, when healthy, helps keep toxins out of the bloodstream
• Beneficial bacteria also play a role in protecting the gut from toxins – and likewise, infections of harmful bacteria can increase the body’s toxicity

The Liver

• Our liver has more than 500 metabolic jobs
• It takes toxic substances and metabolises them into non-toxic forms that can be cleared from the body, via our kidneys
• There are 3 phases of detoxification, and each phase needs to be functioning well in order for detoxification to happen
• The 3 phases rely on enough protein, energy, enzymes, and antioxidants
• In our toxic world, it is easy to see how much harder the modern liver has to work!

The Kidneys

• Our kidneys filter all the blood in our body and are constantly working
• In order to clear toxic substances, they need the right pH level – so the body must be in a more alkaline state
• We can test your urinary pH levels in the clinic to see if improvement is needed

The Lymphatic System

• The lymphatic system is made up of tissues that produce, store, and transport white blood cells and includes a complex network of vessels, ducts, lymph nodes, the spleen, the thymus, the adenoids, and the tonsils.
• The main function of our lymphatic system is to cleanse toxins from our body by carrying waste from our tissue to the bloodstream, and to support immune health.
• It is comparable to a toilet that automatically flushes – it collects all the wastes from the cells in our body so that they don't accumulate and cause disease.

The Skin

• The skin (your body's largest organ of elimination) acts as a supplemental filter to the kidneys for removing wastes from the blood.
• When the other organs are congested the skin tries to push out toxins through the skin.
• The skin throws off about two pounds of toxic waste a day in the form of perspiration.

Can we say TOXIC OVERLOAD?

• You can see we already have highly advanced detoxification systems
• The problem is that our body isn’t designed for the amount of toxins we encounter in our modern world
• Our system becomes overloaded and cannot keep up

Detox Benefits

An effective detox incorporates:

1. To reduce toxin exposures starting with the food you eat. As the saying goes, you are what you eat.
2. To improve detox capacity via a number of effective strategies.

Chemicals,?heavy metals,?mold,?pesticides, and radioactive elements?are all some of the toxins that invade your body daily giving our systems a heavy workout. Awareness is key and when we know better, we can do better.

If you would like to see how many toxins are in your environment, this quick toxicity assessment may be insightful.