Demistifying Detox

The whole world is poisonous and toxins are flooding our bodies!!!

Sorry. Didn't mean to panic. It's just a little scary sometimes, being bombarded by news about the level of contamination in our environment. Our seafood is saturated with mercury, our air is filled with automotive and industrial pollutants, and our drinking water is awash with pharmaceutical by-product. Meanwhile the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes periodic announcements about how trace amounts of yet another nasty pollutant is in our bodies.

Clearly, our chemical environment differs from that of our ancestors. Does this mean our bodies' natural clean-out systems need help handling the burden?

That's the theory behind "cleansing" or "detox" diets, which, for the past several years have been praised in plenty of celebrity gossip rags but not so much in peer-reviewed medical journals. "(Regarding the) fear of toxins, there is some legitimacy to the theory," says Dr. Larry Leibowitz, medical director for Fairfield County Primary Care in New Canaan and health director for the town of Redding. "However, no good evidence exists that detox diets mitigate this."

Andrea Valenti, a registered dietician and clinical nutrition manager for Bridgeport Hospital, elaborates. "Detox diets make a list of claims: remove toxins, weight loss, reduce bloating, even curing or treating certain diseases ¦ they mention toxins in your food, water, your makeup and your hairspray ¦ but there's no scientific-based evidence I can find that they work."

It is true that trace elements of chemicals can be found in most of our bodies. "Healthy eating or decreasing your intake of processed foods certainly helps (promote good health)," Valenti says. "But to totally rid the body of toxins -- impossible. And there's no scientific evidence that drinking cranberry water cocktails or spiced lemon toddies will do it."

The drinks Valenti mentions -- enormous quantities of such drinks -- form the cornerstones of some popular detox diets. For example, Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow rank among the celebrities who have tried "Master Cleanse," also called the lemonade or lemon-juice diet. You start each day drinking a combination of lemon juice and maple syrup doused with cayenne pepper, followed by a large quantity of salt water for a "saltwater flush" -- often described as a "top-down enema" because it sounds nicer than "induced diarrhea."

At best, such diets can make you consume toilet paper at an accelerated rate; at worst, critics say they can lead to major health problems up to and including death.

"Drinking too much can give you hyponatremia -- low sodium," Valenti says. "Sodium dilution from drinking too much can land you in the ER ¦ it can definitely throw your electrolytes off."

"Electrolytes are minerals in the body," Leibowitz explains. "Sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium ¦ these control cellular function, and their lack can lead to failure of the cardiovascular or nervous systems. Inadequate nutrition, excessive fluid intake and resulting diarrhea, all can lead to electrolyte loss."

But "diet" is not the right word for these particular low-calorie, high-liquid regimens, says Dr. Lisa Singley, a naturopathic physician with the Natural Health and Wellness Center in Milford, who says they are fasts, not diets. "I think detox diets are great, but not detox fasts. I believe the body needs proper nutrition to detox. Your liver needs a lot of nutrition to function."

Singley often recommends detox diets to her patients, but her plans never require severely restricted calorie intake or peppered lemon juice. (Though she will prescribe drinking more water than usual -- and also eating extra fiber -- if the patient has suffered any form of constipation. "Going to the bathroom gets rid of toxins.") Singley's detox diets are healthy-eating diets: more fresh fruits and vegetables, less processed food and artificial sweeteners.

"Chinese food recognizes five basic tastes -- salt, sweet, sour, pungent, bitter," she says. "From a nutrition standpoint, sour and bitter foods help the liver. Eat lots of greens -- mustard greens, dandelion greens, any greens. Certain herbs are also helpful. ¦ but a lot of (detox dieting) is eliminate the junk. Eat lean protein, healthy fats, not trans-fatty foods, lots of fruits and vegetables."

Robin Moyer Chung, who runs the website Robin's Resources (Resources for the Savvy Fairfield Country Woman) out of her Westport home, tried a three-week detox last year, a hybrid between a detox "fast" and the healthy-eating detox diets Singley prefers. Chung's diet eliminated a lot of junk but also a lot of solid food. She drank cayenne lemon juice and lots of water, and limited her food intake.

"I tried it because I did a write-up on a local nutritionist who specialized in detox diets, and figured I'd try the diet before the writing." She wasn't enthused about it, though. "I didn't want to give up caffeine and alcohol. Everything I loved was out of it."

Singley disagrees with this approach when she plans her detox diet regimens: "I don't like programs that are too limiting, too restricting -- people should be able to enjoy their food. I don't want you to dread my diet plan, I want you to enjoy it."

In general, a detox diet -- not fast -- can be healthful and even enjoyable. "Some people say fasting gives your digestive system a rest, a chance to clean out," Singley says. "But if you don't consume enough calories, your body goes into stress response; it messes up your metabolism and you go into starvation mode. I don't believe the body was meant to fast."

So if one of Leibowitz's patients expressed an interest in trying a detox, what would he recommend? "I generally would advise against it, and inquire why he or she feels the need to try it. I'd address their concerns, and try to alleviate them. ¦ a detox diet would be especially dangerous for children, the elderly, anyone with a chronic medical condition, pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding."

Anyone taking any form of regular medication would also be at risk. "Many detox diets require taking vitamins, minerals, antioxidants ¦ drinking grapefruit juice ¦ these can be detrimental to anyone taking medications," Valenti says. As a hospital nutritionist planning meals for patients, she must always take into consideration drug/nutrient interaction: a drug, or a food, that's innocuous on its own can lead to bad effects when combined.

Dr. Veronica Waks, a naturopathic physician with offices in Fairfield and Stamford, agrees. Detox diets can be useful under medical supervision, she says, but some people should never consider them. "Anyone taking medication essential for life should not do detox," she says. "It will clean the drug right out of your bloodstream. Patients taking medication for seizures, for diabetes, cancer patients on chemotherapy or radiation -- no detox."

And Waks urges caution to anyone tempted to try various detox diet drink powders. "Many powders on the market speed up the cleaning of the liver -- you can think of the liver as being like the body's garbage-disposal facility -- but speeding it up can be very dangerous (without proper supervision)."

So if you're still worried about those trace contaminants in our biosphere and our bloodstreams, consider the findings of the CDC in a 2005 report, which says the mere presence of a chemical in your body does not automatically mean it's dangerous: "Small amounts (of chemicals) may be of no health consequence ¦ For most of the environmental chemicals for which information is presented, more research is needed to determine whether exposure at levels reported here is a cause for health concerns." HL

One Woman's Journey

For years, my acupuncturist had suggested I do a cleanse or purification program. It would be good for what ailed me, he insisted, and make my body more receptive to his treatments.

He handed me a pamphlet describing the program he recommends (and he tried many before choosing this one) -- Standard Process Purification. While the 3-week plan includes eating three meals a day from a large list of fruits and vegetables, as well as multiple supplements and a protein shake, it is more easily summed up this way: No sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol, no dairy, no meat at all for the first 7 days, and no wheat.

No way, I thought and tossed the pamphlet into the recycling bin.

Fast forward a couple more years. Yet again, the acupuncturist made his semi-regular suggestion. This time, however, I was more fed up than usual with my sinuses, irregularity, sore joints and sleep issues. The post-holiday pounds encircling my waist wouldn't be such a bad thing to drop either. Besides, I thought to myself, I can do anything for 21 days, can't I? I said yes.

In theory, people do a little pre-purification weaning of certain substances. I say in theory because, of course, while I fully understand the logic behind this, I did not stop drinking coffee or red wine (or gin) or eating sugar the week before the official cleanse. I meant to, I really did, but all I kept thinking was how I wouldn't be able to have any of this stuff for THREE WEEKS -- before helping myself to another cookie.

Not surprisingly, therefore, I had a low-grade headache that no amount of Tylenol could dull. (I'm pretty sure Tylenol is not on the list of substances to consume, but I was desperate.) My body clearly was not happy without my morning caffeine buzz and periodic sugar buzz during the day. On day 4, though, I woke up headache-free, and basically felt fine the rest of the time.

Here are some of the parts I found challenging:

I don't remember the exact number of pills I had to take but it was a lot -- certainly at least 9 three times a day -- and some of them were large, neither of which is easy for someone who used to cut her Vitamin C pills in half to make swallowing them within the realm of possibility.

Not cooking with any nightshade vegetables, such as tomatoes and potatoes. As a vegetarian for the last 30 years, I figured eating a diet of fruits and veggies for three weeks would be the easy part of this program -- until I read the fine print and realized certain veggies were not on the list. I had no idea how much I rely on tomatoes in the various stews and casseroles I create.

Here's what was surprisingly easy:

I wasn't hungry -- ever. The list of allowed foods is extensive and eating three meals is part of the plan.

I didn't crave sugary foods as I expected based on other times I've given up sugar, i.e. when dieting. In fact, I didn't crave a lot of things I was expecting to crave.

Here's what happened:

I lost weight. I don't know how much because I don't weigh myself, but my clothes were noticeably looser around the waist.

My wrists, which are chronically sore thanks to my job and hobbies, were pain-free! I think if I had continued this plan, it's likely my knees would have followed suit.

I was more regular.

My skin looked fantastic. I pride myself on having decent skin, but I looked at a photo taken near the end of this cleanse, and my skin just glowed in a way it normally doesn't.

I was less congested.

I became a more conscious eater, aware of what I was eating and when.

Now, the idea with these plans is that you gradually add in certain foods and watch how your body reacts. Again, as with the pre-purification weaning, it was just a theory in my life. The morning the fast ended, I reached for the Dannon coffee yogurt I had been dreaming about the last couple of days of the program without even thinking. Dairy, caffeine and sugar in one fell tablespoon!

And yet, the plan did stick with me on other levels. While I still eat foods I know probably don't help my body operate optimally, I am more conscious about the quantity and the likely impact. And I've made a commitment to doing the cleanse annually. Who knows? Maybe this time I'll follow it for 30 days.

-- Janet Reynolds

To find out more about the Standard Process purification program, go to www.standardprocess.com.

¨