Good advice for spring:

Detox supplements only clean out your wallet | Health Matters | STLtoday

03.23.2009 3:14 pm
Detox supplements only clean out your wallet
By Harry Jackson Jr.




Detox. Nowadays, that means flushing poisons and contaminants from your body. But …

I first heard of detoxing when reporting about alcohol and drug rehabilitation clinics. They’d let a patient’s body burn off the drugs, then the withdrawal, then therapy.

Then, the food supplement industry got hold of the term “detox” and there went the farm. Now, the term is used so casually and, in my opinion, insidiously, that it no longer has meaning. Even the federal National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine doesn’t show detox in its glossary.

Still, with the accuracy of 8th Century empiricism, purveyors of “detox” try to tell you that your body is saturated with heavy metals, environmental poisons, pesticides, contaminants from your drinking water and evil spirits — enough to terrify you from eating, drinking or inhaling.

The most ridiculous claim I recall came from the makers of the “far infrared sauna.” They said that sitting under the far infrared lamp burned 600 calories an hour, and the rays penetrated an inch into your skin to dislodge heavy metals and poisons from your fat cells. The health community called it what it was, silly. It’s a heat lamp.

Dr. James Shoemaker, director of the Metabolic Screening Laboratory at St. Louis University School of Medicine. didn’t even think long about it. “This is just a plain lie. Infrared is just heat. Heat is heat. Heat penetrates, but it’s nothing exotic.” He said the only way to lose weight from heat was to set yourself on fire.

That actually brings us to the truth and the fact. The body is a miraculous industry unto itself. It has been dealing with dust from the periodic table since life began on this planet. It has developed several machines on its metabolic assembly line to detoxify your body:the kidneys, liver, skin, lungs, digestion.

Frankly, the number one and two poisons people face have nothing to do with heavy metals or environmental contaminants: tobacco smoke and alcohol.

So, if you want to detoxify, and it doesn’t take long:
1. Stop smoking and drink less — one drink a day is plenty.
2. Eat more fiber. Beans and vegetables are best.
3. Eat less fat. Leaner meat can be uninteresting. But that just taxes your creativity. And add more fish and mostly vegetables and fruit.
4. Stop eating so much. Put less on your plate and stop at one serving.
5. Drink a lot of water. Even tap water is better for you than anything out of a can or bottle.
6. Sweat. Get moving. Exercise, anything other than sitting and staring at that bright light in the TV or computer makes the cells and organs do their work: burning fuel and getting rid of waste.
7. Shower or bathe or both. Benjamin Franklin said, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Considering how few people bathed in his day, that may have been a defense mechanism. Still, wash and moisturize and you can prevent clogging up or damaging your body’s largest detox organ, your skin. Also, frequent showers, and hands and face washing lower your susceptibility to airborne allergens. Your hands can spread more allergens to your eyes and nostrils than the air.
8. Chill. A few classes in meditation will do more for you than all of the detox supplements combined. Stress relief detoxes you from the fight-or-flight hormones your body secrets during the stressful work day. If you can’t do that, sit quietly in a room for 20 minutes and look at something green or listen to water moving.