Cleaning fluid?
We live in a toxic world. You鈥檙e breathing in lead as you read this. Your next meal will contain everything from natural poisons to pesticides and pollutants. As a result, the human body is a veritable cesspit of suspect chemicals. The last on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals found potentially concerning levels of dozens of undesirable substances, including heavy metals, dioxins, PCBs and phthalate plasticisers, in the blood and urine of Americans.
鈥淭he human body is a veritable cesspit of suspect chemicals鈥�
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The question is, what can we do about it? According to popular wisdom, we need to 鈥渄etox鈥� to get rid of these poisons in our body, and there is no shortage of advice on the best way to accomplish this. But do any of these detox plans actually work? And is detoxing really good for us?
For a start, we are already doing it all the time, with the help of our livers, kidneys and digestive systems. Most of the toxic chemicals we consume are broken down or excreted, or both, within hours.
However, it can take weeks, months or even years to get rid of some substances, especially fat-soluble chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs. If we take these in faster than our bodies can get rid of them, levels build up in our bodies.
Many detox programmes promote a period of consuming only fluids and no solid food, but this will make virtually no difference to levels of chemicals that have built up over years. 鈥淔or many of these it will take between six and 10 years of zero exposure to get rid of one-half of the amount stored in our fat tissues,鈥� says Andreas Kortenkamp, a toxicologist at Brunel University in London. 鈥淭hat is not achievable, because, unfortunately, there is no zero exposure.鈥�
What鈥檚 more, fasting or dieting releases fat-soluble chemicals into the blood, rather than eliminating them from the body. One study found the level of organochlorines and pesticides in blood shot up by 25 to 50 per cent after people lost a lot of weight quickly (). Animal studies show that this increases the level of compounds in tissues like the muscles and brain, where they can do more harm than in fat.
This sudden flood of chemicals could even cause the kind of problems detoxers are trying to avoid, says Margaret Sears, an environmental health researcher at the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada. 鈥淭hese chemicals have toxic effects as endocrine disruptors that paradoxically affect energy levels and appetite, potentially contributing to yo-yo weight loss and gain,鈥� she says. Plus there鈥檚 no guarantee that chemicals released from fat will actually leave the body 鈥� some will end up back in storage.
With chemicals that the body does eliminate rapidly, such as phthalates, a short fast will lower levels. It鈥檚 not clear that this does you any good, though. As soon as you start eating again, says Kortenkamp, levels go back to where they were.
For these reasons, Sears recommends what she calls a 鈥渓ifelong detox鈥�, which involves eating as healthily as possible and avoiding chemicals in the home and workplace as much as you can. But Kortenkamp isn鈥檛 convinced that even that will help much. 鈥淥nly regulatory action that reduces exposures will work. Individual avoidance strategies are but a drop in the ocean,鈥� he says.
That said, you can greatly reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals like nicotine and alcohol. There is also one way of speeding up the removal of many fat-soluble toxic chemicals that is supported by scientific evidence 鈥� producing milk (). While it is possible for women to without giving birth 鈥� and to lactate 鈥� the milk-yourself detox method is probably unlikely to catch on.
Read more: 鈥�Don鈥檛 swallow it: Six health myths you should ignore鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥�3 Our bodies can and should be 鈥渄etoxed鈥濃��
