Detoxification info needed

[Niko]

Does anyone have any information about body detoxification supplements and programs? Are the claims valid? If so, can you kindly let me know brand, type, etc.? Also, please relate any experiences as I am keenly interested.

With repsect,

[Vbrown]

what are you trying to remove? A "general detox" in my experience is a waste of money and time. But if you've been exposed to something in particular, it could be helpful.

Drink alot of water, up your anti-oxident intake, eat your asparagus and smile more.

FWIW,

Vince
A,CST

Agree - most "detox" is a scam other then the long slow process of eating less crap.

[Niko]

Thanks Vince and Thanks Bill,

No, I haven't been exposed to anything in particular. I am just trying to get back on the right path after many years of eating horribly, inactivity, chronic pain and smoking. Warrior Wellness is doing wonders for me and I was hoping there was a nutritional adjunct.

With respect,

[Vbrown]

Don't stress it. Rather than punish yourself (ie detox is usually unpleasant) for you past poor behavior, be happy and proud that you have made the decision to take control of your own health.

Best thing you can do is LEARN TO COOK. People get trapped with pre-made garbage or only know 3 recipies for boiled water. Buy Alton Brown's book which teaches you the basic skills of cooking. Find fruits and veggies (more veggies than fruits) that you like and learn to cook them a million ways. Learn to cook meat right. Even tofu can be made to be tasty.

And I wasn't kidding about asparagus. It seems to help leech out ammonia waste products from the liver, which is why one's urine smells weird later. Plus it's really good and grills well.

Once you learn not only how good you feel but how good it tastes, it's easy to stay "good" because it is it's own reward.

Vince

[James Boelter]

'Detox' is a tricky thing. I tend to subscribe to the school of thought that sees the body as a self-correcting entity - simply return to 'eating right' for the long term and things will straighten out in the course of a few months. It helps to drink a lot of water, of course, and to spend some time in a dry sauna once or twice a week, or attend a class in Bikram or Ashtanga yoga (Bikram typically is held in a room heated to over 100 degrees F,a and makes me sweat like a stevedore in August).

Some people recommend a 24-36 hour fast once a week to help the body 'take care of business' and clean itself out. I am sure this would work for some individuals, but it never really appealed to me. I may adapt this as soon as my work and school schedule slow down a bit and I have my weekends free again.

A typical 'natural hygeine' approach to detoxification would be a gallbladder/liver flush recommended by my massage therapy instructor in the 'hygiene' section of the class. It involves several 'prep' days of drinking apple cider/juice, then a day of nothing but water with lemon juice. This is meant to help soften any mineral deposits/biliary calculi which may be gumming up the works. Then, at the end of the day, you take 2 tsp of epsom salts in hot water (the emetic), followed by a cup of olive oil/lemon (to lubricate the insides); then you lie on your right side for 30 minutes/1 hour with your right knee raised (so it presses into your liver). Be sure there is a clear path between you and the bathroom - once things start, you won't have a lot of time before the Intestine Express goes into full dump mode. In the morning, take another dose if epsom salts in hot water to finish the purge. There are many variations on this, they all involve a period of fasting, an emetic, some citrus juice, and a 'lubricant' oil.

Lalitha Thompson's '10 Essential Herbs' describes a 21 day detox program using chaparral tea - you essentially steep the same batch of chapparral overnight in room temperature water and drink the 8 -12 oz of resulting tisane in the am three times; then discard the used batch for a fresh batch; you follow this cycle 7 times for a total of 21 days. The idea is that each successive steeping extracts different combinations of factors from the chapparral. This is to be done a maximum of once or twice a year.

Chaparral is very controversial - at one point the FDA banned the use of it and it was almost impossible to obtain. There was some indication that using too much chaparral would damage the liver (similar to comfrey). That 'ban' seems to have died down and you can usually find it in bulk in your local health food store. My own teacher in the subject believed that chapparral is a VERY powerful cleansing agent and must be treated with care and respect - just like antibiotics, steriods, or even echinacea, you don't go slamming it into your system every day...you cycle the use of it.

I've done this 21 day detox twice to no noticable effect, but I am already a fairly healthy person who practices a lot of chi kung, kettlebell lifting and swimming. I normally don't get sick or hurt. I imagine everyone's mileage may vary on this.

[Niko]

Thanks James,

I see that I need to pick up Lalitha Thompson's book. Some of what you state appeals to me. Perhaps there may not be an actual physical cleansing but the ritual of it and the thought that "perhaps I amy be doing some good" is leading me to believe I may give it a whirl.

With respect,

[Chuck Sproule]

Niko, if you are really interested in how to cleanse your body, I have found a very interesting and brilliant approach from a therepist named David Webster. His site is http://www.thewholewhey.com.

I have found it to have been one of the most beneficial things that I have ever done.

All my best

Chuck Sproule CST Gamma Cadre
Warrior Diet

[BullOnTheBeach]

Niko,

If you are interested in just collecting knowledge right now, I would suggest looking into Dr Bernard Jensen's books. He has a sanitarium in Calabasas, CA. The guy is 80 and has been treating people with chronic illnesses for years. He is certainly a man to take seriously in terms of detoxing for treating illnesses and other ailments.

Another brilliant mind in the spectrum of detoxification is Dr Richard Schultze.

You can "google" both of them and get their respective web sites.


Travis

[Niko]

Thank You Travis for the book information. So many books, so little time *sigh*

Thanks to you also Chuck. You state that Webtser's approach is the most beneficial thing you have ever done. Can you kindly explain what you experienced?

With Repect,

[Chuck Sproule]

Hi Nick,

Absolutely. Please keep in mind that we are in an area that most people DON"T talk much about yet concerns almost EVERYONE.

When I read David's book, there was something that I found innately "right" about what he said. He stated that we are not designed to has regular gas, bloating, movements that smell and are of bad color and consistency. He also points out how dangerous constipation is.

He then explains the previous works on this subject by two former Nobel Prize winners and he has been practicing a certain technique to alleviate all of those symptoms and return the colon to a healthy, natural balance.

It involves neutralizing all of the bad bacteria with a series (2-3) of whey enemas. This re-acidifies the colon to it's natural state and eliminates alot of debris and putrified matter. After these few enemas (which can be done in the privacy of your own home) you re-populate the colon with good bacteria in one session and you're good to go.

The amazing thing is, is that you feel a difference right away and ALL of those bad symptoms are GONE! You regain control of your health and can choose to help yourself anytime you need. i.e periods of high stress, taking antibiotics etc.

It sounds pretty simple, and it is, and it worked SO WELL for me that I want to share my experience with you.

I realized that it had been YEARS since I had a movement that was the right color, consistency, with no smell and was regular everyday. This is why I encouraged you to get his book. I had the honor and privilege of being guided by the author himself during my journey with it. This is why I feel confident in recommending the same to you.

If I can help you further, just shoot me a post or an e-mail. chuck@warriordiet.com

I hope this helps Nick.

Sincerely,

Chuck Sproule CST

[tgerstmar2]

The idea of cleansing and toxins is one of the more folkloric (is that a word?) aspects of alternative medicine. Some practitioners, as has been mentioned the natural hygeineists and their modern day descendents get very hung up on this idea of toxins. Toxins everyone, toxins, toxins, toxins. The more scientifically minded in the alternative community as well as the mainstream get very exasperated with this. What toxins? What are these mysterious toxins that are being talked about? Unfortunately they NH's usually don't have much of an answer for this beyond 'toxins'. So conventional doc's usually dismiss this idea totally.

However, the truth usually being somewhere in the middle, I believe we do have an issue with toxic substances in our modern day society. Our air, water, food, soil, and general surroundings are permeated with a host of toxic substances (ranging from seemingly harmless to downright nasty). And to claim that this load of chemicals has absolutely no effect on the body seems to me to be sticking one's head in the sand. Take for instance the report that came out recently that sperm counts have declined again significantly in the past few decades. While this certainly is multi-factorial, xenoestrogens certainly play at least some part in this (and many pesticides are xenoestrogenic). Another quick example is I had a professor who, a number of years ago, went out to the freeways in LA and took clippings of the bushes in the center of the freeways. When he tested them for lead they red-lined the instruments. We've switched to unleaded gasoline, but lead is persistent meaning it sticks around, and is a bona fide no doubt about it central nervous system POISON. So there is no doubt that there are truly toxins out there.

Also one must consider the toxins we deliberately put in our bodies. Things like trans fats. Then there are things that are a little more questionable like artificial dyes, aspartame and sucralose (when I spoke with a professor of chemistry he was HORRIFIED at the idea that a product would be marketed that contained covalent chlorine; not a good idea), plasticizers, stabilizers, preservatives, etc. As was mentioned the bowel fauna are easily destroyed and more and more evidence is emerging about how this hurts one's health.

Now there's no doubt that our body is pretty good and detoxifying itself. That's one of the things the liver does. However we do have to recognize that the liver does have a limit. And that completely new molecules that the human species has never run into before may really through the liver for a loop. That's why I'm cautious about synthetic products. Not because synthetic is necessarily bad, but it may be. There are tons of cleanses out there, the most popular being bowel cleanses which generally run around a variation of fasting and taking psyllium seed and bentonite clay. Then administering enemas or colonics. Some nasty stuff does come out, I've seen this. The real question however is, is this the impacted matter that the NH's are always going on about or is this the psyllium/bentonite mixture coming out in ropes. Now gastroenterolgists who go in with the scopes say that when they look at peoples large intestines that there is none of this impacted matter that NH's are always talking about. To me, assuming they're not lying, never seen the inside of an 'average person's' colon, :shock: this is pretty damning evidence for the impacted matter theory.

I know I'm rambling here, so I'll cut it short and just give a few recommendations. One, reduce your toxic load. We want to get it to a level that the body can handle. So, STOP EATING CRAP. You know what it is, don't eat it. And don't go roll around in toxic waste. Be sensible. Two, fortify your body. Take generous amounts of all the vitamins and minerals to give your body all the materials it needs to do it's job. Also I agree with the earlier recommendation to supplement with a probiotic to get the intestinal flora going well.

Sorry if this was a bit long, thanks for reading.

[Niko]

Tim,

I value any and all advice. Thanks for taking the time to respond and offering your view. Much appreciated.

With respect,