Detoxification - Energized for Life
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Energized For Life
Eliminating Toxins Can Revitalize Your Body and Add to Your Sense of Well-Being.
A year ago, 66-year-old Jack Adams wasn't feeling well. Adams, who works on the San Juan Islands ferries in northwestern Washington state, watched energetic passengers take off on trips while he secretly wondered if he was dying. He slept 10 hours a night and woke up tired. His joints and muscles ached, and at the end of the day he could hardly walk the two blocks from the ferry landing to his car. "I felt like I was wilting away," he says. Standard medical tests, however, failed to turn up anything.
Adams was a prime candidate for a detoxification program, according to Dr. Gary Bachman, a physician in Anacortes, Washington. Detoxification, also called hepatic cleansing, is the process of eating a diet designed to revive a sluggish liver in order to rid the body of toxins. Though protocols vary, the process generally involves eliminating foods that may stress the system and providing nutritional support for the liver and digestive organs.
A detox program can bring relief not only for the kind of chronic fatigue Adams experienced, but also for a number of other seemingly unrelated ills. When the body is stressed by an overload of toxins, the person's weakest organs or systems tend to be affected. When toxins are eliminated, organs and systems can function better, giving the person more energy and a greater sense of well-being. Since undergoing a detox program last September, Adams feels like a different person. His body doesn't ache. He sleeps seven hours a night and wakes up refreshed. "The most interesting thing to me is the amount of energy I now have," says Adams. "I feel 15 years younger."
A Natural Process
According to Dr. Bachman, a detoxification program is not something exotic or strange; it merely strengthens the body's natural tendency to cleanse itself. "The truth is everybody on this planet is detoxifying every second of their lives," he says. "It's a natural process."
Our bodies are equipped to deal with moderate amounts of toxins, deriving either from the environment or from our inner ecology. Unfortunately, one of the by-products of our industrial society is pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 1997, 1.3 billion pounds of emissions were pumped into the air and 218 million pounds of industrial byproducts were emptied into surface waters. From there pollutants get into our food, and eventually into our bodies. Toxins are also created internally. Our cells produce some naturally as the waste product of metabolism. In addition, bacteria, yeasts and parasites in the body create more waste that we must eliminate.
The good news is that the body normally does an efficient jog of eliminating harmful substances. "Our bodies have this incredible ability and redundancy to get rid of these things," says Dr. Bachman. There are many ways for toxins to exit the body: in the urine, stool and mucus; in the sweat that passes through our skin; and even in the breath we exhale. All these escape routes, however, depend upon the liver, the central clearing house for toxins. In the liver, toxins undergo a two-stage process, know as bio-transformation. In the first stage the liver converts toxins into intermediary products that can be quite toxic or even carcinogenic. In stage two, however, these products are converted into less toxic water-soluble compounds that are dumped into "exit chutes" and pass harmlessly out of the body.
The liver knows its business and usually does an exemplary job. Problems develop when the system becomes overloaded. We're all too aware of how the liver can break down as result of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. By the same token, heavy loads of environmental and internally produced toxins can also tax the liver. Detoxification programs aim to improve the liver's functioning.
Who Benefits
Could you benefit from detox? There's no easy answer, because toxicity does not manifest itself the same way in all people. "It's unreasonable to think in terms of specific symptoms," says Dr. Stephen Markus, a medical doctor practicing in Bellevue, Washington, "because bodies are very different in how they present for the same kind of problem."
Certain chronic conditions or symptoms, however, may be associated with a toxin buildup. An article by naturopath Mark Percival, published in the journal Clinical Nutrition Insights in 1998, lists these symptoms: headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, irritability, depression, mental confusion, gastrointestinal tract irregularities, cardiovascular irregularities, flu-like symptoms and allergic reactions including stuffy or runny nose, sneezing and coughing.
It's hard to imagine anybody who hasn't had one of these symptoms at one time or another. To sort out who does and doesn't need a detox, some health-care practitioners use a "toxicity screening questionnaire." (Click here to access this questionnaire.) The questionnaire asks patients to rate the frequency and severity of about 70 symptoms. Some physicians also run liver panels, tests that determine how quickly the liver processes substances such as caffeine.
Dr. Bachman used to reserve detox for his sickest patients, but he has come to believe that nearly anyone who is not feeling up to par would benefit from the program. "Because many things can cause or influence toxicity," he says, "I find it's one of the best things to do at the start of a natural treatment. It clears the way for other, more effective treatments for the root cause of the patient's problem."
How to Detox
The traditional method for detoxifying the body used to be a juice or water fast. Many practitioners today, however, believe that fasts are not an effective detox. The liver's work requires energy. The body needs protein, carbohydrates and fats, as well as vitamins and minerals, to supply this energy. Without enough fuel, the liver slows down and becomes inefficient. What's more, it is important to eat foods or supplements that contain antioxidants. Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and beta-carotene scavenge free radicals and keep them from damaging cells. The first stage of detoxification produces free radicals, so it's vital that antioxidants be present to disarm them.
Popular magazines offer a variety of detoxification diets, and health food stores stock detox teas, herbs and supplements. However, not all of these programs are based on a scientific understanding of how the liver works. Scientifically based detoxification programs aim to improve a less than optimally functioning liver.
Detoxification programs are usually done in stages. Dr. Bachman begins by putting patients on a "modified elimination diet," which excludes not only sugar, caffeine and alcohol, but saturated fats, dairy products, red meat, foods containing gluten and other "trigger" foods that may stress the digestive system or the liver. At the same time, the patients take easily digested supplements to provide nutrients specific to liver function. After several weeks of this regimen, patients stop eating for five days or a week; however, they don't go hungry. During this time, they take a supplement drink that provides all necessary nutrients. The purpose is to let the digestive organs rest while still nourishing the liver. Finally, detoxing patients ease out of the program with another week on the elimination diet, followed by the gradual reintroduction of other foods.
The hardest thing for 48-year-old Carol Ballard, an Anacortes homemaker who went through Bachman's detox program, was giving up iced tea. "It was August, and it was time to have iced tea and sit in the garden," she says. Ballard told Dr. Bachman about her extreme fatigue and poor memory. "I was in terrible decline," she says. "Just getting laundry done and meals on the table was all I could do." She was sleeping 12 to 14 hours a day, and her medical doctor suggested she might have narcolepsy. Ballard was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and had been taking medication for that problem, but it didn't seem to help. She now believes that she simply was not absorbing her medication.
Through detox and other naturopathic interventions, Ballard's energy level has increased, allowing her to commute several times a week to a college 100 miles from her home. In addition, as an unexpected side effect of the detox, she lost 40 pounds. "I'm not eating as many sweets, she says. "My craving went away, and I lost the weight without dieting."
The details of a detoxification program may vary, though the principles remain the same. "Fundamentally, I look at it in terms of stages of getting the body cleansed," says Dr. Markus, who begins by asking his patients to give up sugar, alcohol and caffeine. Many people have dependencies on one or more of these substances, he says, and those need to be handled before proceeding. "Eliminating these three evils of modern civilization will get you a long way," he says.
Next, Dr. Markus makes sure the patient's bowels are eliminating waste and that the digestive system is working properly. After this preparation, which may take several weeks to several months, the actual detox begins. The heart of it is a juicing program. Patients drink a combination of carrot, celery and beet juice several times a day along with a powdered nutrient supplement that contains protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals to support liver function. During the juicing, patients eat mostly vegetables, with a little added rice and tofu for supper. Dr. Markus also uses fiber supplements to encourage elimination. The juicing lasts between 10 days and eight weeks, depending on the patient's enthusiasm.
Get Results
Dr. Markus has successfully detoxed not only patients complaining of fatigue and general malaise, but also those with documented liver problems. Mary Smith (not her real name) broke her pelvis in an automobile accident 30 years ago. She had a blood transfusion at that time and was infected with hepatitis C. Smith had regular liver screenings, but the hepatitis remained dormant until a liver biopsy in 1998 revealed liver inflammation. Markus put her a on juicing program for four weeks and encouraged her to walk three miles a day. Giving up coffee led to a severe headache, but after that she felt well and enjoyed the detox. Even better, her liver functions returned to normal. Dr. Markus says that while detox would probably not work on severe liver inflammation, it may be quite helpful in cases of mild to moderate inflammation.
Biochemist Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., published a small controlled study in the Journal of Applied Nutrition in 1992 that found similar results. His experiment randomly assigned 25 people to a detox diet and 12 to a placebo diet. The placebo was a healthful diet, but not one designed for liver support. Bland ran liver-function panels on the 37 patients both before and after the diet. Although both groups improved somewhat, the detox diet group showed a significantly greater improvement. Those on the detox diet also reported improvement in symptoms such as "tired eyes, pain behind the eyes, headaches, gastrointestinal disturbances, morning pain and stiffness and chronic respiratory complaints."
Most patients do not experience many negative symptoms when they undergo a controlled detoxification program under the care of a physician. "There are usually some bumps in the first week, but those pass pretty quickly," Dr. Markus says. The bumps might include headaches and a general feeling of malaise. "I think it's just the release of toxins," Markus says. "You're inducing this toxin release; the body has to clear all the waste." Reactions to the diet are quite individual, but after a week or so into the program, many people begin to feel more energetic and alert.
How is life after detoxification? For both Carol Ballard and Jack Adams, it has led to permanent dietary changes. Adams, who used to drink soda pop and often ate fast food for supper, now tends to eat fruits and vegetables as well as some chicken and rice. "I'm a lot more conscious of what I eat." he says. "I don't want to feel the way I felt before." Ballard is avoiding wheat because she feels better when she doesn't eat it.
A deeper knowledge of how your body reacts to specific foods is one of the less obvious benefits of doing a detox. "What greater gift could you have that to learn how your individual body functions in a healthy state?" Dr. Bachman says.
Detoxing, however, in neither a universal panacea nor a happy-ever-after ending. "There's a tendency to drift back to old ways," says Dr. Markus. Both doctors teach their patients how to detox on their own and encourage them to continue to do it on and off for the rest of their lives. They also put themselves through detoxification two or three times a year. "I enjoy it," says Dr. Markus, "and I continue to be amazed at how much better I feel."
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Article from Healthy Answers, Spring 2000, pg 10-14.
Carolyn Latteier is a health and nutrition writer and the author of Breasts:
The Woman's Perspective on an American Obsession (Haworth Press, 1998).
Click here => FREE Toxicity Screening Questionnaire
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