Why I Say No to Detox

One of the more popular things I regularly encounter on social media, particularly on health and fitness accounts in December and January, is something called “detox” or “cleansing”. Everybody’s doing it! There’s a long and growing list of maladies that “detox” can supposedly treat: obesity, fatigue, brain fog, skin problems, acne, arthritis, allergies, anxiety — seemingly everything except a missing limb.

Detoxing is so popular and common I almost feel left out as a non-believer(a heretic in some circles) in detox, though luckily this feeling lasts for all of 2 seconds. Detox can take many forms — while often a pricey supplement, it can also be a week, or month, or 6 month long juice regimen — the length of their detoxing sentence often reflects how “bad” they’ve been. Sometimes it can be a tea and is called a “teatox”. In its most extreme form, a person’s entire diet is a long-term detox, usually a 100% vegan whole-food raw-food diet — basically solitary confinement for those who have been really bad.

So what do I make of all this? It’s 100% nonsense. The health claims made for these products or juicing regimens are evidence-free and very vague; the “toxins” in question are almost never identified, and the users of these products are not tested before and after for these elusive “toxins”. This is nothing but pseudoscience.

Doctors and legitimate health professionals do not recommend a detox unless someone has ingested a significant amount of heavy metals or poison, and they use chelation drugs to help remove the toxins, not green juice or an MLM scam product. There is no evidence that this type of detox can help you with any medical problem.

Bottom line: Detoxing is unlikely to help you lose weight or improve energy. However, this doesn’t mean drinking fresh juices or smoothies is a bad thing. You can get a nutrition boost from some green juices if you don’t ordinarily eat that well(this may explain why many people feel better after a detox or cleanse). If juice is your preferred method of consuming your fruits and vegetables, then go for it. Detox supplements on the other hand are useless and potentially dangerous.

Just don’t be mislead into believing these juices are helping you “detox” anything. Toxins are a natural byproduct of living and metabolism and you already have an effective way to deal with this: your liver and kidneys. If you have a functioning liver and kidneys, your body is detoxing for you 24/7. If you believe you’ve been poisoned, consult a doctor.

Related articles:

Harvard Women’s Health Watch: The dubious practice of detox

Science-Based Medicine: Detox Scams are Worthless and Potentially Dangerous

The Vegan RD: A Vegan Diet is Not a “Detox” Plan

Scibabe: The Weekly Woo: Toxins. Toxins Everywhere

Ars Technica: Herbal remedy ingredients: lead, mercury, and/or arsenic

Mel Magazine: Yes, Of Course, Detoxing Is a Scam

Radioactive Brazil nuts and the naturalistic fallacy

Brazil nuts. Source: Wikipedia

Believe it or not, just about all the food we consume has tiny amounts of radioactivity. Some foods contain more than others. While a small amount of it is due to nuclear fallout and industrial pollution, most of it is naturally occurring, since radioactivity is a natural phenomenon.

Brazil nuts by far are the most radioactive of all food. According to Wikipedia:

Brazil nuts contain small amounts of radium. Although the amount of radium, a radioactive element, is very small, about 1–7 pCi/g (40–260 Bq/kg), and most of it is not retained by the body, this is 1,000 times higher than in other foods. According to Oak Ridge Associated Universities, this is not because of elevated levels of radium in the soil, but due to “the very extensive root system of the tree”.

Even though Brazil nuts are a lot more radioactive compared to most foods(due to its deep, extensive roots), this doesn’t mean we should avoid them. The amount is way too small to have any permanent effects. This radioactivity in Brazil nuts is naturally occurring, not due to nuclear fallout.

Brazil nuts are an excellent source of selenium, an important mineral that some preliminary studies suggest may help prevent cancer, among other things. Fortunately, selenium deficiency is rare in most developed countries.

I think this also goes to show that eating “natural” doesn’t mean you are somehow avoiding very toxic substances. Radiation is perfectly natural, and so are lead and mercury, which are also present in trace amounts in the food and water supply. Luckily, these toxins tend to get quickly removed by the body.

While eating healthy usually means eating more “natural”(less processed foods, more whole/unprocessed foods), many health-nuts take this to extremes and buy into some form of the “naturalistic fallacy” to justify their dietary habits. This is especially true of people who follow a rawfood vegan diet, and also the followers of “paleo” diets.

At its most basic, the naturalistic fallacy means equating “natural” with being inherently good, safe, or desirable, while something “unnatural” is seen as inherently bad, or undesirable. Ask a rawfoodist to explain why they believe their diet is so much better compared to the way most people eat, and their answer ultimately boils down to: “It is more natural”. Cooked food is “unnatural”(what other animals cook their food?), so cooked food is bad; food in its raw, “natural” state is good.

This doesn’t mean there is no truth to the arguments in favor of eating raw. For instance, it is true that many nutrients are destroyed while cooking at high temperatures. On the other hand, many other nutrients are less bio-available in raw foods. It must also be noted that cooking helps destroy many anti-nutrients like oxalates or phytates that can interfere with the absorption of important minerals like iron(this is why raw spinach with its high oxalate content is a poor source of calcium and iron). This explains why you can’t eat beans raw(of course you can try to do it, but I wouldn’t advise it). While some foods like salad greens, nuts, and fruit are best eaten raw, many other foods, like legumes and grains have to be cooked.

While we should minimize our consumption of processed foods, and of both natural and synthetic toxins, we shouldn’t go overboard and panic if we discover something contains trace amounts of a toxic substance. Similarly, we shouldn’t demonize something just because it may contain something that is “unnatural”. Dogmatic black and white thinking is not helpful when it comes to healthy eating.

References:

Radioactivity in nature