A New View of Detoxification

Why do the effects of a cleanse never last? We may feel better, especially while doing it, but then when we stop our cleanse and return to our “normal” life, our symptoms return over time. This is because we have forgotten just how toxicity accumulates and how our bodies get rid of it.

By now everyone agrees that we are being exposed to toxins. But not everyone agrees on exactly how. First it is important to realize that every living thing has a metabolism and that metabolism is generated through chemical reactions just like the ones you learned about in science class. What you may not remember is that there are by-products from every reaction which can be as innocuous as water or as dangerous as an explosion. So now think of all the living things on the planet, in your environment and in your home. Each of them is metabolizing and creating by-products from reactions which then have to be released (and how kids love to release their by-products!). But what if they can’t be released? What happens then? Just like when you need to go to the bathroom but you’re not in a place where you can, you hold it and eventually the urge goes away. That is what happens when by-products become toxins which have to be held or stored until there is an opportunity to let them go.

But there are some problems with this. First of all, the denser it becomes, the more crystalized and the more attached to the tissue where it is ... think of gum on pavement in the summer. The pavement is in the sun, but our body tissues have our body heat along with water and muscle contraction. All of that changes the density and the consistency of a stored toxin so that it no longer is just a particle or a bit of liquid, now it’s something different ... something your normal detoxification process isn’t equipped to handle and because of this your body will isolate it and ignore it. For instance breast cyst biopsies have frequently shown that even plastic can end up in breast tissue.

Now let’s add to the mix man-made chemicals that are then used in products, foods and our environment. You may not think you are actually ingesting metal or plastic but you may not be able to avoid it and you may not be able to eliminate them from your body. Corporate testing for safety is generally done as an instantaneous topical application. In other words, put a little on some living tissue, have a cup of coffee and see if there is a reaction. True toxicity often occurs as an accumulation over time. A little may not hurt us, but a little every day for a year might. It’s like my neighbor with his leaf blower. I don’t mind it this afternoon, or maybe even yesterday afternoon, but then when it gets to be a daily thing, I start losing my mind.

The truth is none of us can completely avoid toxins and you might go crazy if you tried. But there is a way which is to pick and choose your battles with toxins, try to reduce the volume and frequency of exposure and especially try to avoid man-made chemicals as much as possible. But we’re not just talking about not using Round-Up, we are talking about realizing what we cannot avoid. Pharmaceutical drugs, which almost everyone has in their medicine cabinet, are man-made chemicals and all with some degree of preservatives, fillers, even heavy metals. Many of the products we buy come from countries that do not have strict controls over hazardous chemicals or healthy production environments (even in the US).

So how many chemicals and toxins are you unaware of? How many things are you truly being exposed to without even realizing it? Right here in central Massachusetts one family realized this only after a wonderful husband and father developed prostate cancer from his standard protective firefighter suit that he wore every day at work. Both the coat and pants of many of our nation’s firefighters actually contain very large amounts of PFAS industrial compounds, linked to numerous cancer cases.

All of this adds up to an inescapable conclusion ... our bodies need to clear toxins to minimize our risk and to allow us to live in society. But how does this work? Does it happen on its own or do we need to help it along? The answer is that your body has pathways of elimination which need to be fully open and functional in order to permit detoxification to take place. This is where the mistake is made. You can’t just simply follow a detoxification or “cleanse” without even knowing if your body can eliminate the toxins you are attempting to release.

Your body’s pathways through which toxins are excreted contain specialized cells that can release chemicals to neutralize toxins as they move towards your body’s points of exit. The liver is one of the powerhouses of the body because it can neutralize hundreds of toxins using various chemical reactions before allowing it to leave through your digestive tract. Other important pathways are the lungs and sinuses, the kidneys, the lymphatic system, the skin and even the reproductive system.

These neutralizing processes are important to ensure that the toxins don’t damage healthy tissue on their way out of the body. But returning to the liver for a moment, what if you are chronically constipated? What happens to all those toxins the liver is emptying into that pathway? Plus the liver relies on bile liquid to detoxify, but what if your gallbladder is not up to snuff? The kidneys are the pathway for acidic compounds, pulling them from the blood constantly but if they are not filtering as efficiently as needed, those compounds can then end up in the liver and can actually damage the liver cells. Each pathway has its job to do, its area of the body to service and its type of toxin to handle.

So now let’s circle back around to Round Up. Along with hundreds of other products since 1970, the active ingredient glyphosate is an example of a new group of toxins that are devastating our bodies and our minds. It is a Neurotoxin, named for its negative effect on the nervous system, the brain and the nerves throughout our spinal cord. Since these are man-made, how does the body clear these? These are chemicals that did not exist in nature and particularly pervasive because of the length of time they can exist in nature. Our bodies not only have difficulty removing these chemicals without sustaining damage to tissue along the way, but since these infiltrate the central nervous system, we have a very limited detoxification capability within this delicate system and so great difficulty in removing them.

One method we do have is our lymphatic system and the physical action of lymph. The lymphatic system is one of the most important pathways of elimination, clearing toxins and debris from cells throughout the body, but especially in areas where the tissues are highly alkaline such as the nervous system. So supporting your lymphatic system can make all the difference to cells not just within the nervous system, but throughout the entire body because blood remains within the circulatory system while it is actually lymph that seeps out into the area between cells and tissues carrying essential elements for cells while also providing a fluid pathway to remove waste material.

Now most detoxification programs do not even address the lymphatic system. In fact, looking at the majority of detoxification programs, the focus is the intestinal system and occasionally the liver. But the lymphatic pathway, the kidney pathway, the respiratory pathway, the skin and the reproductive system. These pathways are even more important than the digestive system as pathways for elimination of toxins because they are working with much more difficult and hazardous chemicals. Let’s look at a little-known aspect of the reproductive system. Menstrual blood has been shown in clinical studies to contain substantial amounts of PFAs (perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances) . PFAs are known as “forever chemicals” because they are extremely persistent in our environment and in our bodies. Studies have shown that PFAs are very difficult for the body to remove and are much higher in men, post-menopausal women and women on birth control that prevents menstrual flow, than in women that have monthly menstrual periods.

Your kidneys also are critical pathways of elimination for toxins. In fact your kidneys are the main control factor of pH (acid/alkaline balance) in the body. They do this by filtering and eliminating acidic compounds from the blood such as uric acid. This is why gout is a kidney condition. Many of our bodies’ metabolic by-products are acidic compounds making kidney filtration critical for life.

Now back to detoxification. As you can see, you have a number of built-in systems that can neutralize and eliminate toxins in the body. The idea of detoxification with a “cleanse” is a great idea as long as it is done only as a periodic support to your body’s natural processes and also addresses all your elimination pathways, not just one or two. Doing continual cleansing through herbs or therapies not only creates more problems than it solves, it also can damage or deplete your body’s normal detoxification process.

This is because in order to clear a toxin you first have to dislodge it from the tissue where it is stored, then promote its movement through one of your pathways of elimination out of the body. But in many people their key pathways may already be overloaded or deficient making them incapable of handling the burden that sudden detoxification can add. When in storage many toxins do affect the local tissue around them, but once mobilized they can damage many other tissues and even resettle in another healthy tissue area.

The conclusion is that in order to promote detoxification you first have to support, open and improve your body’s natural pathways of elimination because you don’t know what toxins your body will eliminate during any cleansing process. Secondly you have to detoxify in a logical sequence of toxic movement, for instance you can’t clear from the blood before making sure the liver and kidneys are able to handle the process since these are the primary pathways of filtration and elimination of toxins from the blood. You don’t want to promote the liver to do this if your digestive tract is severely compromised from chronic constipation, an injured microbiome or a poor condition of the gut-associated lymphoid tissue.

If you want to really detoxify, support your body’s systems and create a strong, healthy body condition. Identify your body’s inherent weaknesses so that these can be supported regularly while limiting any additional “cleansing” to once or twice annually. True detoxification includes vigilance regarding exposures and care for all your body’s pathways of elimination. Then the effects of limited periods of cleansing therapies and medicinals to aid the body in eliminating any back-up or burden to these pathways becomes more effective and more sustainable. You can even include detoxification as a special part of the more historic rituals of fasting such as Lent, Ramadan, Hindu vrata and Yom Kippur. Creating a sacredness around your body health is the new view of detoxification.

Karen Clickner, ND is the owner of Conscious Body Natural Medicine, Inc., in Westborough, MA. For more information visit www.consciousbodynatmed.com