I recently saw an article being shared through social media that spread like wildfire. It was a comment piece about “detox” diets and it claims you can’t “detox” your body; it suggested that the word “detox” was a marketing word created by corporations and individuals to make money from an unsuspecting public. The images that accompanied the article were all about fresh fruit and vegetable juice. The premise of the article was that you can only “detox” when close to life’s edge whilst on hard drugs. I think this completely misses the point and is very close-minded.

I want to also say that I am no medical doctor, but I do have a keen interest in this area of health and wellbeing.

The article suggests that there are no “toxins” that the body accumulates and cannot get rid of on its own; this sounds pretty reasonable, the grease from fast food can be cleaned up by your body’s incredible system, villi in lungs can clean up some of the effects of smoking too (given enough time and resource).

The criticism from this article is towards companies marketing “detox” products, diets and other lifestyles; suggesting that no product can actually do this.

My question is, if our bodies are so good, then why are 70% of diseases preventable with lifestyle choices? (Healthy People 2000, DHHS, 1991, #91-50213, National Center For Health Statistics, DHHS, 1992, # 92-1232)

Surely you can’t just pump your body full of fast food everyday forever in the knowledge that it will clean itself up? You need to let your body recover. You need to distract yourself from the unhealthy stuff (processed fast foods, smoking etc…) by focussing on things that will not hinder or prevent your body from doing this “clean-up” itself. This is what the “detox” word means to me – eating and drinking “cleanly”; not just to give your body more resources to clean itself up, but also to give it a break from the bad stuff.

…but maybe I’m just a sucker for the “detox” products myself and so want to defend my personal perspective…