Toxins can damage your organs, sap your bones of calcium, increase your body’s inflammation, and reduce your ability to fight off cancer.
Meanwhile, detox diets—from juice fasts and intestinal cleanses and strict elimination diets—promise to rid the body of toxins to help you drop pounds, reduce your risk of disease, increase your energy, and give you better skin.
“But all experts in modern medicine know this is a scientifically ridiculous concept,” says Brian Quebbemann, M.D., a bariatric surgeon with the Chapman Medical Center in California and president of The N.E.W. Program in Newport Beach.
“The human body itself is a powerful detoxification machine. It uses numerous sophisticated physiologic systems to prevent toxic substances from hurting our bodies,” Quebbemann says. Before toxins such as alcohol, excessive caffeine, phosphoric acid from carbonated beverages, vegetable oil, or even metals reach your blood stream, intestinal enzymes modify many of them to detoxify them or prevent their absorption. And if they do enter your blood stream, your liver and kidneys can pretty much take care of them.
Still, it’s worth mentioning the liver can sometimes fall short—as is the case in people with liver disease—and toxic substances can accumulate in the liver and other organs. But there’s no evidence that a detox diet can do anything to prevent or treat liver disease.
More Harm Than Good?
When you get down to it, a detox diet or cleanse is really just a short-term fast. But every detox requires fasting from something different.
“If you’re cutting out things like alcohol and sugar, you’ll absolutely notice health benefits like improved cognitive function and more energy. Weight loss will also likely be a welcome side effect, as you’ll be cutting out a lot of empty calories,” says nutritionist Rania Batayneh, M.P.H., and owner of Essential Nutrition for You nutrition consulting firm. “However, if you’re cutting out things like meat, dairy, and grains, and restricting your calorie intake to an extremely low number, your health may actually take a hit. Many detox diets cut out foods that actually support organ function. These detoxes are incredibly low in calories and protein, which provide enough nutrients and the amino acids to keep your organs functioning properly.”
The result: You feel like crap for a week and, in the long term, you gain weight.
Detox The Right Way
You don’t need to drastically restrict your caloric intake or cut out healthy foods to jumpstart your diet—or reduce your body’s toxins.
Just develop a long-term eating pattern that eshews added sugars, processed carbohydrates, as well as packaged and fast foods. Basically, eat healthy. “Think of it as a permanent dietary ‘cleanse’ and stop pretending that an intermittent, radical regimen can reverse the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle,” Quebbemann says. “The simple fact is it can’t.”