Is a Detox Right for You? ANSWER: YES!
Detox? What is it? Why is everyone talking about doing detoxes? How can detox benefit me? Is it safe? These and many other questions will be answered in this article. This article will discuss the reasons a detoxification program is the ultimate health strategy and why you should definitely be considering one (and maybe even more) this quarter.
Twelve years before my first day of graduate school an article was written titled, Clinical evaluation of the poisoned patient and toxic syndromes. The interesting part of this article, and even more relevant today, were the top seven symptoms of chronic poisoning;
Fatigue
Sleep Disturbances
Intestinal Distress
Headaches
Allergy Symptoms
Confusion
Anxiety
Since graduating and being in clinical practice for a number of years, i've come to realize that this list of symptoms pretty often parallels the top seven reasons why people make an appointment to come into my office. Doesn’t this list of symptoms sound very familiar?
Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and disease, insomnia, waking up many times during the night, migraines, neck pain, allergies (seasonal or food related), forgetfulness, Alzheimer’s disease, memory loss, stress, adrenal fatigue, depression, diabetes, cancer, acid reflux, gas, bloating...the list is endless. These conditions and symptoms can all be linked to toxins in some way, either directly or indirectly. Many 21st century health problems and their symptoms arise from chronic, and sometimes over many years, poisoning. Should this be a surprise? The answer is sadly no.
Over 54,000,000 registered chemicals are in existence. Yes, that number is correct. Over 54,000,000 chemicals. The scary part is that 78% of them have never been tested for toxicity. Some estimate only 900 (out of over 54,000,000) have been tested for carcinogenic properties, or cancer causing properties. Very scary.
The good news is that nutrition researchers have found and documented the ways in which the body detoxifies certain toxins (toxins are also known as xenobiotics). Even though many toxins have not been tested, the ones that have, have allow us to trace respective detoxification pathways needed to support the flushing out of these harmful chemicals. The human body detoxifies many toxins through the same pathways. We know if these pathways are supported we are increasing detoxification and in some cases decreasing cancer and disease risk.
Bluestone Health Group (the clinic I founded) was created on the platform that detoxification should be a staple in all nutritional plans and programs. The reason being, that every single person is toxic. The EPA estimates that humans have over 700 toxic chemicals in their blood stream at any given time. The alarming part of this study and others like it was 100% of people were toxic. Toxins have been found to cause and be linked to almost every disease we are experiencing today, from diabetes to cancer, Alzheimer’s to muscle pain, and the list goes on and on.
If all of this isn’t reason enough to detox, another feature of Bluestone Health Group’s detoxification programs are the rebuilding phases. Detoxification is the act of removing toxins from the body, and yes the programs do that very well, but the other important part of the detox program is that it increases organ reserves. Increasing organ reserves helps natural detox to continue at a higher functioning and more organized metabolic level post detox.
In a ground breaking article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1980, Dr. James Fries wrote about organ reserve and what he called "the rectangularization" of the survival curve. When any organ runs out of its back up stores it shuts down and dies. Increasing organ reserve during youth and middle age through detox and nutrition would decrease time spent on health care at the end of life. Rectangularization to Dr. James meant that instead of a steady decline in health (starting at middle age from depleted organ reserves) eventually leading to mortality, people's health could decline just 2-3 years before mortality, if they could keep their organ reserves fully replenished and not depleted. This would create a rectangularization of the survival curve, health would stay high and consistent until 2-3 years before death and then drop steeply at the end of life. For most, this is preferred when compared to the bell curve we currently see, health declining slowly starting from middle age until the end of life. Instead of 10-20+ years of declining health, with the rectangular curve, we have 1-2 years, if that. James Fries theory of organ reserve has since been proven, and is a great way of explaining the differences in how people age.
Bluestone’s 7(21) Detox is specifically designed in increase organ reserve, while also detoxifying the substances contributing to 21st Century chronic illness. The detox program builds up the body by reestablishing balance (or beginning to). It accomplishes this by providing the body with nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes to carry out detoxification and ultimately increase organ reserve. It gives the body what it needs to build up the reserve, all while facilitating the proper and healthy elimination of toxic substances.
Elizabeth Blackburn, 2009 Nobel Prize Winner for the discovery of telomerase, has led the way with research into telomers. Telomers are the tips of chromosomes, with each cell division they get shorter, until reaching a critical size when the cell can no longer function properly. It is this time when the cell enters scenescence, or programmed cell death. Hundreds of studies have shown that health strategies, like supplements, vitamins, stress reducing strategies, healthy living, exercise, and meditation all increase the length of telomeres. We can extraplotate from this that increased telomere length is a way of testing organ reserve. Increasing telomere length is increasing cellular reserve, thus organ reserve.
In conclusion, Bluestone Health Group’s focus on detox is revolutionary, and is 21st century disease prevention. It helps eliminate and reduce toxic exposure, while building up the body’s own reserves. The time to detox is NOW. To be your absolute best you must be supporting detox, because as we learned above, YOU ARE TOXIC.
References:
Clin Chem. 1996 Aug;42(8 Pt 2):1350-5. h
http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/243_toxicignorance_0.pdf Onstot J, Ayling R, Stanley J.
Characterization of HRGC/MS Unidentified Peaks from the Analysis of Human Adipose Tissue. Volume 1: Technical Approach. Washington, DC: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Toxic Substances (560/6-87-002a), 1987. N Engl J Med. 1980 Jul 17;303(3):130-5.