Why Detoxing the Body Can Do you More Harm Than Good

Your body is smart. Like really smart.

It detoxifies daily, without any help from you! That’s right, your body already has a detox system in place. According to the Nutritional Therapy Association (2016), detoxification is the way the body heals and restores itself. For this to occur effectively, the body needs to be in a parasympathetic state – the “rest and digest” state. For this reason, the body puts the majority of its focus on detoxification when you are sleeping. While you’re dreaming away, the body is saying “clean up on aisle 3- it’s go time!”.

However, the body can get overwhelmed with toxins, especially in this day and age. You probably know this. What you may not know is that you can overwhelm your body by doing a detox if the detox pathways aren’t open. Before any detoxification can occur, you need to make sure the pathways of detoxification are clear or you can be doing more harm than good.

Detoxification pathways for the body:

Skin

Kidney

Lungs

Liver

Intestines

Out of the handful of systems in the body that assist in the detoxification process, like the cardiovascular and lymph systems, we are going to focus on the digestion system to spare you at least two more pages of information. Three organs that play a major role in digestion and detoxification are the intestines, liver, and gallbladder. Without proper digestion, the detoxification pathway in the intestines can clog, even for the person with the cleanest diet (Nutritional Therapy Association, 2016). Crazy, is it not?

To further explain improper digestion, here's a plumbing analogy – a sink can't carry out its task of transporting liquids if it's clogged. To unclog the sink, the debris buildup must first be broken down. Otherwise, when you go to pour anything down the drain, it will back up and then you've got a bigger problem on your hands. Once you get the clog cleared, the liquid can be poured down the drain, flushing out all remaining debris. That's for all the visual learners out there.

Ok, so now we know proper digestion is key. Two important factors for normal detoxification in the digestive system are the lining of the gastrointestinal membrane and the availability of the correct amount of bacteria and chemical environment in the gastrointestinal tract (Nutritional Therapy Association, 2016). If either of these two factors is compromised, the entire body may be affected negatively, leading to such things as leaky gut.

The liver is essential to digestion and detoxification by purifying the blood that courses through the entire body. However, digestion can affect the liver’s detoxification roles by improperly digesting fats. Undigested fats can clog the lymph, which can affect the liver’s role in detoxification, as well as the gallbladders. Healthy fats contribute to toxin removal by making up the bile that removes toxins through the intestinal tract (Nutritional Therapy Association, 2016) so it's important they're digested well.

Aside from fats, specific amino acids help the liver with its detoxification pathways, but if the body is not digesting macronutrients well, specifically protein, these amino acids will not be able to assist the detoxification process. Do you see how everything works hand in hand? So, for the body to effectively work through the detoxification process the detox pathways, particularly the digestion pathways, must be cleared to prevent buildup and allow toxins through so they can be removed.

You may be asking yourself at this point - how do I know if it's safe to do a detox? I recommend working with a holistic practitioner, such as myself, to figure out if your body is in a good place to detox. From there, you can discuss different detox methods like a juice fast, detoxification diet, raw food diet, etc. It depends on where you are in your health journey and if your body needs further support in detoxification.

There are supportive methods that are both safe and gentle in assisting the body's natural detoxification process:

Dry brushing
Oil pulling
Rebounding
Hydrotherapy
Dry saunas
Infrared light therapy
Castor oil packs
Exercise
Hot and cold showers – hopefully you are all familiar with this one! ;)

I dry brush and get in movement daily (sweating is a way of detoxing) and I try to oil pull and do hot/ cold showers weekly. While I'd love to do red light therapy and/ or saunas consistently, they don't fit into our budget right now. I am saying this because I want to be clear that you do not need to do all of these things!

Like nutrition and movement, you need to find what you are willing to try implementing right now and what will work best for you.