There is a great story behind activated charcoal and its health benefits!
Dr. Touery, a professor, drank a deadly dosage of strychnine in 1831 in front of his colleagues in the French Academy of Medicine and to their amazement, he didn’t die. How did he do this? He added activated charcoal to the poison.
Activated charcoal is considered as the best remedy available today for cleansing our gastrointestinal tract. It could be used whenever there is a case of poisoning due to any toxic chemical.
It works by reducing the absorption of the chemical by almost 60 percent. It looks like sponge and is made of a variety of substances that contain natural carbon. It is different from ordinary charcoal in that activated charcoal gets treated with oxygen. When treated with oxygen, the resulting charcoal is extremely porous.
Because activated charcoal is produced at extremely high temperatures, it is made almost 100 percent from carbon. You will notice that its chemical composition is almost like that of graphite. The benefits of charcoal are considered to be because of the large number of pores in it. Because of this reason it has very strong absorbing and catalytic benefits.
Just 1 tsp of activated charcoal has a surface area of more than 10,000 sq.ft. Its uses include removal of toxins, chemicals, heavy metals, morphine, pharmaceutical drugs and pesticides from our body.
What are the Benefits & Uses of Activated Charcoal?
Activated charcoal is used for its following benefits:
– Reducing poisoning due to different chemicals, toxic heavy metals, drugs and alkaloids
– Detoxifying full body
– Fighting food poisoning
– Fighting bad breath and body odor
– Treating stomachache due to excess gas, indigestion and diarrhea
– Treating chronic/acute viral hepatitis
– Different skin problems
– Fighting withdrawal syndrome (in case of alcohol addiction only)
– Lowering blood cholesterol, lipids and triglycerides
– Fighting intoxication due to radiotherapy/chemotherapy
– Fighting inflammation
Activated charcoal will not remove nutrients from your body. David O. Cooney claimed in his book titled, “Activated Charcoal” that when it is added to sheep’s diet for 6 months, it did not result in loss of nutrients in comparison with sheep that was not given charcoal.
He says that almost 5 percent of the sheep’s diet was made up of charcoal. The study showed that the urinary/blood levels of iron, calcium, potassium, copper, sodium, creatinine, inorganic phosphorus, copper, magnesium, uric acid, alkaline phosphatase, urea nitrogen, urine pH and total protein were not affected.
Activated charcoal is a regularly ingredient found in making body detoxifying products. It is available in different forms for different uses – powder and fluid, and even in the form of tablets that can be chewed such as Nature’s Way Activated Charcoal.
Source: Living Traditionally