By Dr. Patrick Giammarise, DC
Most of us go about our lives and never think much about them. Yet they are impossible to avoid, exist in vast quantities in our environment, and can be difficult to identify. What are they? Toxins.
Whether we know it or not, we are exposed daily to numerous toxins from the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. These toxins are found in cleaning products, in the air pollutants we breathe 24/7, and in the herbicide and pesticide residues in our food. Additional toxins include, but are not limited to, cigarette smoke, alcohol, automobiles, OTC and prescription drugs, viruses, and bacterial infections.
Defined simply, a toxin is any compound that has a harmful effect upon your body. Approximately 15 million individual chemicals are in use today. Of these, fewer than 10 percent have been tested for our safety. When you realize that this figure does not include any of these single chemicals in combination, the amount of chemical exposure is exponential!
The bottom line is that the burden of toxicity in the 21st century is overwhelming our bodies. Through time, most peoples’ bodies can’t handle the load. Once the body is overpowered by a toxic environment, pollutants and impurities do not get properly filtered and every cell in the body is adversely affected. When the toxic burden exceeds the body’s ability to handle it, our immune systems become exhausted, making us vulnerable to infections and illness.
How Do I Know if I Need a Cleanse?
Your body is nothing short of a miracle. It has a built-in purification system that automatically cleanses and detoxifies without your ever thinking about it! Did you know that there is systematic pathway your body uses to eliminate toxins? Your liver, kidneys, intestines, lungs, skin, and lymph system all play a pivotal cleansing role. When the body is functioning properly, these organs are able to eliminate toxins naturally without any outside support. However, when your body reaches its “toxic threshold,” a variety of health problems may develop. That’s when I suggest a cleansing program.
What Have You Tried?
Some folks try to do their own cleaning programs. The detox-in-a-box cleansing method is popular. However, this type of approach often relies solely on prepackaged colon cleanses, laxatives, and concentrated or pseudo-nutrients to stimulate the elimination process. And concentrated nutrients may become an additional chemical burden, which is contrary to the goal. This random approach also fails to identify which organs are toxic and may create an unnatural pace or artificial process for the body.
Fasting is a popular cleansing method because it gives the body a rest from the burden of eliminating daily waste. The problem with fasting is that if any one of the organs is toxic to start, a log jam can happen in the organs or lymph system and clog the pathways of detoxification. In this case, fasting can backfire and can increase toxicity, not decrease it.
Juicing is another method of cleansing. This is an excellent way to cleanse the body because the phytonutrients in the vegetables and fruits help to nourish our bodies.
However, juicing can be a problem for some who may have hidden food sensitivities to the foods they are juicing. When we are sensitive to foods, we may not digest them well. This can produce an allergy-like inflammatory response. Undigested food becomes toxic in a system that cannot eliminate properly, so it can become a bigger burden than the chemical soup we live in!
How Do You Know if What You Tried Worked?
Fasting, juicing, and detox-in-a-box products are home remedies that sometimes work and other times are not very effective. Why are they not effective for some? Because one size does not fit all. Not everybody is every body. When you decide to cleanse, how do you know which organs are stressed and which ones need to be cleansed?
This problem happened to one of my patients. He decided on his own to go on a fast. His body was not prepared for the onslaught of released toxins and his face developed large, swollen blisters in reaction to fasting. They showed up on his skin because the liver, kidneys, colon, and lungs were already congested.
When organs become congested, all three approaches—OTC products, fasting, and juicing—can stimulate a toxic rush and reaction that our cleansing system cannot sustain. Some toxins, such as heavy metals, have nowhere to go but to gridlock in the kidneys and lungs, creating a bigger problem for the body than before.
There’s no better time than now to give your body a good cleanse. Start with a qualified doctor or practitioner who can identify which organs and systems are being overworked. Look for a comprehensive approach that supports your body’s own natural detoxification processes and is complemented by a supervised home-care program. It may just be what you need to feel better and more energetic.