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Detoxifying
(rough draft)


There are two sides to this process:
1/ stopped taking toxins into the body and
2/ help the body eliminate those toxins that are already there.


1/ Reduce toxic exposure: eliminating toxins from the diet.

This is a matter of degree: how far do you want to go.

Where we have most control of our toxic intake is in what we ingest.

Explore your options with water. You certainly do not want to be drinking chlorinated tap water (a goldfish will go belly up in about five minutes in chlorinated tap water!). Bottled water or filtration (another question of degree with options of little or of great expense) are the common solutions. You can filter the mains water too at no great cost and spare your skin the chlorine (ask Jode MacDonald at Pure Water [address coming]).

With food again its a matter of degree: how far do you want to take purity? Avoid processed foods and in so far as you don’t, get into the habit of reading labels. If you don’t know exactly what a particular ingredient is, suspect it!

Vegetables, and to a lesser extent fruits and grains, are the healthiest foods, but commercial crops carry a large toxic load. What are you to go? You can wash food: wash with hydrogen peroxide for instance. Of course it is best to eat "organically grown" foods wherever possible (and if you get into "juicing" carrots and other root vegetable must be organic. Dr. Shou Lan says they use carrots to clean the fields in China. They pull the toxin in out of the field.)

Meat and other animal products (dairy and eggs) accumulate "fat soluble toxins" (which are the toxins we are most concerned with. Water soluble toxin are excreted easily.) If you wish to detoxify, you must avoid commercial meat and animal products! (In his "Diet for a New America" John Robbins quotes a study that found the breast milk of mothers eating a Standard American Diet (SAD) contained one hundred times more pesticides than that found in the milk of vegetarians, and indeed this milk is not really fit to ingest.) Fat soluble toxins accumulate up the food chain.

Fish: if you wouldn’t drink the water, don’t eat he fish. If it’s fresh water you have to know the water it came from. With sea fish deep open water is usually cleaner than coastal. I’d avoid bottom feeder and that’s going to include "sea food".


2/ Eliminating toxins from the body

a/ diet/fasting
b/ herbs
c/ exercise/saunas
d/ homeopathy
e/ supplements (selenium, vit C and E)

a/ Diet and Fasting: when the body is taking in toxins it tends to store them. When we aren’t taking in toxins we tend to eliminate those we’ve previously stored. Therefore fasting can be an effective means of detoxing. (I will put up a page on fasting shortly. If you need it sooner, ask.)

Dr. Max Gerson had a wonderfully simple, and basically true, description of the origin of disease, according to his daughter, Charlotte: disease comes from the absence of nutrients and the presence of toxins. Further, the toxins tend to sit where the nutrients should be. Therefore, said Max, if you flood the body with nutrients you will push out the toxins.

The Gerson Therapy involves eating 20 pounds (10 kilos) of fresh, raw, organic vegetable a day. To eat that quantity you have to juice. In the Gerson Therapy you drink vegetable juice every hour. Also, because the treatment causes the rapid elimination of toxins, which accumulate briefly in the liver and make you feel ghastly, "coffee enemas" are used to flush the liver. (I would advise trying flushing with "liver tonic herbs" rather than coffee: e.g. Burdock.)

You might take a look at the Gerson Therapy as an example of an extremely rigorous diet.


b/ Herbs: herbal detoxification is accomplished by using herbs that stimulate the organs of excretion, i.e. liver, kidney, lymphatics.

Dandelion root is a mild liver tonic. Dandelion leaf is a kidney tonic. Dandelion root and leaf is a useful part of a detox regime.

Burdock root is a mild liver tonic and lymphatic.

Yellow Dock is a mild to moderate liver tonic.

Cleavers is a useful lymphatic.

A possible herbal detox regime might involve

15 drops Dandelion root and leaf tincture
10 drops Burdock root tincture
10 drops Cleavers tincture
  5 drops Yellow Dock tincture

Three times a day before meals.

How to take herbs


Note, however: when you detox, when you stimulate the elimination of toxins, you are likely to see toxic symptoms such as skin eruptions, headaches, etc. Do not be alarmed by these. Observe them and moderate your regime if necessary.


c/ exercise/saunas: Exercise promotes detoxification in several ways. It will help to turn over body fat (as will fasting) and thus help to get at stored toxins. Exercise and saunas in causing sweating promotes detoxifiction.


d/ homeopathy can aid in detoxification in several ways:
i/ specific antidotes. If you are carrying a load of any paricular poisin, a homeopathic preparation of that particular substance will act as an antidote and aid in its elimination. [Prepatations can be made in the office (or at home - ask!). I can recall many nice examples of this process - again, if you'd like to know about these, ask.]
ii/ "drainage remedies" are used in low potency to "drain" particular organs. (I shall put up a page on drainage homeopathy - if you want it soon, though, again, ask.)
iii/ your constitutional remedy is going to help you cope with all health problems, including detoxing.

e/ supplementation: of course the antioxidants specifically help in detoxification. Vitamin C and vitamin E will be useful along with other antioxidants such as grape seed extract.
Selenium is necessary for the enzymatic manufacture of the peptide glutathion. Glutathion is one of the bodies principle detoxification routes.
I have read that selenium and zinc are in a balance and competition. Large quantities of selenium my deplete zinc, and visa versa. So, if you are taking selenium on an on going basis you should taske some zinc as well.

 

Norman
Allan
normanallandr@yahoo.ca