What is detoxification?
Detoxification is the term used to describe the process your body goes through to get rid of toxins.
Toxicity occurs in our body when we take in more than we can utilize and eliminate. It is an essential step to wellness and anti-aging.
A toxin is basically any substance that creates irritating and/or harmful effects in the body, undermining our health or stressing our biochemical or organ function.
Anything that supports our elimination can be said to help us detoxify.
It involves dietary and lifestyle changes that reduce intake of toxins and improve elimination.
The human body is exposed to millions of toxins every day. These toxins come from pesticides, food additives, heavy metals in the water, industrial chemicals, pharmaceutical drug residue, and many other substances. Toxins are also produced naturally by the body and are therefore absolutely impossible to avoid. And our ability to adapt and detoxify can become overwhelmed.
The incidence of many toxicity diseases has increased as well. Cancer and cardiovascular disease are two of the main ones. Arthritis, allergies, obesity, and many skin problems are others. In addition, a wide range of symptoms, such as headaches, fatigue, pains, coughs, gastrointestinal problems, and problems from immune weakness, can all be related to toxicity.
Research has revealed that toxicity is responsible for rapid aging, promoting degenerative diseases, and breaking down the immune system.
The digestive system
The digestive system is known as the cornerstone of good health. It has been believed and proven for centuries that our mental and physical energy stems from good digestive function, which is responsible for the assimilation, or uptake, of all nutrients and elimination of waste and toxic substances. When this system is healthy and in good function, all of the body?s processes and systems run smoothly. When the body is not digesting well, signs of gas, bloating, nausea, constipation, obesity, and emotional imbalance will be present. When these symptoms appear, the body is not detoxifying to its full potential and the liver is overwhelmed with toxic substances.
Consider this! Americans and Australians are arguably the most overfed, undernourished nations in the world. Our culinary tastes lean towards soft, sweet, gooey, delicious foods - foods with very little fiber to carry the waste particles from the digestive system.
These foods and waste particles coat and clog our villi, packing them like concrete. The accumulated, now poisoned, food particles prevent the villi from doing their job. Nutrients cannot be passed to the blood to feed all the body’s cells. The body then attempts to eliminate the cellular waste via the kidneys, lungs, skin and sinuses. The body also stores waste in the form of kidney stones, gallstones, arthritis, gout, crystallized lungs, clogged arteries, and other congestion.
The small intestine, about 21 feet long and about 1.5 inches in diameter, has a total surface area about the size of a tennis court. That’s more than 300 square yards of osmosis-type membrane surface. Nutrients are suppose to pass through the villi to your blood; and the blood is suppose to pick up the used food waste and pass it, via the villi, back into the intestines to be eliminated.
Years of build-up in the colon wall prevents the body from absorbing any good nutrients, while poisons and toxins are released from the accumulated, compacted fecal matter.
Over the years this build-up is the cause of many chronic illnesses.
Quality natural foods are the “life force”. Good foods burn thoroughly but adverse foods leave a “residue” that adds waste to this process. The foods we eat that lack this life force simply clog up our digestion, assimilation and elimination process. The body then needs to detoxify. The more adverse foods one eats, the more elimination problems one can anticipate.
One of the most important and least understood of our bodily processes is elimination. The skin is the largest organ of waste removal. If the skin does not eliminate properly, it puts stress on the lungs, bowels, and kidneys. If any of the waste eliminators fail to do the work it was designed to do, then each of the other organs has to bear the load and will be under additional stress.
Proper bowel elimination is considered to be once after each full meal with each movement requiring no more than 16-24 hours of transit time. If the waste is not removed within 24 hours, toxic build-up begins. Once toxic build-up occurs, you have an invitation for parasite infestation (present in most water, raw foods and under-cooked meats). The incubation period for most parasites is 36 hours, so you should expect parasite infestation if you have poor elimination.
And amazingly, the average bowel transit time for many people today is 96 hours!
Many adults today have constipation problems because care was not taken when they were young to see that their bowels were functioning properly. They grew up thinking if they went to the bathroom once or twice a week, it was normal. We can do our children a great injustice if we are not aware of their bowel habits.
Laxatives and high fiber foods later in life do not have the cleansing power required to remove these compacted particles. Pharmacy shelves are filled with non-prescription, self-help products for every gastrointestinal disorder. These bulging shelves indicate that a very high percentage of Americans and Australians over 12 years old suffer from poor elimination and subsequent weight problems..
The liver
The liver is the main filtering agent, which detoxifies the blood and rids the body of pathogens and bad bacteria. The liver cells have fat soluble membranes which may store toxins for extended periods of time and then release them when the body is physically straining, stressed and starved. When a build up of toxins is finally released, exhaustion is the first prevalent symptom.
The major fat burning organ in the body, the liver regulates fat metabolism by a complicated set of biochemical pathways. The liver can also pump excessive fat out of the body through the bile into the small intestines. If the diet is high in fibre this unwanted fat will be carried out of the body via the bowel actions. Thus the liver is a remarkable machine for keeping weight under control being both a fat burning organ and a fat pumping organ.
If you overload the liver with the wrong type of toxins, drugs, or hormone replacement therapy, the liver’s biochemical pathways will have less energy reserves left over to perform their function of fat metabolism. Thus these things can lead to weight gain.
If the liver is dysfunctional, it will not manufacture adequate amounts of the good cholesterol (HDL), which travels out of the liver to scavenge the unhealthy cholesterol (LDL) from the blood vessel walls.
If the liver filter is healthy it allows dietary cholesterol to be shunted into the liver for metabolism or excretion through the bile. A healthy liver filter is essential to properly regulate blood cholesterol levels. Poor liver function may increase your chances of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.
Therefore, a healthy digestive system and liver are the key to good health, a strong immune system, efficient fat metabolism and weight control.
Is detoxification necessary?
Detoxification involves dietary and lifestyle changes that reduce intake of toxins and improve elimination. Avoidance of chemicals, from food or other sources, refined food, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, any many drugs helps minimize the toxin load. Drinking extra water (purified) and increasing fiber by including more fruits and vegetables in the diet are steps in the detoxification process.
Internally, fats, especially oxidized fats and cholesterol, free radicals, and other irritating molecules acts as toxins. Functionally, poor digestion, colon sluggishness and dysfunction, reduced liver function, and poor elimination through the kidneys, respiratory tract, and skin all add to increased toxicity.
Moving from a more to a less congesting diet will help us to move along the detox road.
