'Cleansing' diets lure celebs, but not health experts

[snopes]

Weight-loss experts have long been skeptical about cleansing diets and detox plans, saying there is no scientific evidence such programs do a better job than the body's own organs. They also say many of the plans are deficient in protein and other nutrients.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...nse-diet_N.htm

[Floater]

But, but, we're talking about celebrities here, right? How could they ever be wrong about something?

[Fantine]

(anecdote alert) My boss did a detox diet for a week, and all it seemed to do was make her incredibly cranky. I guessing she was hungry. Everyone in the office was relieved when she was done with it.

Seriously, does anyone really expect these detox plans to really do anything?

[Gayle]

I was told by a lay-crank once that I should do a kidney cleansing flush for three days to cure my narcolepsy.

I didn't clean the kidneys, but I certainly vented my spleen. I felt much better, too.

[Pseudo_Croat]

A tall glass of prune juice and a triple helping of oatmeal is all the cleansing you could ever need, son.

- Pseudo 'whatta load of crap" Croat

[boogers]

A bag of dried apricots doesn't hurt either.

[snapdragonfly]

Eating 3 or 4 pieces of fruit for breakfast, a huge salad with lots of vegetables in it as well as plenty of seeds and nuts (excellent high fiber, low cholesterol sources of protein) and steamed veggies for lunch and also dinner (olive oil on the salad) for a couple days is an excellent way to do some spring cleaning around the old pipes and get away from any sugar or junk food habits that tend to creep back up. I think if one does something like that on a regular basis, it helps to maintain healthy habits and therefore possibly a desirable weight, just because it sort of helps one, psychologically, to be more aware and mindful of food and not just shovel a lot of high fat, high salt, high sugar stuff in. At least it helps me. I really really want to eat well, but it's so easy to get into bad habits. I get triggered, visually, really easily. (Damn those Sonic ads!) Many dietary battles are won or lost in the mind long before it becomes about the stomach.

I don't pay attention to what new diets celebrities do, so they may and probably do lots of silly things that are possibly far more dangerous than effective. I think the reason many of them are thin is because they either have that body type, or they just live a life of being hungry, basically, all the time. I've read interviews by models and actresses who have said as much - they simply learn how to get used to always being hungry.

Most of those "cleansing" fasts seem to just be super low in calories and weight loss comes from that. (and is quickly put on again)

But whether it helps with weight loss or not, there is no doubt high fiber diets result in much better health than those lacking sufficient "roughage" as grandma used to call it. They don't cleanse the body as much as help the body to cleanse itself the way it was designed to do.

[TripleAAA]

IMO, and what I've learned from Pathology and A&P, it seems that these detox diets just rid the body of excess water and maybe some gunk flushed out of the lymphatic system. Nothing 8-10 glasses of water a day wouldn't do.*




*I'm not a medical doctor, and the above is just my educated opinion.

[Xia]

I don't know if this has anything to do with detox diets, but I have noticed (and many people have documented) that when you switch a dog from a low-quality food (something with a lot of cheap ingredients/chemicals) to a high-quality food they often will get a sudden increase in symptoms likes itchy/flaky/oily/crappy skin or coat, runny eyes, etc for a short time before they show an improvement in health. They usually call this "detox" especially when referring to switching to a raw diet. I suppose if you ate a really bad diet with a lot of junk foods you might experience a "detox" like this as well?

[kia]

I have heard that if your health does improve when on a detox diet, it's because you were just plain unhealthy and you should be eating a healthy diet all the time anyway.

A detox will do NOTHING for you if you regularly eat a healthy diet of wholegrains, fruit, vegs, lean protein, plenty of fluids etc, which is what you should be eating all the time - NOT as a 'detox' as a way to get around eating crap the rest of the time.

[Pseudo_Croat]

My father is going to undergo a colonoscopy tomorrow. In preparation for this, he has to take nothing but fluids, laxatives, and stool softeners to clean him out.

It's the only other cleanse you ever really need.

- Pseudo "stick it where the sun don't shine" Croat

[Sooeygun]

I noticed there were a lot of the comments at the end of the article saying, I didn't do it to lose weight, it was for the detox, etc. I know the article did focus more on the weight loss aspect, but, good job commenters, ignoring the part of the article that said the detox was unproven and probably hooey. I wish the article had focused more on that side of the story.

[DawnStorm]

Originally Posted by Pseudo_Croat

My father is going to undergo a colonoscopy tomorrow. In preparation for this, he has to take nothing but fluids, laxatives, and stool softeners to clean him out.

It's the only other cleanse you ever really need.

- Pseudo "stick it where the sun don't shine" Croat

I know whenever my mother has to have a colonoscopy, she has to drink this laxative stuff the day before to get cleaned out. She described it as coming in a big bottle.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by DawnStorm

I know whenever my mother has to have a colonoscopy, she has to drink this laxative stuff the day before to get cleaned out. She described it as coming in a big bottle.

A big bottle of very nasty, very salty stuff. Drinking the whole thing without throwing up seems like hell until you get to the next part.

[Debunker]

Originally Posted by Xia

I don't know if this has anything to do with detox diets, but I have noticed (and many people have documented) that when you switch a dog from a low-quality food (something with a lot of cheap ingredients/chemicals) to a high-quality food they often will get a sudden increase in symptoms likes itchy/flaky/oily/crappy skin or coat, runny eyes, etc for a short time before they show an improvement in health. They usually call this "detox" especially when referring to switching to a raw diet. I suppose if you ate a really bad diet with a lot of junk foods you might experience a "detox" like this as well?

I think what's going on here is that switching dog food upsets the systems of some dogs (like mine) and they tend to have gastro-intestinal and other problems until their system gets used to the new food, even if it's going from cheap food to high-quality food. Or something like that...