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The Detox Deception

I’m feeling particularly empowered after a weekend of drinking, amongst other things, 1.8 liters of Japanese sake, Jack Daniels Gentleman Jack bourbon, Red Wine, and several Wheat Beers, and it got me thinking how some people would now advise me to ‘cleanse’ myself of my sin with one of several available 'sympathetic magic and purification rituals AKA ‘Detox plans.’

All-natural products

James (The Amazing) Randi scoffing remarked about the Naturopathy movement that bird poo and rocks are also ‘all-natural,’ but may not necessarily be good for us, and I echo his sentiments. Not everything natural is good for you, and if you don’t believe me, go inject yourself with 3CCs of freshly milked, all-natural, no additives or preservatives RATTLESNAKE VENOM, and come tell us all how wonderful you feel!

Liver Detox and regression to the mean

Admittedly, I once did the ‘over the radio / breakfast show broadcast’ liver detox that requires you to starve yourself for a day, then gorge yourself on certain fruits, then consume all manner of vulgar substances (Epsom salts overdoses and olive oil & orange juice potions) in a certain order and at certain intervals—but I did it as a dare, not because I thought it had any health benefit for me.

Sure I felt great after the whole process was over and done with, because I felt horrible for two days from the effects of the liver detox! This is called ‘regression to the mean,’ and this is why anything can make you feel better, as long as you felt worse before it supposedly worked its magic.

If you have the flue, you will feel worse at times and slightly better at times—and this without taking any medication. That means that if I give you chopped up radish with sugar sprinkled onto of it, you may distinctly notice that you feel a bit better a while after consuming this concoction. That, however, does not mean that it is effective at treating cold symptoms. This is also true for other ailments and supposed ‘cures.’

It is also rather interesting to note that gallstones don’t float, and this is because gallstones are mineral deposits and are heavier than water. But why is this little obscure fact important? Because a very large number of people claim to expel gallstones when they do a liver detox, and this is now touted as proof that, yes, it really, really works!

The ‘rocks’ that one finds floating in the bowl after each unstoppable bout of diarrhea—the final phase of the liver detox ritual—are coagulations of olive oil and acidic substances (orange juice); it’s like primitive soap! These supposed ‘gallstones’ are formed from the very substances you must imbibe to perform a liver detox—so you have expelled nothing. Gallstones are expelled naturally, and you don’t notice this, because they don’t float.

You may now understand why I instead prefer to call these liver detox stones ‘fool’s gallstones’.

Naturopaths and their ‘miracle water’

Even that life-giving substance colloquially referred to as water is deadly poisonous in sufficient quantities. And I am not talking about drinking water until your stomach busts; I am talking about dilutional hyponatremia, or water poisoning—whereby the body is flushed of salt (which carries electrical charges from the brain to the rest of the body) to such an extreme that your organs start shutting down because the controlling signal from the brain cannot effectively be relayed to them.

But have you ever heard of dilutional hyponatremia from the naturalist movement? No! According to them, you cannot drink enough water, and the benefits of doing so multiply with every glass you drink.

Colon cleansing

A drinker like me has all those ‘toxins’ (though none of them mentioned so we can look for them) in his body and all that compounded mucoid plaque—or as I call it, ‘Colon Ectoplasm.’ I call it such not in jest but because it is just as hard to detect as ectoplasm (a semi-ethereal substance that supposedly bonds the soul to the body and which is used by spirits to interact with material objects – yes, I was laughing too when I first read about it).

There is no mention of mucoid plaque (or anything resembling it) it in the medical literature in centuries of physicians looking into the colons of the living and the dead. Even medical experts who inspect or operate on colons for a living have not seen this supposedly harmful substance clogging our precious colons and preventing us from attaining perfect ‘regularity’ (a term used to describe the consistency of your fecal excrement). You will also hear this term thrown around ‘all bran’ cereals, too, e.g., “keeps you ‘regular’ and feeling great!”

But, nonetheless, you, my friend, need a proper colon flush, or colon hydrotherapy or just colonics, to ‘restore your to optimal health’—which is a statement that means nothing at all.

You, predictably, won’t hear about cases where people needed fecal implants (that means they have poop from some donor surgically reintroduced to their colon) to restore normal colonal functions—and this Because some nutritionist or detox guru convinced them to pump a gallon of saltwater up their rectum to ‘flush’ their colon clean of bacteria, parasites, and colon ectoplasm.

Need I even mention that some people have died from this archaic practice that has its roots (and results) firmly established in Dark Age superstition?

Magnesium supplements

Several months ago my mother could hardly contain her excitement at having ordered something to help her ‘live longer,’ and the moment she pronounced the name it was like hearing the snake oil salesman’s chant: MIRACLE Magnesium – from the Red Sea!

I face-palmed myself and then began the long explanation to my mother that she is wasting her money on a scam. “But it was on the television…,” yeah so was X-Files, mother; “It says MIRACLE magnesium…,” what is so miraculous about a common mineral like magnesium, mother? “It’s from near the red sea…,” yeah and so is most of the bible, what is your point? “Anyway, I am going to give it a try for the next few months,” she continued in protest.

Magnesium, like most vitamins and minerals, don’t yield any increase in benefits the more of it you consume, and most people with a healthy diet are not magnesium deficient to begin with. But tell that to someone who believes it will help them live longer—and all because a television show said so!

You can’t unconvinced those who want to believe. I can only hope she came to her senses and redirected the fortune she spent on that stuff towards expanding her medical coverage—something that actually could prolong her life.

Conclusion

We live in the information age, and while nothing and nobody obligates us to arm ourselves (with knowledge) against deceitful attempts to get to our bread and milk money, we are, nevertheless, totally to blame should we be victims of such practices.

The only substance we need to be ‘detoxified’ of is the vast libraries of misinformation published by these money-grubbing naturopaths, nutritionists, and detox gurus!

There’s one born every minute, … and what a pity that is!

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