We’re thrilled to welcome molecular virologist & neuroscientist Dr. Dave Hawkes to The Dolce Diet family of bloggers. He’s smart, funny and he can secretly control your mind with his scientific research.
by Dr. Dave Hawkes
This month’s blog is in response to a question on the “Ask Dr. Dave” forum from Carl Shotton in the UK. Carl is wondering why, for most of his life, he has had a pale complexion and bags under his eyes in spite of living what he describes as a healthy lifestyle. Now this sort of thing is probably more for you to discuss with your physician but I can tell you that with a Scottish father and high cheekbones I too suffer from a pale complexion and bags under my eyes on occasion.
What I would like to focus on from Carl’s question is his concern that these symptoms were caused by a buildup of “toxins” in his bowel or intestine and his suggestion that he was considering colonic irrigation as a “detox”.
Now the word “detox” is widely misused. It doesn’t take a Mike Dolce to tell you that if you’ve been eating pizza and other unhealthy foods and drinking lots of alcohol or soda you will probably end up feeling unwell.
“Detox” in this context could simply mean eating fresh healthy food and drinking lots of water. If you put less “junk” into your system your body has less work to do in breaking it down and getting rid of it.
I thought about Carl’s question and surfed the web for a bit and found a lot of the information about “detox” for “toxins” focused on two classes of products, the edibles (shakes, juices and tablets) and the mechanicals such as colonic irrigation or cleanses.
When I searched through a number of scientific databases I found nothing on detox diets and although there were several hundred studies of colonic irrigation they were all concerned with serious medical issues such as bowel cancer and preparation for surgery rather than detox.
By the way, if you are interested in looking up medical/scientific information I would recommend searching The Cochrane Collaboration as they produce really clear summaries on a wide range of topics from insomnia to vitamins to a whole range of alternative therapies like acupuncture.
To start with the “edible” detox products, well there just doesn’t seem to be any good evidence that they work so you are basically wasting your money. As I am not a dietician or nutritionist I will leave the healthy diet info to Mike but it is pretty clear that taking some homeopathic or naturopathic supplements for a week will have nowhere near the benefits of making permanent healthy lifestyle changes.
Now we get to colonic irrigation. As I said previously there doesn’t appear to be any science behind using colonic irrigation to detox. As the list below shows (from WebMD) our bodies have a wide variety of methods of getting rid of waste, which, in a healthy person, prevent any sort of build up or re-ingestion of toxins in our bowel.
• Natural bacteria in the colon can detoxify food wastes.
• The liver also neutralizes toxins.
• Mucus membranes in the colon can keep unwanted substances from reentering the blood and tissues.
• The colon sheds old cells about every 3 days, preventing a buildup of harmful material.
• The normal number of bowel movements varies from person to person.
• Increasing the number of bowel movements doesn’t improve weight loss. That’s because the body absorbs most calories before they reach the large intestine.
It is also very important to remember that even therapies marketed as natural, such as colonic irrigation, carry some risk. Although risks from colonic irrigation are low they can occur and range from the mild such as vomiting, dehydration and nausea through to very serious complications like bowel perforation and infection.
-Dr. Dave
About the Author
I am a scientist who is passionate about helping people rediscover their love of science. Everyday we make decisions about our health, often with little or no evidence. I hope that I can help provide you with scientific information without the jargon that will help you learn about the most interesting topic in the world – you.
