Some people reading will be familiar with the type of detox this article is about. But most probably have a sort of skewed idea. Maybe you think it’s what happens when a drug addict goes to rehab, or they put a drunk in jail overnight.

While that may be “detox” in those particular instances, this article is more about the removal of toxins from your system. This can be a very complicated process, and I’d like to start with what detox IS NOT.

It is not cleansing. For example, if you give yourself an enema, that’s not detox, it’s a colon cleanse. If you take a bath with Epsom salts, this isn’t detox, it’s a cleanse. If you sit in the sauna, we’re getting closer to detox, but it’s not quite there. Drinking beet juice to flush your digestive system? Again, a cleanse.

Detox is about removing toxins, up to the point of the cellular level. Think about the world we live in. It’s polluted, it’s highly industrialized, it’s a consumer culture where things are made for cheap so people can buy them cheap. We have a quick-fix culture. We want what we want and we want it RIGHT NOW.

This results in a lack of concern over materials used, a lower priority assigned to quality and the acceptance that things can degrade, pollute and harm us as everything is justified, on one side, by the quest for higher profits and, on the other side, the quest for cheap and convenient products.

Common Toxins

• Heavy metals – If you eat a lot of fish, you probably have a lot of mercury in your system. Lead passes from mother to child for seven generations, and not just three generations ago, we were making toys, water pipes and paint out of lead. A lot of people deal with lead toxicity from their mothers. Many people carry aluminum toxicity from vaccines, deodorant and city water systems. There are several more, but these are the big ones. Heavy metals cause all sorts of cognitive problems, immune issues
• PCBs – which stands for polychlorinated biphenyls. It’s generally used in coolant, that black copy/receipt paper and various other industrial processes that the average person doesn’t need to worry about. The real problem is that once this stuff gets into the environment (the Great Lakes are full of it), it lasts for decades and you can pick it up. And fish pick it up and then we eat the fish and it gets into our system. It causes cancer, liver enlargement, menstrual and reproductive issues, among other things.
• Pesticides/herbicides – These are perhaps the most pervasive source of toxicity. The most common and dangerous is glyphosate, also known as RoundUp. It’s all over our food. It’s seriously all over the food you eat, in restaurants, grocery stores, your pantry and fridge is probably full of glyphosate right now. It’s a carcinogen and causes mitochondrial damage.
• BPA – It’s a part of plastic. When you drink from a plastic bottle, you get BPA. When you drink hot coffee through a plastic lid, you REALLY get BPA because the heat helps release it. This stuff really disrupts your hormones (leading to all sorts of issues, including weight gain), disrupts thyroid function, leads to estrogen dominance in men and women, has been linked to testicular cancer, breast cancer and neuroblastoma.
• Phthalates – They’re in makeup, perfume, hair spray, mousse, hair gel, deodorant, nail polish, lotion and skin cleanser. It’s in vinyl flooring and backpacks and lunch boxes. It’s also an endocrine disruptor, contributes to obesity, metabolic disorder and insulin resistance, which turns into diabetes.

These toxins build up over the years. We start getting health issues that most people just chalk up to “getting older.” This includes ailments like poor vision, low energy, low libido, poor sleep, the development of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer. This stuff doesn’t just happen by chance, and the whole argument that genetics is the controlling factor is basically being debunked by a fascinating field called epigenetics that is finding that our choices determine our health.

Let’s move on to detoxification.

True detox (not cleansing) is a process that must be catered differently to every individual. We have to first determine your level of toxicity, and what exactly is making you toxic. That can be done using various tests: blood, urine, tanita, even certain eye tests will tell us what is making you toxic.

To clear toxins, we follow a process called the 5 “Rs,” catered to every individual.

The 5 “Rs”

The first R is Remove the Source. And you can do this on your own. Get rid of plastic bottles. Drink from glass bottles. Eat organic fruits and veggies to avoid pesticides. Eat grass-fed beef, free-range chicken and wild caught fish to avoid antibiotics and (again) pesticides which coats their feed. Get rid of amalgam fillings at a biological dentist to rid yourself of mercury. Check if your house has mold. If it does, get rid of it.

The second “R” is Regenerate the Cell Membrane – Since toxicity affects us at the cellular level, and usually causes inflammation, which damages the cell membrane and the receptors that sit atop the cell, you usually have to do what you can to regenerate your cell membrane. This is actually pretty simple. If you have removed the toxins from your food and environment, all you have to do is eat a lot of good fat. The cell membrane is made of fat, so it just needs raw materials to regenerate itself. That includes full-fat dairy, grass-fed animal protein, and healthy oils like virgin coconut oil, olive oil, etc.

The third “R” is Restore Cellular Energy. Your cells have a detox mechanism already. They are designed to get rid of waste. But the damage to the cell membrane and damage to the mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) makes them unable to really get rid of everything. So you’ve got to give them energy, by building and repairing your mitochondria. This is generally done using special supplements and a specific diet.

The fourth “R” is Reduce inflammation. And when this happens, people really start feeling better. This can be done with foods high in antioxidants as well as various anti-inflammatory foods such as turmeric, ginger, the inner core of a pineapple, healthy fats to name a few. Various supplements can help a lot as well.

The final “R” is Re-Establish Methylation – This is the process by which certain parts of your genetic code are turned on or off. You’ve probably heard a lot about how your mom had breast cancer, which puts you at risk of having breast cancer. This couldn’t be more wrong. We all have the potential to develop breast cancer. What determines whether or not we do is either methylation -or- the absence of methylation. Toxins are a big factor in stopping methylation. Once you remove toxins, methylation continues, which protects your genetic code from turning on potentially dangerous genes.

That may seem a bit complicated and theoretical, and you’re still wondering how exactly you get rid of toxins in the first place. A general overview.

Detoxification

Most toxins are stored in fat tissue. Pesticides, BPA, PCBs, Pthalates build up in fat. So honestly, one of the best ways to detox is to lose weight. The problem here, though, is that your brain is mostly composed of fat tissue, so it is at risk of accumulating toxins.

In many cases, determining what is causing the toxicity and removing it, losing weight will bring your toxic load way down.

Heavy metals can be particularly problematic as they can accumulate in brain tissue and deep in your bones.

We can take chelators like activated charcoal, which attracts heavy metals at a molecular level and binds with them. However, the problem remains that you then have charcoal bound to a heavy metal and it’s circulating through your system and eventually settling again in your tissue. This is a process called retoxification.  That’s why you often need a binding agent that your body will quickly get rid of through urine or feces.

There are a couple of products designed to do this. BIND is one. Another is cytodetox. They are chelators that don’t hang around in your body. Rather they bind with heavy metals and other toxins, then exit relatively quickly with the toxins still attached.

Cilantro also binds with heavy metals and can help extract them from bone and brain tissue, as can a silicone crystalline formula called zeolites.

For PCBs, beyond weight loss, Vitamin B12 has been shown to help remove them.

If you are worried about pesticide toxicity, once you’re sure you aren’t consuming any more (by eating organic), things like cilantro, milk thistle and cruciferous vegetables are helpful in flushing these chemicals out.

But the best way to defend yourself against toxins is to be healthy overall. Your body knows how to flush toxins and has various systems in place to do just that.

If you get enough sleep, manage your stress, eat clean, get exercise, get into nature and just generally care about yourself and your well-being, you can generally keep your body in a state where toxins are manageable. Health is the side effect of healthy choices.