Detox cures and detox patches are on everyone’s lips. Gossip magazines and blogs are overflowing with detox recipes, testimonials and advertising. But what’s the detox hype all about?
Our food is not “pure”, we always take in substances that the body does not need or that could harm it. We are actively or passively exposed to cigarette smoke, repeatedly come into contact with environmental toxins or absorb other harmful substances into our bodies. This is not healthy, but it is quite normal. Many of these substances accumulate in certain tissues. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), for example, are found in fatty tissue. Although these substances are already banned in the EU, they are in the food cycle and we all have them stored in our fatty tissue. DDT, which was used until the 1970s, is also stored in fatty tissue. There are many such examples.
The detox theory now says that these substances can be removed through cures or other means such as Detox patches should be removed to keep us healthy.
Slag
One often hears the term “slag”, which can be found in the body. It is important to know that, medically speaking, there is no such thing as slag. Slag is an industrial term used to describe waste from incineration processes. There is no such thing in the body. Our body breaks down toxins, excretes them or stores them in cells, for example; it does not produce waste products. The term therefore describes an alleged physical problem that does not exist.
Can you still detox?
Now you could argue that you can remove these substances stored in the tissue with a detox cure or a detox patch. Slag or no slag. Here, too, it is important to know that the vast majority of toxins are automatically excreted by our body. Kidneys, liver, intestines and the like are designed to keep our body “pure”. It is one of their tasks. This means that there is normally no excessive accumulation of any substances [1]. But no matter, we also want to eliminate the little bit that is stored there through detox cures and patches. Is that possible?
Detox cures
There are a myriad of detox cures. Incidentally, there are hardly any studies on this because, as described above, there is no scientific reason to do so. A review came to the conclusion that there are no studies on detox diets and no evidence that they work [2].
But let’s take a look at such a cure: Detox cures are usually pure juice cures . Special products are often us…