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I take issue with the last paragraph. I was injured by toxic oil fumes from a faulty furnace--which was supposed to have been fixed but was not--and I became very sick. There was no emergency treatment. It was an ongoing, chronic problem that built up over time with the oil company saying they had fixed it. Another (honest) oil company came and told me not to even use the heating system anymore and they installed a new boiler. It was the kind of heat that came out through blowers and it even made sooty marks on the walls, that's how bad it was. I moved out but it was too late, I was already sick from it.
It wasn't like a blast of oil fumes, it was gradual and most people who came to the house barely noticed it. I was there a lot more than they were so I became sick. Probably I already had a build up of toxins because when I was a kid my town used to spray something for mosquitoes. They just had everyone close their windows for the night. In the morning that air would smell horrible and there would be a greasy film over everything. Kids used to write their names in it! We found out years later that it was DDT they were spraying--and it went all over our huge vegetable garden too--our food source all summer and in the canned and frozen versions, all winter.
Things like that accumulate and your body can get to the point where it is overloaded-- and I am not making this up and no juicing company ever told me to drink juices.
In my case, my doctor said that I should try to detoxify. That my liver and kidneys were probably overloaded. I was not specifically told to drink juices but I was told to eat green leafy vegetables because they are good for the liver--which does much of the detoxifying. I was told to not eat foods that would be hard on the liver: anything greasy or heavy. I was also given a list of supplements--like vitamin C and told to steer clear of toxic chemicals like a lot of the household cleaning products and even common things that I was using like hair sprays. It was a lifestyle change and a diet change. I was told by the doctor that I could do a fast if I wanted to---carrot juice diluted with water so that it wouldn't be so high in sugar.
I would trust my own doctors and the other doctors who helped me. They have the education and experience.
So you had to do a complete lifestyle change, a total diet overhaul, eliminate toxins from your environment, and a list of supplements.
Sounds to me like you prove the point: juicing didn't detoxify you. Juicing -cannot- detoxify you. What -can- detoxify you, if your body is truly poisoned - is a complete lifestyle change, a total diet overhaul, eliminating toxins from your environment, and *possibly* supplements until your body is able to do what it should do without them (but only if the doctor has tested you for deficiencies and is confident that those supplements are medically necessary).
He didn't order you to fast. He told you that you -could- fast if you -wanted- to. In other words - along with all the things you NEEDED to do - you were -allowed- to do that as well.
Also - the OP never returned to clarify what she meant by her post. But she -did- call it a fad. So that implies to me that she isn't talking about a medically prescribed fast, or a medically prescribed juicing program. She sounds like she's talking about the fad, pushed by those salespeople, who insist that ALL bodies have toxins and must detoxify regularly. Which is pure hogwash, but it sells lots of Bullets and lots of supplements. And coffee enemas, and crazy diets, and herbs, and high colonics.
So you had to do a complete lifestyle change, a total diet overhaul, eliminate toxins from your environment, and a list of supplements.
Sounds to me like you prove the point: juicing didn't detoxify you. Juicing -cannot- detoxify you. What -can- detoxify you, if your body is truly poisoned - is a complete lifestyle change, a total diet overhaul, eliminating toxins from your environment, and *possibly* supplements until your body is able to do what it should do without them (but only if the doctor has tested you for deficiencies and is confident that those supplements are medically necessary).
He didn't order you to fast. He told you that you -could- fast if you -wanted- to. In other words - along with all the things you NEEDED to do - you were -allowed- to do that as well.
Also - the OP never returned to clarify what she meant by her post. But she -did- call it a fad. So that implies to me that she isn't talking about a medically prescribed fast, or a medically prescribed juicing program. She sounds like she's talking about the fad, pushed by those salespeople, who insist that ALL bodies have toxins and must detoxify regularly. Which is pure hogwash, but it sells lots of Bullets and lots of supplements. And coffee enemas, and crazy diets, and herbs, and high colonics.
Actually, nothing has cured me but I'm a lot better than I was. Of course my doctor tested me to see if I needed the supplements, except for the obvious like vitamin C. I tested very low in just about everything. She also tested for food allergies and found a lot of them.
I did ask if fasting could help because many of her other patients talked about fasting and she told me it could be beneficial for some people, but not for me. Maybe if I just did it for one day of watered down carrot juice but that I was too sick to do a real fast.
So I've never done a fast and I don't intend to. Maybe the OP was talking about a new fad. I can only relate to the medically prescribed type of fasting (although there is religious fasting, of course.) There are some really far fetched claims made just to sell more products to people who don't need them and that could include juicing and a lot of other things.
Still, I think drinking some fresh fruit or vegetable juices and laying off the hard to digest foods for a little while could be of some help to a lot of people. I don't want to fight about it; that's my opinion from what I've read and heard.
Oh I totally agree that an occasional fast is a great idea, if you've had digestive troubles. And juicing can get useful if you need the nutrients of veggies and fruits, but want to avoid the fiber for whatever reason.
It's also a great way to start any kind of non-medically-necessary diet, because psychologically, it's like "starting from scratch." I haven't seen that idea posted in any of several fasting threads, but I think anyone who wants to start a diet - should give their bodies and minds a rest from food for a day, before venturing forth with something new and different. A food-fast - drinking only water, or *diluted* fruit juices - for 24 hours - is a perfect starting point.
But these "detox juicing diets" - you can do a google search for it. It's HUGE. It's also not new at all, I'm guessing the OP just recently heard about it for the first time. It's been around for years, and it's flawed pseudo-science because it's based on the idea that people are, by virtue of their existence as human beings, filled with toxins, and their colons need to be cleansed. So they're supposed to do these crazy juice fasts, combined with ridiculous amounts of supplements (also available with monthly delivery plans for a low low price)... it's pretty insane.
Oh I totally agree that an occasional fast is a great idea, if you've had digestive troubles. And juicing can get useful if you need the nutrients of veggies and fruits, but want to avoid the fiber for whatever reason.
It's also a great way to start any kind of non-medically-necessary diet, because psychologically, it's like "starting from scratch." I haven't seen that idea posted in any of several fasting threads, but I think anyone who wants to start a diet - should give their bodies and minds a rest from food for a day, before venturing forth with something new and different. A food-fast - drinking only water, or *diluted* fruit juices - for 24 hours - is a perfect starting point.
But these "detox juicing diets" - you can do a google search for it. It's HUGE. It's also not new at all, I'm guessing the OP just recently heard about it for the first time. It's been around for years, and it's flawed pseudo-science because it's based on the idea that people are, by virtue of their existence as human beings, filled with toxins, and their colons need to be cleansed. So they're supposed to do these crazy juice fasts, combined with ridiculous amounts of supplements (also available with monthly delivery plans for a low low price)... it's pretty insane.
That's why I don't think the OP was talking about a new fad, just the same juicing ideas that have been out for years. I'm 100% against colon cleansing and I think it's a scam. As far as toxins, we live in a toxic world and, as my doctor explained, that can overburden the liver. Her reason for fasting was to aid the digestive system, mainly the liver, in its work of cleansing--it could be called detoxifying. She said our livers were designed to detoxify and they can do a lot of work but given the way a lot of people eat (junk food with additives), and the kind of air a lot of people are breathing, the chemicals that we use on a daily basis that the liver has to detoxify, our livers were not designed to bear that kind of burden. Give the liver a break.
If the toxins you're consuming are being processed efficiently by the liver, then your liver - and by extension your blood - would be fine, and there'd be no need to detoxify. If your liver is -not- processing it efficiently, then your liver - and by extension your blood - would be in ill health, which would require medical attention, not just a juice fast.
I'm saying your doctor is using flawed data to explain flawed logic, and coming to flawed conclusions. This issue worked for you because you DID have poisoning in your liver, and the rest of your body. And you did fasting *combined* with all the stuff that actually worked. The juicing isn't what healed. It was -fasting- that healed. If you had nothing but clear fluids - including chicken broth, and apple cider, NO juicing at all - you would've healed faster.
Any time the body has to digest something, the liver has to work. If there's fiber, the liver has to work a little harder. If there's alcohol, it has to work harder. If there's fat, it has to work triple-time. That's why a clear diet is optimal, as a *treatment for disease* in the liver, *in conjunction* with other things. Fasting, all by itself, won't heal a diseased liver. It just won't.
Obviously not everything about the human body is well understood. My doctor said that by the time liver damage shows up on their tests, it has to be pretty bad. The person would already be feeling symptoms but the tests would be negative.
Many people who came to her probably had damaged livers, she went on that assumption according to their symptoms and histories and so even if it wasn't showing up on tests yet, she prescribed things like miso soup, something I made every morning. It was a clear broth with seaweed (lots of minerals), greens, and at the end you added a tiny bit of miso.
All the rest of the food her patients ate was cooked and easy to digest. At first there were not any oils, but that was only for a very short time. There was no sugar except for the sugars you got from vegetables. Fruit was not allowed because she didn't want people's blood sugar spiking, although some fruit was allowed later on.
No exposure to chemicals at all. One patient got really sick if his wife used floor wax, the smelly paste kind, a lot of people had what is called Sick Building Syndrome--either from working or living in a place that had toxic chemicals. I met a couple who had to sell their new house because they got so sickened from the formaldehyde in the wall to wall carpeting. I was sick from all of it and couldn't even go into stores--clothing stores reeked to me of whatever they used in the sizing or finishing of the fabrics (doesn't bother me now and I can't smell it either), some grocery store aisles reeked, in particular the aisle with the chemically scented detergents, soaps, fabric softeners. I still avoid that aisle and even make my own laundry detergent.
All of us had to detoxify. It may not be mainstream medicine but thank goodness some doctors are aware and do help people who have this toxic overload. In my case, I was only getting worse and worse going from doctor to doctor and none of them could help me. Thank goodness some doctors think outside the box.
The women who posted about how juicing made her feel so much better, I do believe her. She had the chemical sensitivity like I did and it goes along with my doctor's theory that the liver has become overburdened and you have to give your liver a break. So the juice fast would have eliminated the greasy foods and the fiber, this letting the liver get some time off.
People came to my doctor in the first place because traditional medicine had failed them. There are people who fall between the cracks. That's what my pcp told me and thank goodness he gave me names of doctors who could treat those people because he had never learned anything about it in medical school. He was open minded enough to know that he didn't know everything.
This is getting to be too much about my doctor being right or wrong. For those of us who sustained some kind of liver damage from our environment, she saved our lives. I will never be in great health again but I lived when I would have died. For those who have some undetectable liver damage from chemicals (and I bet that is a lot of people these days) some sort of a fast, whether it's fruit juice, vegetable juice, will give your liver a rest and a chance to rejuvenate, probably making you a little less sluggish and run down. The juice fasting is probably for people who are in between: not quite sick enough to require what I went through medically but for people who are heading in that direction and may have a few of the symptoms I have. Medical tests aren't good enough yet to detect the damage so those people fall between the cracks. Prevention is key. Maybe you and I can agree to disagree.
Medical tests aren't good enough yet to detect the damage so those people fall between the cracks.
This concept is the fundamental basis for every medical scam there is. Create a fictitious condition, then "cure" it.
It is also used by those who insist that people with normal thyroid function studies are "hypothyroid" just because they feel tired.
The fact is that none of the "detox" faddists will tell you exactly what "toxins " their "detox" is removing. Until they can do that, everything they say is pseudoscientific garbage. How does consuming fruits and vegetables as juice "detox" while consuming whole fruits and vegetables does not? The answer is that it does not. Consuming neither juices nor whole fruits and vegetables does anything to change the function of the liver. If you have been exposed to a "toxin" --- a poison --- that will damage the liver, your liver tests will be abnormal. There are true toxins that can quickly kill a liver, such as the one in amanita mushrooms. The most common toxin that causes chronic liver damage is plain old ethyl alcohol. Eat the mushrooms and you will need a new liver. The damage is irreversible. If you are killing your liver with alcohol, quitting drinking can help. Drinking fruit and vegetable juice will not help with either one.
So if you invoke vague "toxins" as a cause of non-specific symptoms, just about anything you suggest to the patient is likely to make him feel better. If your doctor says eat more fruits and vegetables and get some exercise, you will feel better, but it has nothing to do with "detoxifying" anything or allowing the liver to "rejuvenate."
This concept is the fundamental basis for every medical scam there is. Create a fictitious condition, then "cure" it.
It is also used by those who insist that people with normal thyroid function studies are "hypothyroid" just because they feel tired.
The fact is that none of the "detox" faddists will tell you exactly what "toxins " their "detox" is removing. Until they can do that, everything they say is pseudoscientific garbage. How does consuming fruits and vegetables as juice "detox" while consuming whole fruits and vegetables does not? The answer is that it does not. Consuming neither juices nor whole fruits and vegetables does anything to change the function of the liver. If you have been exposed to a "toxin" --- a poison --- that will damage the liver, your liver tests will be abnormal. There are true toxins that can quickly kill a liver, such as the one in amanita mushrooms. The most common toxin that causes chronic liver damage is plain old ethyl alcohol. Eat the mushrooms and you will need a new liver. The damage is irreversible. If you are killing your liver with alcohol, quitting drinking can help. Drinking fruit and vegetable juice will not help with either one.
So if you invoke vague "toxins" as a cause of non-specific symptoms, just about anything you suggest to the patient is likely to make him feel better. If your doctor says eat more fruits and vegetables and get some exercise, you will feel better, but it has nothing to do with "detoxifying" anything or allowing the liver to "rejuvenate."
I disagree with a lot of this but that's okay. My medical doctor was not a "detox faddist" and drinking vegetable juice was a very small part of her recommendations. She wasn't treating alcoholics or eaters of poisonous mushrooms. I don't know anything about any new detox juicing fad so I can't comment on that.
I think it's pretty obvious the person is not talking about blood poisoning.
Yes, there are many ways in which the body works to detox and ideally, that would be enough.
And it is enough or something is very wrong. If someone consumes something toxic the body can't rid itself of, juicing isn't going to remove it. But the Dr would have to know which toxins they are. Some, like DDT can't be removed and are still found in people's fat tissue who were exposed years ago.
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Some people, especially those who have been exposed to something like toxic oil fumes, or pesticides, or any number of things that are hazardous to the body, end up sick. The body gets overloaded and the usual detoxification channels can't handle it. That is how it was explained to me by my own doctor.
A medical Dr? This is true. But drinking a home made brew of juiced veggies wont either. Not that they're not healthy compared to some things people consume, but there is nothing in them to remove what the liver and kidneys cannot.
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When the body can't handle the toxins, it's usual practice to drink a lot of water to flush them out. This is pretty much it. Some doctors recommend drinking juices, either fruit or vegetable so that the body can get some nutrients at the same time.
Some toxins cannot be flushed out. If they could be, the liver and kidneys would have gotten rid of them as they were consumed. Extra fluid could help the kidneys "flush" out the toxins already taken care of if that's what you mean.
I think juicers are useless because they discard the pulp which contains most of the nutrients, so its better to just eat the fruits and vegetables whole. Or use something like the Nutribullet that is powerful enough to liquify everything including the pulp.
This is why I don't "juice" my food or buy juice at the store. I eat a lot of fruit and veggies but want the fiber also. Not only does the skins and pulp contain extra nutrients, but they help the intestines and colon move the waste along.
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