Is detoxification possible through alternative medicine and herbal treatments?

Answer 1

Detoxifying is actually only possible with alternative therapies, because the orthodox establishment refuses to accept that heavy metal toxins such as aluminum and mercury are harmful, and goes so far as to cover-up the fact that they are even included in their own vaccines, and pharmaceuticals. All orthodox therapies lead to higher toxicity, in fact. It is bad for the patients, but really good for long-term business.

There are many therapies out there that are bogus, including many commercial detoxifying products. However, your body does create detoxifying enzymes, detoxifying amino acids (eg. n-acetyl cysteine / "NAC"), and there are some that exist in raw, green, leafy vegetables.

Detractors of alternative therapies, such as detoxification, have claimed that nature does not provide an effective immune system capable of clean-up operations, but they have only demonstrated their own ignorance about the human body. For example, the average women consumes approximately 6 pounds of lead-laced lipstick in her life-time, so imagine the condition of the average women if her body were unable to flush toxic wastes.

There is an enormous amount of information to be found on the Internet, and it would be wise to find a more credible source than this for information about something as important as your long-term health.

Whatever a person is detoxifying for, and how aggressive that person needs to be in detoxification should heavily influence the plan and the herbs used. For extreme cases, even alternative practitioners will sometimes recommend the use of DMSO and EDTA (both chemicals) for detoxification, but gentler and more natural therapies are typically recommended.

Alt. Answer

Detox is not possible through any method, and the body already has mechanisms to remove harmful compounds. The proof and studies are out there, and should be researched before starting any potentially dangerous detox process. Remember, science studies are peer reviewed, alt. medicine isn't. You say doctors discredit alt. medicine because it doesn't make them money. Isn't it possible that alt. medicine tries to discredit western medicine for the same reason? Scientific studies are much more trustworthy than urban legends, and 2000 year old magic.

Alt. Answer

With the "orthodox establishment" I assume you are talking about medical doctors. People do NOT need to "detoxify". It's a word invented by alternative medicine in its quest to confuse people and make them believe that they need it. Most people do not consume mercury and other heavy metals in such an amount that "detoxification" is necessary. Only a highly skilled biochemist, physician or anyone with a 7-year education on the human body related to this area can answer this question correct. Relax, you don't need it.

Alt. Counter Answer

IV Chelation is standard orthodox "on-book" medical care practice for treatment of certain conditions such as heavy metal poisoning. No debate. This treatment method can be called detoxification.

Orthodox medical chelating agents currently in use are typically synthetic / artificial amino acids (the building blocks of proteins).

When administered carefully using the correct IV chelating agents, those targeted metals can be largely removed from the system of the patient. Some chelating agents are also known able to remove poisons such as arsenic. Some of these early generation chelating agents were put into place during WWI when all maner of chemical and nerve gas agents were used during the war by the Germans against the Allies. Additional chelating agents were established by the time of WWII.

Certain metals are known toxins for certain organs of the body. Metals such as radioactive isotopes are toxic to all bodily tissues. The scientific literature has accounts of chelation being used successfully for exposure to several different radioactive isotopes with the patients surviving many years after what would normally be a fatally toxic absorption of the compound.

Certain mercury compounds are so highly toxic that they can kill nerve cells with extremely low concentrations. Many heavy metals are known (in the medical text books) not to be readily removed via kidneys.

The EPA guidelines for permitted concentration levels of mercury are based on an old, outdated study of island fishermen who had a high daily intake of fish that absorbed certain chemical compounds of mercury. Exposure to mercury in this manner permits natural mechanisms in the highly evolved human gastrointestinal tract to discard and not absorb those particular chemical compounds of mercury. By their GI tract naturally disposing of most of the mercury in their diet, the island fishermen did not have elevated serum levels of the toxic compound.

So the EPA based their permitted concentration levels on this particular modality of exposure.

There are other means of absorbing mercury into the body than the GI tract.

For example, dental fillings using mercury amalgam were in high use for many years. When a patient who has a mouth full of such fillings grinds or wears down or brushes with a tooth brush those fillings, mercury vapor in the mouth of the patient can be easily measured using a detector. When such released mercury is inhaled into the lungs of the patient, the natural process of the GI tract are bypassed, and the mercury vapor is absorbed through the lung tissues, entering the blood stream.

For another example, certain large USA manufacturers of serum inoculations include a mercury compound as a preservative. When such inoculations are injected into a patient, there are no mechanisms at play to mitigate the mercury's ill-effects.

Over the past few decades the number of required shots and vaccinations has increased several fold. With the addition of these injections of these various mercury compounds into the system, it is no wonder that the ill effects have manifested themselves by the increasing number of neurological diseases reported each successive year. Autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and a host of others are all on the up-swing.

Presupposed mercury poisoning has been inferred by medical scientists experimentally trying to treat autism. Reports from these doctors of spontaneous remission from the condition of autism are coming in on a monthly basis. (See Autism chelation cure OR remission). No one, especially medical doctors likes to be proven wrong, and so those working in the AMA, EPA, and FDA have so far refused to acknowledge these successfully treated cases. You do not have to even mention mercury in the "see also" search keywords, but it will come up "auto-magically" in the returned results.

Many of the conventional strong chelating agents used to target mercury are not well absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood stream. Various formulations of these agents are being combined with other molecules to permit their absorption in the GI tract.

Still others have been formulated for absorption through the skin if applied in the form of a cream. Some web sites have made advertising claims of excellent absorption oral chelation products--but these are not natural formulations, but synthetic. Similarly, doctors treating autism with chelating creams have associated commercial manufacturers advertising on the web of various doctor-approved cream formulations.

However, when you purchase these products, you are free to administer them to yourself rather than require a doctor apply them.

There are indications that some children are genetically predisposed to harboring toxic metals in tissues other than the blood, and so their serum levels do not reflect their high level of exposure to the toxins. These are the theories in use by many of the doctors successfully treating autism with chelation therapy via skin application of chelating creams.

Whereas current chelating agents are artificial amino acids, naturally derived amino acids would likely act in a plug-in replacement manner, replicating the mechanism of action of the artificial agent. Numerous vitamin supplements are said to act as weak chelating agents.

Chelation is just one example of a detoxification treatment that selectively addresses metal toxins. There are other types of poisons / toxins than metals. For example, some nasty Canadian chemical company invented an unleaded gasoline additive to prevent engine ping and knock. It was extremely toxic and had been shown to easily contaminate ground water and so was banned in the USA, but because of the Canada / USA free trade agreement, the ban had to be lifted so that the cross border trade of the substance already in commercial use could not be stopped (due to the language of the agreement). The intention of that agreement language was to keep things like Natural Resources like fresh spring water and oil supplies / trade from being cut due to laws being enacted, but it had the unfortunate consequence of keeping a deadly toxic substance in production and cross-border traded. If such a toxic substance could be removed from a patient's system it would benefit them greatly, and extend their life.

The natural methods of detoxification involve diet change.

A key anti-cancer treatment in use since the early 1900s are the Hoxsey Tonic and Gerson therapy. Max Gerson's therapy involves very frequent drinking freshly juiced fruits and vegetables, and the use of coffee enemas. Coffee is a known diuretic. By using coffee as the enema fluid, the kidneys are forced to express more urine than usual. This supposedly assists in detoxification of blood borne toxins already trapped in the kidneys. No doubt that the types of vegetables used in the juicing process is sometimes carefully targeted to the needs of the patient so that measured toxins might be targeted by alternative, natural chelating or other kinds of detoxing agents.

The body has its own defenses to toxins.

One video explains that various heavy, toxic metals have similar chemical properties to other required metal mineral elements, and so are accumulated by the body by mistake / accidentally. In the case of prostate cancer, the body mistakes toxic cadmium for good zinc, and for example, deposits cadmium in the prostate in addition to zinc.

Another video explains that both males and females produce the hormone estrogen. There are several varieties of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is involved in the body's electrical and chemical signaling process to heal wounds, cuts, bruises, stress related damage, and so on. Excessive estrogen is usually located surrounding cancer cells. Cells exposed to certain higher levels of estrogen can become cancerous. Those cancer cells get a protein coating on their walls that has a negative charge that repels blood T-cells, the body's protection against foreign infections. Trypsin is an enzyme that is produced by the pancreas that erodes away the abnormal protein coat from cancer cells to expose them to the blood's T-cells that then destroy the cancer cells.

As we age, our hormone levels decrease to the point where testosterone levels become less than the estrogen levels that we produce, causing trouble in the prostate gland-the levels reduce after age 30 or so and become equal at about age 50.

Peroxisomes cells are the body's natural mechanisms to detoxify itself of various toxins. These cells have a weakness-a chemical named phthalates that is a plasticizer used to make plastics flexible, and phthalates are supposedly found in Styrofoam coffee cups, and huge numbers of other plastic products.

Sauna sweating can remove some phthalates from skin and fat. Be aware, however, that some people may suffer a heart attack or stroke while taking a sauna.

Glutathione is a sulfur-based detoxification agent that can remove phthalates from deeper body tissue sites, as well can remove other toxins from your system. However, this natural molecule is produced by the body itself only if you have the genetic traits to permit its healthy production. Sulfur containing foods that promote the production of glutathione include garlic, onions, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, watercress, bio-active whey protein-the clear liquid that comes off of the top of yogurt (it comes from milk protein products that have not been de-natured-non-pasteurized milk, etc).

Glutathione (GSH) is a small protein produced naturally in our cells if the requisite precursors are present. It functions both as an antioxidant and an antitoxin and is a major defense system against illness and aging. Our body's glutathione level actually indicates our state of health and can predict longevity. It has been suggested that in the future, GSH levels will be closely monitored. There are over 60,000 medical articles currently published on GSH, yet most health professionals have only a vague idea of its significance. In the near future the importance of glutathione will be widely recognized.

Dr. Robert H. Keller now is a partner / developer / associate in a multi-level marketing firm that promotes a supplement that supposedly is a bioavailable form of precursor to glutathione named MaxGXL or similar such. They may be charging more than $100 per 1.5 liter can of this may be good / may be bad supplement stuff.

To name but a few...Chlorella is a green micro algae. Scientific studies have found that the cell walls of these algae extract various toxic compounds from animals. (Search pubmed for >Chlorella detoxification<). Citric acid (a 5% part of lemon juice) is a natural chelating agent. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is also a chelating agent. Thioctic or lipoic acid is a chelating agent. Foods containing lipoic acid include dark green leafy vegetables, including spinach and collard greens; broccoli; animal foods such as beef steak; and organ meats such as calf's liver. Cilantro or coriander, a green leafy salad vegatable, contains an essential oil component that acts as a chelating agent. You will probably not find these prescribed or provided by M.D.s or hospitals because they do not make copious amounts of money.

More information

As highly observed, alternative medicine and herbal treatments had been used extensively in detoxification. These are popular trends in detox processes. In fact, most destination health and wellness centres offer these two as major detoxification. You can visit any hotel spa resort near you and see how these two is applied in detox process.

More information

Herbal detox can help ride the body of toxins and excess hormone that people eat in their commercially grown meats, eggs, and as a result of Birth Control pills. Couples who are trying to conceive are often recommended a herbal detox in order to increase their chance of getting pregnant. This is done by using herbal remedies like Milk Thistle and Tarassacum, which assist the liver eliminate excess hormones.

More information

There are many things that can be done for detoxing, it just depends on what you're after. If it's heavy metals you first need to be tested to see which you're highest in. You can detox mercury using an oral chelator, but if you have too much lead you need IV chelation to remove it from your body. Both therapies require mineral replacement and specific nutritional support. General environmental toxins can be "cleansed" simply by eating healthy, exercising and drinking plenty of water. Your body does all the work if you give it what it needs.