On 12/7/2014 10:58 AM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]
wrote:
This is a "corporate science" article where he gives himself away when
he advocates the Mediterranean Diet.
/>
This doesn't really square with the other Barry's take on maintaining a
healthy diet, so I guess you are correct - no one diet is perfect for
everyone. But, based on the anecdotal evidence presented by the other
Barry - his diet and exercise plan seems to be a lot simpler and more
fun - normal food, cooked well, and walking and riding. Go figure.
>/
This is *no one diet* that fits all. We are *individuals* and have
different dietary needs. This is at the core of Ayurvedic and Chinese
medicine. And there is corresponding western research into
"biochemical individuality" but it is apparently too "complicated" for
most western doctors. Perhaps they should have been scrub nurses instead.
Things that are often called "snake oil" may often be marketed because
they *did* work for some people. For instance the Mediterranean Diet
will help folks who have "metbolic syndrone". Unfortunatley
corporate medicine treats the public as if they *all *have metabolic
syndrome. I don't have it. Lots of people don't have it. It's
"shotgun medicine" at it's worst.
There definitely are some detox methods that work and they have been
around for ages. We know some of them from Ayurveda and from Chinese
Medicine. Some are part of western folk medicine. And some....
heaven forbid, came from .... esteemed medical clinics such as the
Mayo and Lacy Clinic.
To throw out some of these methods, diets and so force is often
throwing out the baby with the bath water. Both Ayurvedic and Chinese
medicine are based on.... biochemistry! Toss out biochemistry and you
toss out corporate medicine too.
On 12/07/2014 01:54 AM, eustace10679 wrote:
There’s no such thing as ‘detoxing’. In medical terms, it’s a
nonsense. Diet and exercise is the only way to get healthy. But which
of the latest fad regimes can really make a difference? We look at
the facts
Friday 5 December 2014 04.00 EST
Whether it’s cucumbers splashing into water or models sitting smugly
next to a pile of vegetables, it’s tough not to be sucked in by the
detox industry. The idea that you can wash away your calorific sins
is the perfect antidote to our fast-food lifestyles and
alcohol-lubricated social lives. But before you dust off that juicer
or take the first tentative steps towards a colonic irrigation
clinic, there’s something you should know: detoxing – the idea that
you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky
clean and raring to go – is a scam. It’s a pseudo-medical concept
designed to sell you things.
“Let’s be clear,” says Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of
complementary medicine at Exeter University, “there are two types of
detox: one is respectable and the other isn’t.” The respectable one,
he says, is the medical treatment of people with life-threatening
drug addictions. “The other is the word being hijacked by
entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that
allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you’re supposed to have
accumulated.”
If toxins did build up in a way your body couldn’t excrete, he says,
you’d likely be dead or in need of serious medical intervention. “The
healthy body has kidneys, a liver, skin, even lungs that are
detoxifying as we speak,” he says. “There is no known way – certainly
not through detox treatments – to make something that works perfectly
well in a healthy body work better.”
Much of the sales patter revolves around “toxins”: poisonous
substances that you ingest or inhale. But it’s not clear exactly what
these toxins are. If they were named they could be measured before
and after treatment to test effectiveness. Yet, much like floaters in
your eye, try to focus on these toxins and they scamper from view. In
2009, a network of scientists assembled by the UK charity Sense about
Science contacted the manufacturers of 15 products sold in pharmacies
and supermarkets that claimed to detoxify. The products ranged from
dietary supplements to smoothies and shampoos. When the scientists
asked for evidence behind the claims, not one of the manufacturers
could define what they meant by detoxification, let alone name the
toxins.
Yet, inexplicably, the shelves of health food stores are still packed
with products bearing the word “detox” – it’s the marketing
equivalent of drawing go-faster stripes on your car. You can buy
detoxifying tablets, tinctures, tea bags, face masks, bath salts,
hair brushes, shampoos, body gels and even hair straighteners. Yoga,
luxury retreats, and massages will also all erroneously promise to
detoxify. You can go on a seven-day detox diet and you’ll probably
lose weight, but that’s nothing to do with toxins, it’s because you
would have starved yourself for a week.
Then there’s colonic irrigation. Its proponents will tell you that
mischievous plaques of impacted poo can lurk in your colon for months
or years and pump disease-causing toxins back into your system. Pay
them a small fee, though, and they’ll insert a hose up your bottom
and wash them all away. Unfortunately for them – and possibly
fortunately for you – no doctor has ever seen one of these mythical
plaques, and many warn against having the procedure done, saying that
it can perforate your bowel.
Other tactics are more insidious. Some colon-cleansing tablets
contain a polymerising agent that turns your faeces into something
like a plastic, so that when a massive rubbery poo snake slithers
into your toilet you can stare back at it and feel vindicated in your
purchase. Detoxing foot pads turn brown overnight with what
manufacturers claim is toxic sludge drawn from your body. This sludge
is nothing of the sort – a substance in the pads turns brown when it
mixes with water from your sweat.
“It’s a scandal,” fumes Ernst. “It’s criminal exploitation of the
gullible man on the street and it sort of keys into something that we
all would love to have – a simple remedy that frees us of our sins,
so to speak. It’s nice to think that it could exist but unfortunately
it doesn’t.”
That the concept of detoxification is so nebulous might be why it has
evaded public suspicion. When most of us utter the word detox, it’s
usually when we’re bleary eyed and stumbling out of the wrong end of
a heavy weekend. In this case, surely, a detox from alcohol is a good
thing? “It’s definitely good to have non-alcohol days as part of your
lifestyle,” says Catherine Collins, an NHS dietitian at St George’s
Hospital. “It’ll probably give you a chance to reassess your drinking
habits if you’re drinking too much. But the idea that your liver
somehow needs to be ‘cleansed’ is ridiculous.”
The liver breaks down alcohol in a two-step process. Enzymes in the
liver first convert alcohol to acetaldehyde, a very toxic substance
that damages liver cells. It is then almost immediately converted
into carbon dioxide and water which the body gets rid of. Drinking
too much can overwhelm these enzymes and the acetaldehyde buildup
will lead to liver damage. Moderate and occasional drinking, though,
might have a protective effect. Population studies, says Collins,
have shown that teetotallers and those who drink alcohol excessively
have a shorter life expectancy than people who drink moderately and
in small amounts.
“We know that a little bit of alcohol seems to be helpful,” she says.
“Maybe because its sedative effect relaxes you slightly or because it
keeps the liver primed with these detoxifying enzymes to help deal
with other toxins you’ve consumed. That’s why the government
guidelines don’t say, ‘Don’t drink’; they say, ‘OK drink, but only
modestly.’ It’s like a little of what doesn’t kill you cures you.”
This adage also applies in an unexpected place – to broccoli, the
luvvie of the high-street “superfood” detox salad. Broccoli does help
the liver out but, unlike the broad-shouldered, cape-wearing image
that its superfood moniker suggests, it is no hero. Broccoli, as with
all brassicas – sprouts, mustard plants, cabbages – contains cyanide.
Eating it provides a tiny bit of poison that, like alcohol, primes
the enzymes in your liver to deal better with any other poisons.
Collins guffaws at the notion of superfoods. “Most people think that
you should restrict or pay particular attention to certain food
groups, but this is totally not the case,” she says. “The ultimate
lifestyle ‘detox’ is not smoking, exercising and enjoying a healthy
balanced diet like the Mediterranean diet.”
Close your eyes, if you will, and imagine a Mediterranean diet. A red
chequered table cloth adorned with meats, fish, olive oil, cheeses,
salads, wholegrain cereals, nuts and fruits. All these foods give the
protein, amino acids, unsaturated fats, fibre, starches, vitamins and
minerals to keep the body – and your immune system, the biggest
protector from ill-health – functioning perfectly.
So why, then, with such a feast available on doctor’s orders, do we
feel the need to punish ourselves to be healthy? Are we hard-wired to
want to detox, given that many of the oldest religions practise
fasting and purification? Has the scientific awakening shunted bad
spirits to the periphery and replaced them with environmental toxins
that we think we have to purge ourselves of?
Susan Marchant-Haycox, a London psychologist, doesn’t think so.
“Trying to tie detoxing in with ancient religious practices is
clutching at straws,” she says. “You need to look at our social
makeup over the very recent past. In the 70s, you had all these gyms
popping up, and from there we’ve had the proliferation of the beauty
and diet industry with people becoming more aware of certain food
groups and so on.
“The detox industry is just a follow-on from that. There’s a lot of
money in it and there are lots of people out there in marketing
making a lot of money.”
Peter Ayton, a professor of psychology at City University London,
agrees. He says that we’re susceptible to such gimmicks because we
live in a world with so much information we’re happy to defer
responsibility to others who might understand things better. “To
understand even shampoo you need to have PhD in biochemistry,” he
says, “but a lot of people don’t have that. If it seems reasonable
and plausible and invokes a familiar concept, like detoxing, then
we’re happy to go with it.”
Many of our consumer decisions, he adds, are made in ignorance and
supposition, which is rarely challenged or informed. “People assume
that the world is carefully regulated and that there are benign
institutions guarding them from making any kind of errors. A lot of
marketing drip-feeds that idea, surreptitiously. So if people see
somebody with apparently the right credentials, they think they’re
listening to a respectable medic and trust their advice.”
Ernst is less forgiving: “Ask trading standards what they’re doing
about it. Anyone who says, ‘I have a detox treatment’ is profiting
from a false claim and is by definition a crook. And it shouldn’t be
left to scientists and charities to go after crooks.”
You can’t detox your body. It’s a myth. So how do you get healthy?
<http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance?CMP=ema_565>
image
<http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance?CMP=ema_565>
You can’t detox your body. It’s a myth. So how ...
<http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance?CMP=ema_565>
...
<http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance?CMP=ema_565>
Preview by Yahoo
