“Internal Cleansing” – The Truth About The Most Controversial Subject In Natural Health.
An Introduction
“Internal Cleansing” has always been one of the most controversial topics within the nutritional supplement and alternative health care industries; and although the practice of body cleansing has been employed therapeutically and ritualistically by cultures across the globe for thousands of years, internal cleansing protocols have largely been delegated to the realm of quackery by the modern day medical establishment.
Mainstream physicians have been known to scoff at the idea - proposed by many within the alternative health field – which maintains that dozens of health maladies may be caused by the poisoning of our bodies by nebulous and ill-defined “toxins” in our air, water, and food. But for as pervasive as these ideas have been over the centuries, it is generally believed, as referenced in the above studies, that this theory of health was disproved once and for all as long ago as the 1920s.
As the theory goes, toxins (from contaminated foods, water, environmental chemicals, and the inefficient digestion of proteins and fats) are thought to enter and chronically poison the bloodstream through a compromised digestive tract. This process is has been dubbed “autointoxication,” and is still thought by some to be the single most important factor in the development of all human disease.
But, in a sense, you can hardly blame the modern medical establishment for their skepticism. Many of the myths of autointoxication which have stubbornly persisted for centuries have failed to fully stand up to the weight of increased scientific scrutiny, yet these ideas continue to be employed in the promotion of dubious nutritional supplements and cleansing protocols.
Toxins - Mainstream Science, or Scare-Tactic?
In the field of internal cleansing, perhaps more than any other, the half-truths and pseudo-science sometimes employed by nutritional supplement producers simply to sell products make mainstream acceptance of alternative medical practices all the more difficult to achieve.
It seems that a few modern-day “snake-oil” salesmen of the nutritional supplement industry, who continue to promote what are believed to be antiquated and disproved theories of health, are largely to blame for conventional medicine's knee-jerk bias against any alternative therapies - especially any approach having to do with "cleansing" or "toxins".
But, on the other hand, it appears that this same bias may actually be blinding conventional medicine to much of the more recent, and more relevant research in the field of gastrointestinal health. Even within the mainstream scientific literature, the evidence is beginning to show that there are some aspects of the autointoxication theory which can’t be so easily dismissed.
Of course, the term "autointoxication" is almost never used today in the conventional medical literature. To do so may lend credence to ideas which have been "officially" debunked. Yet terms like "leaky gut syndrome" and "Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome" which are currently scientifically acceptable terms, seem to describe the same phenomenon.
But whatever term is used, the fact remains that more and more scientific research has shown that the health-enhancing effects of intestinal detoxification ARE REAL. But these studies have been scattered for decades throughout scientific literature from around the globe; and like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they're just waiting for somebody to put them all together.
The fact is that we DO need to detoxify our bodies. There ARE toxins in our gastrointestinal tracts, many of us ARE being slowly poisoned by the compounds which leak from our intestines into our bloodstream, and there ARE things we can do about it.
Will The Real Science Please Stand Up?
And no, we’re not advocating the crazy “fasting cleanses,” “flushes” or glorified laxative herbs that the nutritional supplement industry is so famous (or infamous) for. Many of these techniques, when used improperly, or too often, may actually do you more harm than good.
Instead we’re talking about painless, sensible, inexpensive, and simple changes you can make everyday to protect and support the integrity and function of your digestive tract – the first step in achieving optimal health.
In the coming weeks on the Integrated Supplements Blog, and on www.IntegratedSupplements.com, we’ll begin to show you just how important a healthy digestive system is for the optimal function of EVERY OTHER system of your body.
You’ll see how nourishing your internal environment properly can:
• Support Immune Function
• Support Heart Health
• Support Healthy Blood Sugar Levels
• Help You Reach a Healthy Bodyweight
• Keep Your Skin Radiant and Clear
• Support Mood
• Keep Your Mind Sharp, and possibly even
• Extend Your Lifespan
Skeptical?
Good, because most importantly of all, we’ll back up what we say with links to the actual science.
When we’re done, we’ll have made a case which will be able to withstand even the most rigorous scientific scrutiny.
In short, you’ll begin to see exactly what we mean when we say that Integrated Supplements is a company dedicated to Nutrition For Your Full Human Potential.
Food for Thought - And The Beginning of a Practical Approach To Detoxification
Speaking of “full potential,” we’ll end this introduction by referencing a single study. A study which is one of the most convincing works in the scientific literature illustrating the harmful effects of intestinal toxins – while, at the same time, providing evidence that simple, inexpensive action taken to neutralize these toxins may profoundly benefit our health and longevity.
In 1984 Soviet gerontologist V.V. Frolkis found that the simple periodic addition of activated charcoal to the feed of mice extended the animals’ average lifespan by up to 43%. This is the equivalent of a 75 year lifespan being extended to 108 years – an improvement which to this day, stands as one of the most remarkable ever documented in anti-aging science.
Here's a link to the abstract of Frolkis' study:
In case you’re not familiar, activated charcoal has the ability to adsorb (attach to) a wide variety of toxic substances in the gastrointestinal tract, and is often administered in emergency cases of accidental poisoning and drug overdose.
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/activated_charcoal/article_em.htm
Most people are familiar with the use of activated charcoal as a “first aid” measure in crisis situations, but given the amazing longevity-enhancing effects of the charcoal given to Frolkis’ mice, perhaps we should ask ourselves exactly why such a compound was able to so dramatically extend the life spans of these animals.
These animals faced no toxic threat; no “poisons” in the traditional sense of the word; they were merely given standard laboratory feed, or the standard laboratory feed with activated charcoal periodically added.
But the fact is that something, be it from their food, their water, their metabolism, or the complex microbial ecosystem of their intestines, was in fact toxic. This toxicity was low-grade and chronic, so that mice fed a “normal” diet lived to what was assumed to be a “normal” age, and it wasn’t until these toxins were neutralized that the true potential lifespan of these mice began to manifest.
How would the skeptic of autointoxication explain the fact that again, the simple addition of the adsorbent compound, activated charcoal, increased the average lifespan of these mice up to 43%? - A degree of life extension which surpasses even the most technologically advanced, and costly “anti-aging” techniques ever discovered by science.
For the scientifically open-minded, the logical questions arise: is there reason to believe that humans may bear a similar toxic burden to the mice in Frolkis’ study, and are there steps we could take to effectively neutralize these toxins in our own bodies as well? The answer appears to be yes on both counts.
Our human food supply currently contains a whole host of substances which have been shown to harm our digestive tract, and to increase gastrointestinal permeability, inflammation, and consequently, our toxic burden. These include substances which we at Integrated Supplements have discussed elsewhere, including:
• Carageenan
• Sucralose
• Artificial Colors
And yet mainstream science tends to ignore the known effects of these chemicals, including their ability to compromise the integrity of the gastrointestinal barrier, increase inflammation, cause mood alterations, etc.
It’s quite possible with the absolute explosion of food chemicals incorporated into our food supply in the latter part of the twentieth century that the studies which allegedly “disproved” the autointoxication theory in the 1920s should be completely discarded.
We simply don’t eat the same foods now as we did back then, and the products of the “Golden Age of Food Processing” are turning out to have many unsuspected effects, many of which may stem directly from the damage they inflict to our gastrointestinal tracts.
It’s worth noting too that widespread antibiotic resistance has perhaps permanently altered the bacterial balance of our intestines towards one which fosters ill-health and disease. Many of the modern “super-bugs” to which we are constantly exposed, simply did not exist in the 1920s either.
But, once we actively take steps to avoid these compounds, and to neutralize the toxic components of digestion and metabolism, it will probably be prudent to begin redefining our conceptions of what the “normal” human lifespan is as well. If this mouse study is any indication, it may in fact be far greater than any of us currently suspect.
So, we think it’s high time to begin looking to the real science, and taking steps towards nourishing our internal environment, and reducing our toxic burden. These are the first steps in
realizing our full human potential.
And we’ll show you exactly how to do this in the coming weeks on the Integrated Supplements Blog – Stay Tuned.
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