Detox: Before and After

Chemicals and toxins accumulate in fat tissue as seen in the diagram above. The more impurities, the more fat the body manufactures and the more sluggish the immune system. Without a nutritionally rich diet that nourishes the body and assists in cleansing these substances from the body, the body will lose its strength and vitality. The immune system will become suppressed, contributing to an increase in illness and disease. These chemicals and toxins accumulate over time, and cause the liver and kidneys to become overworked and weak.

Conventional Medicine VS. Alternatives

While conventional medicine has a role, it is also severely limited. No reason to accept that there's no hope of getting better unless ALL avenues are explored. An enormous amount of evidence supports success when alternative natural treatments are implemented.

Synthetic VS. Whole Food Vitamin Supplements

Are your vitamins synthetic?

Synthetic vitamin supplements do much more harm than good, yet a large percentage of the American population takes them faithfully every day assuming they will improve their health. All vitamins are NOT created equal. In fact, finding quality supplements in today's market can be very tricky.

Learn why here.

Are you Toxic?

Watch a video called "Are You Toxic?" with MDs discussing how environment and lifestyle contribute to illness.

Also visit Detox Direct to learn more about cleansing and detoxing the body.

Death Begins in the Colon

While the human body has natural ways of self-healing, once left to become dysfunctional through eating and lifestyle habits the body is often unable to correct itself on its own. Individuals suffering from degenerative diseases, chronic illness, and a general feeling of illness are quite likely victims of a sick bowel. Many advocates of alternative health therapies suggest colon detoxing as a way of overcoming these illnesses by combating them at the root cause- the colon and intestines- in a more natural approach.

"Of all the polite topics of conversation, the state of one's intestines is probably at the bottom of most people's lists. Let's face it: Irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, gas, diverticulitis and colon cancer are simply not things we like to discuss. And yet, as the old expression goes, death begins in the colon. Don't believe it? Ask any coroner. Autopsies often reveal colons that are plugged up to 80 percent with waste material." - Vegetarian Times, March, 1998

The colon has several very important functions, all of which can affect the overall health of the body. The most important function of the colon is to regulate water balance throughout the body. Once food has been stripped of its nutrients and finds its way into the colon, the colon absorbs all of the excess water. On the other hand if the food is lacking the sufficient amount of water to be released from the colon, the colon then supplies the fecal matter with water to prevent constipation. The phrase “your body is only as healthy as your colon,” is very accurate.

Detoxing your colon and intestines can be done in a variety of different ways:

Colon Cleansing The most commonly recommended method involves the diet changes coupled with the use of detoxing supplements that help to cleanse the intestine and colon area. This plan would take at least 10 days and for great colon health is recommended to be done 3-4 times a year.

Other more intrusive methods would include: Colon Hydrotherapy- This procedure gently fills the colon with warm sterile filtered water through a small tube inserted in the rectum. When the water is flushed out, it carries with it any material that has built up in the intestine (colon), waste matter, toxins and trapped gases. Enemas can also be used as a bowel stimulant and is used to relieve constipation or to cleanse the lower bowel. Most enemas can be done in the privacy of your own home and are pre-packaged sodium phosphate solutions.

Research: Toxins Pose Health Risk

Environmental toxins exist in our bodies, and have serious effects on health.

Consider this study:

GTR News - Environmental Toxins Pose Serious Health Risk

“A study by The British Medical Journal says that 75 percent of most cancers are caused by environmental and lifestyle factors. A report by the Columbia University School of Public Health estimates that 95 percent of cancer is caused by diet and environmental toxicity; in addition, most Americans have between 400 and 800 chemicals stored in their bodies, typically in fat cells. ”

Are my Vitamins Safe? Synthetic VS Whole Food Vitamins

Synthetic vitamins have been proven to cause more harm than good, yet millions of Americans take them everyday. The fact is that 90% of synthetic vitamins pass right through you! That’s why people joke about Americans having the most expensive urine in the world. Yet for many, this is not funny at all.

Taking a daily vitamin is more important today than ever. Regardless of your diet, you are undernourished unless you take quality nutritional supplements. The two main reasons for this are:
1) Over-farming has depleted the nutrients from our land and produce grown on the land.
2) Our bodies are forced to deal with greater environmental pollutants (impurities).

Studies show that synthetic vitamins can even be harmful. In one study where pregnant women were given synthetic Vitamin A, the study was halted because birth defects
increased 400% (New England Journal of Medicine, 1995).

In another, men who took 500 mg of synthetic Vitamin C daily over 18 months showed signs of thickening of the arteries (Reuters Health, March, 2000).

A third example male smokers were given synthetic beta carotene and synthetic Vitamin E, the study was stopped when rates of lung cancer, heart attacks and death increased (New England Journal of Medicine, 1994).

Ingesting synthetic supplements will not effect a healthy person immediately, yet the
long-term consequences of continuous, daily intakes can potentially dangerous. Reactions
from synthetic vitamins might include fatigue, memory loss, depression, insomnia and
potential liver disorders.

Whole food ingredients naturally contain the hundreds of “co-factors” the body needs to absorb vitamins, while synthetic ingredients do not. They solve these problems while providing vitamins the body can absorb. They naturally contain the hundreds of “co-factors” (other nutrients) the body needs to ABSORB vitamins. When co-factors are missing, as they are in synthetic vitamins, the body may treat the vitamin as a foreign substance and eliminate it or pass it whole. In some nursing homes, the staff refers to these as bed pan pellets. Or much worse, the vitamin may even grab the needed cofactors from its own organs, bones, muscles and other tissue. In other words, your body starts eating itself!!! Over time, this depletes the body, causing disease and degeneration.

Why would makers of 'health products' DO this? Most likely the process was driven by manufacturing costs. As more and more people recognize the need for vitamins and the demand for them grows, everyone wants a piece of that market. There are few government controls on vitamin manufacturing since they are not considered drugs. Since price is such a factor in selecting a product, consumers will often opt for the lower priced vitamins not knowing that synthetic vitamins are mostly useless and might even be risky.

Are my vitamins synthetic? Here's how to know:

1. Look at the names of the Ingredients on the label of the bottle. A vitamin or mineral is synthetic if no plant source is given. If only the chemical and/or popular name appears, it is synthetic. Check the labels before you buy from your GNC or drugstore. Buy products with
the whole food source verbiage on the bottle.

2. Synthetic supplements also often contain other strange ingredients, such as additives, preservatives and artificial colors. Beware. The FDA requires that ingredients are listed in order of quantity with largest first. Therefore if these ingredients are among the first few listed, they have potential to be especially harmful since they exist in such large amounts compared to other ingredients.

• Additives: glucose, sucrose, starch, microcrystalline cellulose. These might be included for binding or dissolving ingredients, or for texture and taste.

• Preservatives: sorbates (eg, Polysorbate 80), benzoates (eg, sodium benzoate), nitrites (eg, sodium nitrite), sulphites (eg, sulphur dioxide)

• Artificial colors, like FD&C Blue #2 Lake, or FD&C Red 40

A Solution - READ the label carefully.

Look for single whole food vitamins (like Vitamin C from rose hips or camucamu), or whole food multis. Quality whole food supplements will not contain artificial colors, preservatives and other toxic additives.The ingredients in whole food supplements are mostly concentrated forms of the vegetables, fruits, herbs or spices. These are known to be rich sources of vitamins and other known nutrients.

It’s important to carefully select your vitamin supplements. Quality whole food supplements will enhance absorption and naturally clean impurities. They will be made only with the highest quality raw materials to replace the nutrients missing from food.