Connections to Health - Detoxification Introduction

THE ISHTA HOLISTIC HEALTH CENTRE

CONNECTIONS to HEALTH

Detoxification

Detox, the very word suggests a removal of something foul, and is becoming more common in every day use. There are detox diets, detox products, detox this and detox that but what exactly does detox mean?

Well this series is going to explain what detoxification means, why we need it and how to do it in a safe and manageable way.

A Series?

Detoxification is actually a very simple procedure and in most cases doesn't need you to buy anything special. There are, however, some instances where some people might need some help from specialised products depending on their history. Although the procedure is simple it does consist of several stages, so to avoid confusion we are going to talk about the stages in separate editions of the newsletter.

Introduction

In this, the introduction, we are going to talk about why we need to detoxify the body, and what it is we are actually detoxifying the body of.

Why do we need detoxification?

The body is absolutely brilliant at keeping our internal environment clean and fuctioning properly. There are many scientific terms for this ability but we prefer to call it the Innate Intelligence of the body. The Innate Intelligence means that intelligence we were born with. We don't have to learn how to do it. We don't have to acquire it. It is our birthright.

The Innate Intelligence developed over the course of our evolutionary history and acts perfectly at all times to bring our bodies back to a state of perfection, or homeostasis. So long as we live in the environmental and social conditions in which we evolved the Innate Intelligence can maintain a state of perfect well-being.

There's the rub of course. Since the 1850's the environmental and social conditions in which we live have changed drastically from those in which we evolved. We now have pollution in the air we breathe, food we eat and the water we drink.
If that weren't enough, many of us are exposed to toxic chemicals daily from medicines, both for human and animal use, toiletries and household cleaners, building and furnishing materials, and from poor choices we make about food and drink etc.

We also have more stress in our lives now, which increasingly depletes our resources, so that it is more difficult to deal with all this chemical challenge.

What happens to all that toxic stuff?

The body has internal processes for getting rid of all those toxins, and the fact that we survive at all is a testament to how good it is at doing that. The problem, of course, is that these processes are now overloaded so the body has to do something else with the excess toxins. What it does is to store the excess somewhere in the hope that our toxic load will go down and then resources will be freed up to deal with the stored excess. In the mean time this toxic excess starts to have an adverse effect on the health and wellbeing of the body, resulting in unwellness, disease, dysfunction, and ultimately death.

A little bit of the excess toxins are stored in each of the cells in the body. Then other changes take place to contain the toxic waste. These changes have knock-on effects which eventually lead to the deterioration of health.

The Detoxification Process

The toxin is inside the cell. The first thing that has to happen is for the toxin to cross the cell membrane and leave the cell.
Once the toxin leaves the cell it enters the interstitial fluid. That is the fluid medium that surrounds each cell.
From the interstitial fluid it must move into the lymphatic system. The lymphatics are a bit like the sewerage system in the body.
From the lymphatics the toxin must go into the blood.
Frome the blood it must go into the liver*.
From the liver it enters the gall bladder.
From the gall bladder it enters the bile.
The bile is secreted into the bowel.
From the bowel it exits the body.
*Some of the toxins are also removed from the blood via the kidneys, the lungs and the skin, and are excreted via the urine, breath and sweat, but it mainly happens in the liver. These routes will be covered separately.

Flow diagram

So the process can be described in a flow diagram.

Cell -->Interstitial Fluid -->Lymphatics -->Blood -->Liver -->Gall Bladder -->Bile -->Bowel -->Exit.

At any stage the system can back-up. So, for example, it's no use getting the toxin out of the cell and into the interstitial fluid if the lymphatics aren't working properly as the toxin will just go back into the cell and it becomes a waste of effort. The trick then, is to start at the end of the line and work backwards.

Next month

In next month's exciting instalment we will be looking at how to rehabilitate the bowel and get it working properly. Fortunately a lot of the things we will be suggesting to enhance bowel function also help with other stages in the detoxification process so subsequent parts of the rehabilitation program will be much quicker.

Once you are clean

Once you have finished the detoxification process the trick is to not re-intoxicate yourself. We will be looking at ways to prevent re-intoxication, by making some simple lifestyle changes. These include drinking clean water, eating clean food, breathing clean air, avoiding chemical pollutants in toiletries, cosmetics, household cleaners, food additives and medicines. We are NOT advocating that you stop taking any pharmaceutical medication that you have been prescribed, however, there isn't a single pharmaceutical medication that we know of, either prescription or over-the-counter, that doesn't increase the toxic load on your body.

All we do suggest is that in many cases there are better alternatives to managing your symptoms than merely taking medication. We have nine people working at the centre who can advise you on less toxic ways of managing your symptoms while you return to health.

Until next time then, have good clean fun!