Choosing the right detox routine depends on what your goals are. No matter what your choice is, it’s best to consider how each kind of detox will help each of your body’s systems.
Digestive System
What is it?
The digestive system is the system responsible for consuming and breaking down food into a usable form. It is also responsible for removing waste material left behind by the food we eat. The organs that make up the digestive system are the mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, gallbladder, pancreas, rectum, and anus.
What’s the best cleanse?
- Drinking Water – The more water you drink, the easier it is for your digestive system to get rid of waste material. There are lots of materials that end up getting stuck in the digestive system simply because the body cannot recognize them as food. Water helps to clear them out.
- Juicing – The essential vitamins and minerals you ingest from juicing can help condition your digestive system to absorb nutrients more efficiently. It can also help your digestive system better recognize what is and isn’t food.
- Cutting Out Carbs – There is never anything wrong with eliminating food from your diet that the body cannot use for energy. Doing this lightens the workload that your body is burdened with when it comes to eliminating waste material.
- Herbal Detox – Typical American diet plan does not contain a sufficient amount of dietary fiber. Fiber is roughage of the vegetables and fruits that help our body to eliminate waste. It prevents and reduces chance for constipation. A well-planned regular digestive detox would always include dietary fibers of some kind along with other herbal chelators and prebiotics to assist our body to remove toxin built-up in our colon.
- Probiotics – Our large intestine houses good bacteria (probiotics) and bad bacteria. It is important to repopulate our body with sufficient probiotics (varying types of strains and high quantity) so that it can balance its environment for optimum immune and overall health functions.
- Cleansing Program – By far our best seller is CleanStart (Apple Cinnamon or Wildberry flavors). They both have a powder drink mix with bentonite clay, fibers and other effective cleansing agents along with 3 capsules to stimulate the peristalsis movement of the colon. A milder version of CleanStart also available for those who have a sensitive digestive system.
Hepatic System
What is it?
The hepatic system is the system that is responsible for directing blood from parts of the gastrointestinal tract to the liver. Nutrient-rich substances absorbed in the small intestine travel first to the liver for processing before continuing to the heart. It also includes venous drainage from the spleen and pancreas.
Liver is the main detox organ of our body system. Liver performs this function in 2 phases. In first phase, liver converts toxic chemicals into a less harmful form via complex enzymatic actions. The detoxing effects is then completed through the second phase (Conjugation), when it chemically turns the less harmful chemicals into water-soluble form which are then dispel out of our body system through the urinary system.
What’s the best cleanse?
- Drinking Water – Water plays a big role in detoxing any part of our body because it is present everywhere. This is particularly true in our blood.
- Herbal Detox – As a blood filter, our liver is constantly bombarded with toxins that we ingest (drugs, processed foods, drinks, environmental contaminants, etc…). It gets intoxicated and can cause long term ill-effects on our body. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) considers liver organ as the most important organ of our body. Just about every TCM herbal combination will have at least one herb in there to address liver functionality. The best liver detox I have found is the Tiao-He Cleanse which is a TCM formulation that aids the liver in its ability to manage Phase 1 and 2 of its detox process.
- Green Tea – As stated in my previous blog, green tea contains powerful complex antioxidants. Antioxidants happen to be the exact nutrients used in both Phase 1 and 2 of the liver detox.
- Juicing – Just like other forms of detox, vegetable and fruits juicing provides all kind of nutrients needed for the liver to take on a variety of toxins and transform them into harmless substances to be eventually excreted out of our body system.
- Cleansing Program – Traditional Chinese Medicine treats liver as the main organ that needs much care and maintenance. In fact, you will very likely find an herb or more that directly nourishes or cleanses liver in just about every TCM formulation for whatever purpose. For that reason, we have a TCM-based liver cleanse that we love called Tiao He Cleanse. My wife and I do the Tiao He Cleanse at least twice a year to keep our hepatic systems in order.
Urinary System
What is it?
The Urinary System is a group of organs in the body concerned with filtering out excess fluid and other substances from the bloodstream. The substances are filtered out from the body in the form of urine. Urine is a liquid produced by the kidneys, collected in the bladder and excreted through the urethra.
What’s the best cleanse?
- Drinking Water – Are you still surprised why drinking lots of water every day is a great form of continuous foundational detoxing methodology? How much should you drink a day? Half of your weight (lbs) in ounces of water.
- Drink Cranberry Juice Daily – Cranberry juice has natural bacterial inhibitors called proanthocyanidins. They play a role in cleansing the urinary system and preventing infections. Drink at least two, 8oz glasses of cranberry juice daily. Please use 100-percent cranberry juice, not a regular cheap cranberry juice with other ingredients mixed in.
- Herbal Urinary Maintenance – Some herbs are excellent in nourishing your kidneys and bladder for optimal urinary system function. Here are some of them – parsley leaf, dandelion leaf, corn silk, uva ursi leaf, watermelon seed, asparagus stem. We have a product called by that exact name which you may find useful for your urinary system detox. Click here for more information.
- Follow these additional tips for a long-term healthy urinary system: Don’t drink coffee, soda, or sugary beverages. Don’t eat foods with excessive amounts of protein.
No matter what kind of detoxing routine you choose, it’s important to always consult your doctor if you have any questions. Medical professionals have dedicated years of their lives to studying the effects that proper nutrition and toxin cleansing has on the human body.
We will cover about detoxing other body systems in the future blogs. But for now, in the next blog, I would like to share a recently popular concept of basic daily detoxing. What are some of the things we can do to avoid daily toxins and achieve mild daily cleansing on a on-going basis.
Source: Nature’s Sunshine Products Blogs