Detox cleanses are all over social media, with people claiming the diets remove toxins, help you lose weight and supposedly reset your body using a strict regimen of juices, herbal teas or other liquids; supplements; or fasting or eliminating certain foods.
But despite the hype, there is little evidence that these cleanses do what they claim ….
“This has become a multibillion-dollar industry because people are looking for quick fixes,” said Tinsay Woreta, an associate professor in gastroenterology and hepatology at Johns Hopkins University.
Your body already has a well-established filtration system. Your lungs trap and expel airborne toxins, your intestines remove foodborne organisms, and your kidneys filter your blood and eliminate waste through urine. Your body’s main detox center, however, is your liver, which processes blood from your digestive system and converts toxins such as alcohol into waste products that can be safely eliminated from your body, Woreta said.
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“We don’t have any evidence that if you eat a well-balanced diet that these cleanses are adding anything” — and they can’t undo damage that already has been done to your body, she said.
