What is making you sick, fat and tired? I'm here to guide you in addressing the cause behind your health conditions and not just treating symptoms. My name is Dr. Terrie Van Alstyne, I’m a Naturopathic doctor and today I want to talk about detoxification and toxicity.
Toxicity is one of the 7 main causes behind disease. We are full of toxins! The toxins are coming at us from everywhere- the air, water, food, the chemicals in our homes and workplaces and on our lawns. It's disastrous.
80,000 metric tons of toxic chemicals are released into the atmosphere every year in North America alone. I have a whole list of fun facts about toxicity that I don't want to bore you with because it's way too depressing. The key is cancer rates are on the rise because of the level of toxicity in our environment.
Even our water is loaded with toxins. The toxic runoff of pesticides into the rivers is feminizing the fish, alligators and crocodiles. They are becoming female when they are, actually male. They are no longer depressed because they have lots of Zoloft and Prozac in their systems. They have birth control pills regulating their cycles and antibiotics in the water are killing any bacteria that they might have in their bodies. How depressing!
How do you know if there's toxins in your system? First of all, there definitely are, and we can't avoid them because we don't live in a plastic bubble. Some of the symptoms are poor memory, cognitive decline, any neurological symptoms like numbness and tingling, headaches, migraines, memory loss, low energy, aches and pains in the joints and muscles and unexplained weight gain. The weight gain is because the toxins are being pushed from the liver into the fat tissue to store them so that we don't become sick and damaged. Other signs of toxicity are low testosterone in men, causing infertility. Any central nervous system disorder, breast and other types of cancers that are all caused by high toxicity in the body.
Which nutrients are needed by the liver to detoxify? The liver does a two-step detoxification process and it needs certain nutrients in each phase to take the fat-soluble toxins and make them into water-soluble toxins so that they can be eliminated.
In the first phase the liver needs B vitamins and folic acid in the form of methylfolate (which is the body ready form), Glutathione, antioxidants, carotenoids, vitamin E and vitamin C.
In the second phase the liver needs certain amino acids which are glutamine, glycine, taurine, cysteine and sulfur chemicals, which can be found in cruciferous vegetable family. We're talking about cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale, garlic, onions and leeks.
The toxins are moved from the liver into the bile which is stored in the gallbladder and released into the intestinal tract to be released through the colon. They are also sent to the kidney and eliminated through urine.
We need lots of water while we're detoxifying, (or in general, because we are constantly detoxifying and most of us are chronically dehydrated). For a detox we need one ounce of water for every kilogram of body weight. For me at 120 pounds I need three liters. If you're heavier than that you need more water. If you're drinking caffeinated drinks, including coffee and caffeinated teas, which are diuretics, you need even more water than that. Water is absolutely, key!
The carotenoids that I mentioned are in the orange vegetable family, so kabocha squash and any other orange squash and carrots. There are some herbs that are great at stimulating and enhancing detoxification, for example:
• Milk thistle
• Artichoke heart
• Burdock root
• Dandelion leaf
• Dandelion root
• Cilantro
The bitter greens are very important, like dandelion leaves, which can go into salads. There is also rapinni, which is nice and bitter and supportive of the liver as is lemon juice.
Juice fasting is a great way to stimulate detoxification and speed it up. You can do either single fresh juices or you can do a combination. I like the combination of beets, carrots, apples and ginger with some greens, celery and cucumber. You need to remember to drink the juice immediately after juicing it because it will lose its nutrients and its ability to help us if we store it and drink it later.
Colonics and coffee enemas are very helpful. Coffee enemas stimulate detoxification from the liver and are helpful for chronic diseases and for pain syndromes. They can be done up to 5 times a day. For example, a cancer patient could be doing 5 coffee enemas a day, which would really speed up their healing. For colonics, you go and get this done by a practitioner, they are like a nurse and they allow water to enter the colon and be released out of the colon. What that does is it loosens the impacted fecal matter that lines the colon. The fecal matter builds up for our entire lifetime. An average 25-year-old male has 10 pounds and it continues to increase as we eat mucus forming foods like dairy, eggs, junk food, deep fried foods, etc. As I mentioned before, Elvis Presley and John Wayne both had about 50 pounds of toxic waste lining their colons on autopsy!
Let's clean out our bodies by detoxifying. Keep the proteins and fats to a minimum the fruits and vegetables to a maximum so that we can heal. Increase the water, eat the herbs, take supplements if you need to. I've created an excellent detox powder with key herbs, vitamins, minerals and amino acids to enhance detoxification and to bind to all the chemical toxins and pull them out. I do a heavy metal detox smoothie with specific metal binding ingredients.
I am launching my next group Core Healing & Detoxification Program in 2 weeks and I have only a few spots left. If you need my help to take you step by step through a comprehensive detox program, this program will get you back to health, high energy and a more ideal weight. Please message me and we can set up a call.