Why Detoxification Is No Longer An Option

At Synergised, we have been discussing the need for detoxification and liver support recently and, as you may have already seen, we have just launched the 21 Day Recent, which is a functional medicine detox (all supplementation, instructions and much more included!). However, I have received some comments from people suggesting that functional medicine detoxes aren’t ‘real’, or have been designed for functional medicine practitioners to make some money whilst the liver does a perfectly good job at detoxing our bodies for us. 

Firstly, I DO sell a functional medicine detox. However, with every product launch at Synergised, it is people OVER product. The 21 Day Reset was created as an essential to help people return to or maintain their good health. If this was just a money-making exercise, I wouldn’t spend my money on completing a 21 Day Reset every year and a 7 Day Reset every 3 months. The point is, not only does the 21 Day Reset evoke incredible and transformative physical results and benefits that are impossible to miss, it is also critical for my health. 

Secondly, the 21 Day Reset is backed by a huge amount of scientific research and reported in conventional medical literature. So, I’ve taken some time to debunk the myth that we don’t need functional medicine detoxes because, in fact, the research and studies very much suggests that we can’t be without them…

“The liver is there to filter toxins - why would we need to do a detox?” 

Currently, we live in a time where news spreads like wildfire on social media and EVERYONE has a voice. This has benefits, but it can also mean that a lot of fake news can arrive on your phone or computer screen, which can leave us confused, overwhelmed, and unsure who or what to trust. When I’m unsure, I look for scientific facts, clinical papers and research! 

There are many health departments around the world who are implicating environmental and man-made toxins with diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease to name just two. We are at the point where we don’t know how many toxins there are in the world - The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that it’s about 144,000. 

At least half of these 144,000(ish) toxins are considered to be carcinogenic. What does this mean? This means that they could cause cancer or extreme damage to the body. You might be wondering, ‘then why aren’t they banned?’ A lot of them are, but many are legal up to a certain amount or dose. 

The issue with this is, whilst microscopic doses from one time usage are not considered large enough to cause damage to the human body, this doesn’t take into account the following:

1. The sheer number of toxins that we are exposed to daily.
2. What happens when these toxic chemicals interact.
3. What is the impact on our body after many years of exposure and accumulating these microscopic doses of toxins? 

More and more studies are being published every week showing the damage that toxins are having on our body AND these studies suggest that our bodies, our liver in particular, is not able to cope with the amount of toxins entering the body and therefore not able to detoxify our body. This results in toxic build-up, imbalance and illness. 

The liver, which should be able to handle toxins as they enter the body, is becoming congested. This is a problem for our health because the liver is one of the most important organs in the body. There is an ancient ayurvedic phrase which says ‘so goes the health of your liver, goes the health of your entire body.’ Why do you think it is projected that 1 in 2 people will get cancer by 2030? Why do you think people’s health and quality of life is being reduced? Why do you think ADHD, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, infertility and birth defects are on the rise? There is a correlation with the number and amount of toxins we are exposed to daily, and the rise in disease and illness. 

So, functional medicine detoxes were not ‘made up’ by the functional medicine industry. Functional medicine detoxes were created by the functional medicine industry to combat the damage done by the increased toxin-exposure that we face every day. 

Toxins are real things that come from the air we breathe, the food we eat, the tap water we drink, the cosmetics we use, the materials we build with and the products we clean with. 

“The body detoxes itself”

The liver manages phase 1 and phase 2 detoxification. It helps filter toxins and prepare them for excretion via the kidneys and urine, via the stool and through the skin via sweat. The body is very much designed to filter toxins, and until recent history, it has done a very good job at doing so. The detoxification process of the body could filter environmental toxins effectively about 7000 years ago when the main toxin was smoke from fire. 

Now, the majority of us are perpetually dehydrated, so we are not excreting enough toxins via urine. We are not participating in activities that make us sweat as much as we should, so toxins are not leaving via the skin. Therefore, we are relying on our liver more than we should, in addition to our livers becoming congested due to being bombarded by hundreds of toxins every single day. 

How To Support Detoxification 

One of the most important things we do now is support our liver. We can do this daily with hydration, avoiding toxins as best as we can, eating an anti-inflammatory diet and taking certain supplements. However, the most important and EASIEST way to help support our liver and ease congestion is to do a functional medicine detox. I recommend doing one every 12 weeks. This doesn’t need to be a full 21 days (which I recommend if you have never done a functional medicine detox before), but a 7 day detox every 12 weeks will massively help support your liver. 

Why Don’t Medical Doctors Recommend Functional Medicine Detoxes? 

I wouldn’t go to a bricklayer to help with the interior design of my home, just like you wouldn’t go to a medical doctor for natural health. You would go to a natural doctor because they are trained in this area, whilst a medical doctor is not. This is simply because functional medicine is not included in their study or qualification. This is not a flaw to their expertise, but potentially a flaw in how healthcare is approached. 

Conventional, medical doctors train to identify and treat diseases with pharmaceuticals. This is not viewing symptoms from a root cause level or identifying imbalances before they reach a diseased based state. Yes they might let you know that your test results suggest you are pre-diabetic, or your cholesterol is a bit high, but they just say to ‘watch it’ or at the best ‘improve diet and exercise.’ Their training in natural health doesn’t go beyond this to look at what caused the initial imbalance, or to provide a protocol or functional medicine detox to help rebalance the body. This is because medicine focuses on medicine, not natural health and nutritional supplements. A doctor will not have in–depth knowledge in this area unless they have studied this area after or alongside conventional medicine. 

This is why everyone needs a medical doctor, for disease management, but they also need a nutritionist or naturopathic doctor or an integrative health practitioner. 

Real Studies:

Let’s debunk the idea that the liver CAN function under the added stress of increased toxic-load…

1. This study showed that when the human body is unable to detox, the toxins are stored in fat cells, so that they are not circulating the body in the blood. These toxins are not to be seen again, until you begin to lose weight. This is why it is so important to detox your body if you are currently on or have just completed a weight loss journey. 
2. This study looked at toxins in fat stores and circulating blood toxins in women with endometriosis. The study shows that fat stores had a higher amount of toxins, which suggests that the liver was unable to manage the toxic load, resulting in toxins being ‘hidden’ in fat cells. This study also linked endometriosis with toxic-load, so if you have endometriosis I highly urge you to look further into functional medicine detoxes. 
3. This study looked at recent trends of exposure to toxins in association with developing diabetes. 
4. Scarily, toxins are now being passed from pregnant women to their unborn child, via the placenta, umbilical cord and even passed in breast milk after birth. This study highlights these dangers.