I’m looking for advice on a specific product that my sister has decided to try, called the Herbal D-Tox system. It’s apparently some herbal concoction, combined with a diet, that is supposed to help you remove toxins and cleanse your system.
She asked me to look into it, to see if it’s safe and if it’ll do anything for her at all. Being fairly ignorant of these things, I’m at a loss. My searching doesn’t even seem to bring up any ingredients besides “Biliherb” and “Laxaherb” sorts of things, so it’s hard to know what to tell her. From what I’ve read, it looks like the point is to make you crap like crazy while eating only super-healthy foods, to reset your body. As much as I support the use of herbal supplements for all sorts of things, this seems a little weird to me. My sis is extremely tired and stressed because she’s working 14-hour days at two jobs, and she thinks this will help her somehow (well, her co-worker who suggested it thinks it will). “Cleansing” is apparently a big thing where she is.
Has anyone heard of this stuff or used it? What’s in it, and what should she know before trying it?
Have any dopers done a “cleanse” like this? What did you think of it?
First of all, why does she think she has “toxins” and what are those “toxins”? The stress of everyday life and living in a polluted environment, or does she work with heavy metals or photo developing chemicals or something odd?
I hate the toxin fad, and I’m part of the alternative health world. “Toxins” have replaced “parasites” as the Fear Du Jour, without any good reason. Frankly, I think it all points to a very Puritan Guilt Ethic about the body, that it’s bad and dirty and the source of all suffering and must be “cleansed” and “purged” and beaten into submission.
Finally, if she’s already wiped out, then pooping for hours on end is not going to give her more energy. It’s going to deplete her even more, not to mention that messing with gut motility is a good way to make sure your oral medicines (including birth control pills) aren’t absorbed properly by your body.
I can’t find any ingredient list for those products, so I can’t tell you if they’re good, useless or downright dangerous. If she wants gentle support in her body’s own process of detoxification (which is formidable), then I suggest Milk Thistle Seed gelcaps (Milk Thistle is not water soluble, so Milk Thistle Tea is a crock) and freeze-dried Nettles. If she needs gentle help with her bowel movements, then Licorice and Dandelion Root make a good gentle combo. If constipation is a recurring problem then Dr. Christopher’s Lower Bowel Tonic is a good one that’s safe even for long term use.
But I suspect a nice soak in the hot tub and dual massages with her sister will go a lot further towards purging her of her real toxins - stress and fatigue and overwork.
[Insert standard herbal disclaimer here. This post for information purposes only. I am not a doctor, you are not my patient. Always buy your herbs from a reputable supplier AFTER checking carefully for any contraindications or herb-drug interactions.]
What WhyNot said.
Biliherb, Laxaherb, Cleansaherb listed as the main ingredients, are not official herbal names at all, but fantasynames.
I’ve read the recommendations and they sound fishy to me. Not only are they all written in the same style, and catering to the usual client groups, but they also mention all the other things that should be done besides taking herbal supplements: diet, exercize,etcetera.
That 26 dollars can be better spent elsewhere. She could hire a cleaning lady for it for two hours, for instance.
By the way, I did do a 7 day (fell short of my goal of 10) Master Cleanse that wasn’t bad. No expensive herbs, just lemon juice, maple syrup and a teeny pinch of cayenne pepper several times a day, salt water in the morning and a cup of Smooth Move tea once a day. It did feel good, and it did help shrink my overextended stomach temporarily. Google “Master Cleanse” for more info and avoid the freaky liver/kidney/cleanse/purge/toxin bits.
No, it’s just stress. She manages a clothing boutique, so it’s not a chemical thing at all. I think it’s just that the stress is getting to her, and a co-worker suggested this “cleansing” as something that’s helped her in the past. She’s in Vancouver, and most of her employees are the hippy-dippy types who are doing yoga every free second, to realign their chakras while eating tofu burgers and taking herbal laxatives to clear toxins.
I wish, about the massage thing. I’d love to be able to go over and drag her out for a pedicure or something, to lift her spirits. But she’s in Vancouver and I’m in Montreal, so there’s not much I can do in person to help her de-stress. That’s probably part of the problem - she packed up and moved across the country a few months ago and isn’t quite adjusted yet.
Thanks for the herbal advice, WhyNot. I knew I could count on you. If I manage to find more info about the ingredients, I’ll be back for more help!
I know - I tried to explain to her that it’s what the kidneys and liver do for a living, and that drinking more water would probably do her as much good, if not more good, than taking a bunch of unidentified herbal products. I’ll talk to her again tonight and see if I can set her straight.
It is, and most of the time, it does a perfectly admirable job. It sometimes can’t quite keep up, and we call that “poisoning”, or sometimes people do feel a little better with things like Milk Thistle* and Nettles which aren’t…how do I put this…pushy in their actions. In herbal-speak, they aid and support, rather than something like large doses of senna leaf which violently force you to poop a whole lot. I will not speculate as to whether this “feeling better” is psychological or physiological. It’s not something I’m particularly interested in, as I’ve said before. What I don’t like to see is people doing themselves *harm *in order to “feel better”, and you betcha there’s herbals out there that can cause harm.
There are certain people who work with, as I said before, heavy metals or other chemical intensive jobs where safety protocols are a little lax. I don’t think many actual chemists have issues, because they’re careful about what they do. 18 year old Sally Smith working the photo developing machine at Wal-Mart, on the other hand, may get more chemical exposure than she’s comfortable with. Different doctors will, of course, have different opinions about when treatment is needed. Generally speaking, people into herbal medicine want to be treated while allopathic medicine thinks they’re still within safe exposure limits. That’s when we can ethically work with safe and gentle slower acting herbs without worrying that we’re substituting for chelation or other harder, faster allopathic detox treatments.
*Milk thistle in particular is really nice - I had one client, who, working in conjunction with her MD, took Milk Thistle caps to help repair actual measurable tissue damage to her liver caused by long term low level CO exposure, and it worked.
It is remarkably difficult to eat a tofu burger while realigning your chakras and doing yoga at the same time. I’ll drag you to a yoga class and you’ll see.
