Detox: myth or miracle?

Detoxing is as much a part of January as over-indulgence is part of Christmas. To help speed up the process specialist 'detox kits' litter pharmacy shelves, but do they really cleanse your body or just empty your wallet?

If you justify your Christmas and New Year's Eve food and drink binges by promising yourself a month of puritanical abstinence come January, you're not alone. The heady last few weeks of December can seem like one long party, filled with frequent visits to the pub, free-flowing booze and gut-busting foods, but now the New Year has arrived it's time to pay your dues. It's time to detox.

According to Meenu Bhandari, pharmacist and one of the founders of Farmacia, an Urban Healing Cosmetics shop in London, man has always been susceptible to bingeing and purging. She says, 'Since early times, man has been aware of the importance of an inner-self cleanse. Most ancient civilisations advocated a day of self-denial or fasting. The purpose of this was to allow the body to have the opportunity to clean itself of unwanted waste matter.'
How far we have evolved! If you're suffering a hangover from hell, the obvious thing is to swap the booze for water. But some of us want to go a step further and feel that only a complete body overhaul will return us to that mythical healthy and energised figure we imagined we were before Christmas hit us with a giant tin of Quality Street.

The case for
Farmacia nutritionist Penny Povey advocates a seven to ten-day detox on a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, rice and grains including millet and quinoa, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. Alongside this she's also a firm believer in the detox kit.

'A detox kit contains remedies with natural ingredients to neutralise and eliminate toxins from your body,' says Povey. 'Today's lifestyle with its high stress levels, processed foods full of chemicals, a polluted environment, high levels of electromagnetic waves, lack of exercise etc, all contribute to toxicity in the body.'
'If the liver becomes overloaded, is not functioning 100 per cent or encounters chemicals it cannot deal with, then there will be a general build-up of toxic load,' she warns. 'These toxins are stored in body tissues including the liver, brain, thyroid, fatty tissue, heart, lungs, intestines and prostate and can lead to health problems. The process of detoxing helps to remove these toxins from the body with the result that you feel healthier.'

The case against
Chemical scientist Dr John Emsley has a very different view on detox kits. He says: 'They're a waste of time. There may be various minerals in them that help, but you can get them all from your diet. The body has a wonderful detoxing tool and it's called the liver. What the body needs is time and lots of water.'

So why do we sometimes feel better when we try a detox kit? 'People experience the placebo effect,' Dr Emsley explains. 'This amounts to about a third of its benefit. If you get up and convince yourself that taking something will make you feel better then it probably will.'

Taking myself as a case in point, I think a little psychological help wouldn't go a miss, especially when the wine bottle calls, but should we discount all alternative health as complete mumbo-jumbo?

Dr Emsley says: 'I'm not writing off alternative medicine altogether, I know of some very potent natural medicines such as penicillin. Nature is much better at knowing new chemicals than man could ever be, but the detox industry is a multi-million pound one - you don't need to waste your money, all you need is plain, ordinary tap water.'

To detox or not to detox?
Ultimately, it's up to you. If you're a bit tight for cash, then a week of sensible eating and abstaining from alcohol will probably do the trick. However, if you believe a detoxing kit will help your body repair itself, you've been partying hard, and you have the budget, then go for it. It's not going to do you any harm and if you want to go the whole hog you can always opt for a spot of colonic irrigation. For a less invasive approach, try turning your home into a spa.