What’s a toxin?

Dictionaries define a toxin as a poison produced by an organism, which causes disease. But detox kits cast the net wider to encompass any substance with the potential to harm your body. When the kits mention toxins, they’re mainly referring to those they categorise as environmental — alcohol, caffeine, medicinal and recreational drugs, cigarette smoke, heavy metals, exhaust fumes, pollution, ‘chemicals’, preservatives and pesticides, to name a few — which we’re exposed to in the air and through our diets. A couple of kits also mention free radicals — internal chemical by-products that can damage our body’s cells if more are produced than are neutralised by the body’s antioxidants.