The sub r/fasting has long auto mods on every post about electrolytes as well as not using the word ‘detox.’ Apparently there was some scientific meta analysis that found no diet is known for detox. However several toxic substances, like lead for instance, is known to have a lower half life in the body if certain vitamins are consumed, which would mean a diet high in those vitamins would in fact serve as a detox. Maybe the word ‘detox’ isn’t an actual word used in science, however a reasonable interpretation of what is meant when a lay person uses that word should allow one to concede there are things we do that effect our bodies elimination of harmful substances. Specifically with a fast, I would think giving your cells a break from insulin shoving fats and glucose into them would allow them to increase the rate of toxin expulsion. Also, if the body is smart enough to autophage the damaged parts first, I would think that would include the cellular debris that is bound to some toxins. And to flippantly say the liver already detoxifies the body, and nobody has these imaginary toxins in the body, is totally ignoring the half life of basically every toxic substance you can Google. Many will stay in the body for several days to months. Thoughts and discussion…
I got banned from the sub r/fasting for citing actually published work by Alan Goldhamer on the safety of medically supervised water fasting without electrolyte supplementation. It was apparently double blasphemy on the account that Goldhamer is not a medical doctor (and therefore nothing he says has any value…according to this subreddit logic) and his protocol is with distilled water, which goes against the “choking down electrolyte if you don’t eat for 10h or more” doctrine that they embrace too.
Bottom line is that the r/fasting sub appears to be ideology-biased and dogmatic and will erase anything that contradicts their views even if it is published research.
With regards to your point, there is some kind of mainstream school of thought that says that “detox” is a vacuous word or that there is always “detox” going on even when we eat etc…. but there are different kinds and different intensities of detoxification pathways and fasting seems to be involved in controlling the intensity of certain “detox” mechanisms, the most obvious one being autophagy.