I regularly read that the idea of “toxins” just existing in our body is bullshit, and that our liver and kidneys do their job of removing any toxins.
But then I have also seen studies like: glyphosate (herbicide) being found in 80% of people’s urine, microplastics being found in blood, and toxicants potentially being stored in fat cells.
Can anyone clarify this? Thanks!
When people are saying this is BS, it’s usually in response to a product claiming to detox your body of harmful toxins, and this product will often sell itself through fear mongering.
I have similarly read studies and multiple articles about microplastics being in essentially everyones blood, regardless of location or lifestyle. While this is concerning I haven’t read about any way of reversing this.
Your kidneys are great, but they aren’t some magical filter that removes everything we don’t need.
Kidneys 101: blood comes in, the kidney takes almost everything out of the blood, then selectively puts important stuff back in.
It’s a great system. But it’s not foolproof. Some key things aren’t filtered, like your red blood cells or proteins like plasma albumin. Also, and this is a big one, it can’t filter anything that doesn’t get to it.
So if something is tightly bound by a large protein, or if it’s properties are such that it’s likely to just diffuse into whatever tissue it bumps against, then no, your kidney can’t do anything.
The entire concept of bioaccumulation depends on the ingestion and failure to clear “toxins”
That said, it’s mostly not worth worrying over. Environmental toxins are ubiquitous. If you exist in a modern society, you’re going to pick up metals, plastics, organic byproducts. That is unless you’re comfortable raising and cooking all your food in complete isolation.
Oh, and Detox products are bullshit.
Literally any substance in sufficient quantities will be toxic. Too much water will cause your red blood cells to burst from osmosis for example. Your own body produces waste like urea that would become toxic if your kidneys suddenly stopped working for some reason.
It’s certainly possible that there’s some kind of industrial waste in your blood. Lead, for example, is a very heavy element that’s hard for your body to clear and was getting emitted by cars using leaded gasoline. It’s probably not great that we’re putting all this crap like microplastics into the environment in such a way that it ends up in the food chain and eventually into our bodies, but you’re probably not going to suddenly get some terrible health issue from them. Let the EPA do their jobs and don’t worry about it. Stressing constantly about these things is probably worse for your health in the long term than their actual presence.
We are exposed to many different toxins, and some of them affect our lives. The most common source of exposure is oral, either food or drink, but air too (for example, look up leaded fuel). The burden of disease from these toxins is incredibly hard to calculate, I did a project on dietary exposure of metals affecting our kidneys at work, and the uncertainty was massive.
If someone says they have a product to detox you without testing what you have in your body, they are full of shit. If you get a blood test and have high mercury levels (this happened to my mom from degraded fillings), the doctor will prescribe something specific.
Our bodies were designed to detox on their own, yes, but look what we’ve done to the world. Everything from the air to water to our food to cleaning products are full of man-made crap. You can support your body’s own detox efforts significantly by eating lots of organic produce, grass fed meats, filtered water etc. There are also ways to further support detox & People who say detox products are useless are incorrect. There are studies showing how herbs like milk thistle and turmeric for example support liver function, protect against fatty liver etc. Foods like cilantro and spirulina can help chelate heavy metals and remove them from the body. Sweating in a sauna can push out mycotoxins, metals, and BPA. No one thing is a magic bullet but lifestyle changes can go a LONG way in helping reduce one’s toxic load.
There are toxic and unhealthy things in our body, like the microplastics epidemic and “forever chemicals” and stuff like that…but that’s never what anyone is talking about when they claim something “removes toxins” from you. At best, the only thing any product or routine does that is claimed to remove toxins from your body is just give you a full body flush…peeing and pooping…until you have nothing left to give. That practice is actually found to be harmful over prolonged periods, as it flushes out good bacteria from your gut biome in the process and you lose any nutrients your body had consumed but not yet absorbed. The kidney and liver already remove everything your body is built to remove, but no method or product does anything but empty you out the same way you already manually do yourself.
If your immune system is gunked up with heavy metals, herbicides, pesticides, etc, then there will be nowhere for them to be stored (lymphatic system). When your kidneys and liver are too full they eventually shut down because they cannot do it in their own.
I believe in toxins in our bodies 100%! Pimples for example are the toxins trying to escape from our skin. Many other prime examples of toxin releases or backups such as sinus infections and other things. The sinuses can’t get infected with nothing, there has to be something in your sinuses that cause this to happen. Many times it’s heavy metals.
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