Detoxification – what is it and is it effective?

By Phillip Wade, B.Pharm, ND (adv), Dip Bot Med, Dip Clin Nutr, DRMA, matms. (Author’s note:  All claims made hereunder are backed by evidence in either the literature or clinical practice).

Our Offer: As Naturopath, I treat every individual wholistically: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We treat the person and not the disease. Recent scientific research  indicates that liver detoxification is a valid pathway to wellness, as accumulation of liver toxins have been found to cause illness. And we identify and treat for underlying causes in that pursuit. I work with medical doctors in that vein, using whatever tools are available to aim for a Wellness Outcome.

As pharmacists we also work closely with your doctor, especially in the light of treating Urinary Tract infections with antibiotics and issuing oral contraceptives because you, the patient are the most important person in the whole medical/pharmaceutical equation.*

*Conditions apply.

Imagine your kitchen sink slowly clogging up with dried food, your oven with rancid fat, and bathroom sink not draining efficiently.

The above is an apt analogy of what can go wrong with your gut, liver and kidneys if you neglect them.

And that a good clean will have them functioning well.

Most people who are interested in their health are aware of this one way or another – either by “gut feeling”, family folklore, from a visit to the naturopath, or all three.

And many are not – and they are the ones who may need to read the following.

How they are connected

Gut-liver connection

As you can see on a typical naturopath’s clinic chart, the liver and gut are directly connected via the gallbladder and its common bile duct.

Secondly the gut is connected indirectly to the liver via a large vein called the Portal vein that “gathers” blood from capillaries that lie just beneath the gut’s cell layer. This enables the liver to be the first “port of call”, delivering digested nutrient (and toxins) from the gut to the liver.

Liver-kidney connection

What is also not shown here are the kidneys that are connected indirectly via the bloodstream.

So, everything passing out of the liver into the bloodstream has to pass by the kidneys.

And if your liver’s detoxification chemistry is exhausted from over-challenge, then that also includes any surviving, gut-derived toxins.

AND the total length of the average gut is 10 Metres, so there is plenty of opportunity for gut inflammation to cause trouble with the plumbing!

And that’s where a good detoxification process comes in handy.

Complications with toxins

The inside lining of the gut tube (lumen) does not have sensory nerves – only “motor” nerves that tell it what to do and when to do it.

That means to you that as you cannot necessarily feel pain until the gut is distended by gas or occasions a perforated ulcer, then by definition you may not often be aware that this inflammation is happening, especially in the early stages. This is regarded medically as a “sub-clinical” (mild) condition.

Nonetheless this is precisely when you should act so as to prevent the condition worsening to a “medical” level.

So how do you recognise this impending doom if you can’t even feel it?

Regular Naturopath check-ups

Calling in to your naturopath periodically will tell you all you need to know.

At our naturopath clinic, we test for “leaky gut”. As you can see from the gut-liver-kidney connection, we therefore check all three.

How do you check?

At our clinic we perform a live blood assessment (from a single drop of blood), a blood glucose check as well as a multistix urinary analysis.

Live blood assessment.

The magnified image of a drop of blood in real time from a Hemaview microscopic live blood assessment is transferred to a screen via a TV camera that is attached to the microscope. This very handy system then allows you to see how healthy your blood cells are.

From these, you can not only form an opinion on how healthy your other cells may be but also ask for other opinions, as several images and videos may be recorded and sent to your own device – phone and/or PC.

Also it allows you to see little bugs that shouldn’t be there including Giardia among others. This requires only a finger prick of blood, as in a diabetes test.

Urinary analysis

We can show you the response to your urine sample of the nominated coloured indicators on your multistix and give valid, evidence-based interpretations of their meaning.

These will indicate liver and kidney health and may even indicate your level of infection challenge.

If you are satisfied that thetest results match how you are feeling, and process is worth the effort, then we can progress to the treatment stage.

Sometimes an eye colour may even change when people become well again.

We also do an eye essessment to check for health generally.

I love Iridology because of this factor – although it does give other clues as to your systemic health as well as just toxic level. Funnily enough these always seem to match the functional tests.

A good test for this is to do the Iridology first to make sure that the assessor is not fudging the answers!

That’s why it always fascinates me to do an “eye-colour” assessment. It is quite remarkable to see a client’s eye colour literally brighten up during a “detoxification period” from even a muddy colour to gradually lightening blue. We currently have an excellent case study of this phenomenon in progress of a customer who is “sick of being sick” and is “staying the course”.

How do you “detox”?

Really, the only way is to aim to kill off the build up of accumulated yeast, parasites and pathogenic bugs, and to aim to restore the “tight junctions” and – repair the damage to – mucosal cells that line the entire 10 metres of the gut.

And before you even start, you will almost certainly have to clear the liver of accumulated waste that it is unable to remove by itself, if the leaky gut condition has been around for a while.

But one caution – the “off the shelf”, “single shot” detox offers are rarely able to do the job on their own.

We have developed a system over a long period of time that is as thorough as we can make it and may usually produce the desired effect, using products and processes that are unethical to advertise, unfortunately.

For more information, ring the office on 61 2 9420 4959 or use the contact form.

So to check out how the gut/liver/kidney system operates and why this fascinating process may work, please read on.

Lets start with the liver.

Simply put, the liver needs to utilise what it can from the material delivered from the gut’s portal blood vein to make and maintain – well – us!

So, the unwanted material can either accumulate there or latch onto cholesterol and the low density lipoprotein carriers (LDL) and potentially circulate through the body.

As the cells can’t use this material as nourishment, well it just accumulates in the bloodstream, sticking to arteries (arteriosclerosis) and being sucked into artery walls (athrosclerosis).

So you need a good nourishing combination specifically designed to replenish the nutrients including specific processes that may harm the liver if not “quenched”. So, we need an abundance of nutrients that allow for removal of insoluble, environmental and microbial toxins with a “safety net” quenching” ability if stimulated to excess, as well as dietary sulphurated amino acids that are required to operate “phase 1 and phase 2″ chemistry that allows these “conjugated” toxins to pass out of the liver and ultimately, harmlesly through the kidneys via the bloodstream.

These are also handy for helping the liver to recover from rank, clinical liver disease.

Repairing the flaws in the gut.

Leaky gut occurs when some irritant causes the gut cells to separate slightly from tight junctions to a looser joins.

This allows undigested matter into the gut’s bloodstream .

It also loses its protective mantle of healthy microbiome (good bugs) and this in turn means that the “bad bugs”, yeast and parasites to grow faster. The looser junctions mean that these too may sail through into the bloodstream.

This all leaves the liver with a job to “detoxify” from these unwanted visitors.

It also leaves the gut inflamed drying out, leaving you with a vague feeling of discomfort and sometimes bloating.

                                                                                                     

Good bacteria gone

So, the decline begins with the loss of the healthy microbiome – trillions of “good” bacteria that protect the gut from the parasite insurgents and unwanted bacteria.

What causes this die-off? Usually food preservatives, over-use of pesticides when growing crops, and antibiotics – either prescribed or eaten in meat that is grown by using antibiotics as a growth promotent. That’s why our meat sources are all from “chemically-free” butchers. And as Blood Type O””s are quite compatible with meats and enjoy them immenseley it is especially important for them to know this.

And it has become quite noticeable that gut-related parasites have become steadily worse since the rules changed and we began importing fresh food.

So, we have had to devise ever more radical methods to eliminate the bad bugs. We can only share this with you legally at the clinic or via E-health.

                                                           

 

Leaky Gut

This is a term that is becoming more and more mainstream, as the medical profession has puzzlingly shied away from “science-based”, “fundamental” research over the years. However, lately they have come to regard “hypochondriacs” as potential sufferers of this reversible condition. As a footnote to this discussion, naturopaths have been well aware of the relationship between poor gut health and chronic illness for many years. This article explains how medically-accepted research has now indicated the relationship between “clinical” disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome,  Irritable bowel syndrome, acne, arthritis, allergies, asthma or celiac disease and gut health. That means to you that if you suffer from any of these diseases that Marcello Campus of Harvard names that were previously considered by the doctor to be “untreatable” then naturopaths are trained to be able to help you. He also mentions fibromyalgia, that itself has been found to be well-treated by a specific bioresonance treatment that is also available at this clinic, that is also mentioned by leading researcher in this area, Carolyn McMakin who also discusses the general pain-relieving properties of the abovementioned Frequency Specific resonance therapy.