That Detoxing must be so bad for your health...

[MyChemicalGerard]

I have a friend on facebook who is a "detox consultant" and I have been reading the testimonials. They seem diabolical to be honest, apparently you need to do a "pre-detox"? No idea why or what it entails, plus they all say they felt weak and sick and vomited on the second and third days, not suprised after no food and aloe vera gel... Then its aloe vera gel and shakes and one meal under 500 cals for 2 weeks.

Aibu that this seems really dangerous? It surely cannot be beneficial to your health in any way and vomiting?

[Objection]

It's a fad isn't it.
Bloody ridiculous.
Eat less and move more.
You can't cut corners with weight loss unless you are willing to literally cut corners.

[squoosh]

Your kidneys and bowels do your detoxing for you.

Your friend is a snake oil salesperson.

[CrohnicallyExhausted]

I thought aloe Vera gel was irritating to your insides? And caused either d or v or both?

[MyChemicalGerard]

Its called clean 9 and nutri lean It does not sound good at all but they are all raving about how amazing they feel! Maybe they are feeling delusional because of the lack of real food?

[BreconBeBuggered]

I don't care what they do to themselves, but it's bad for your health if you have to listen to people drone on about it.

[YourBrotherInLaw]

Agree with Brecon. Nobody should have to listen to that rubbish.

[MyChemicalGerard]

I thought that crohnically it must be bad for your insides, I remember drinking a bottle of teatree and being in A &E with a burnt esophagus and stomach lining, Aloe must be on the same lines?

[Pagwatch]

Vomiting is astonishingly bad for your teeth and your digestive tract.
You are pushing digestive acids up.

[whereisshe]

As far as I know well-managed, short-term fasting is quite healthy. But detoxing with purgatives isn't the same - often they're quite potent herbal treatments that really shouldn't be messed with. Aloe vera can irritate the gut so I'm not surprised puking is involved!

[Blindlyshining]

CrohnicallyExhausted
I thought aloe Vera gel was irritating to your insides? And caused either d or v or both?

That'll be why you lose weight! on the assumption only reason people "detox" is to lose weight

[myusernameis]

MyChemical I'm really curious.. Why did you drink a bottle of tea tree and how did you manage to? Bleurgh!

Aloe vera is not at all similar to tea tree and does not burn. I'm not an advocate of fasting btw but have tried aloe vera.

[MyChemicalGerard]

Umm well long story I wasnt thinking properly and wondered what it was like... it hurts actually and made me sick I then googled it and it said I was at risk of dying...NHS direct told me to go straight to A&E so i walked there

[Roundedbuttocks90]

I'm absolutely sick of my news feed being clogged up with bloody 'detox' diets, diet shakes and juicing!! Absolute money making fad.

Of course you're going to lose weight eating drinking celery water and eating less than a toddler by is it sustainable? No and by the end I it you're gonna have about as much 'go' as a push bike with no pedals.

It's all a massive money making scam. They just say that their products have got All of the essential nutrients that you need so that the stupidly gullible public but it!!

I also notice that the people who go on these 'detoxes' don't have any weight to lose anyway!

[specialsubject]

detox is babble - as others note, all in normal health have kidneys and bowels that do it for us.

your mate is deluded at best, a crook at worst. Lose her.

[RahRahRasputin]

It's such a load of rubbish, our bodies "detox" themselves naturally. Also some research seems to indicate that a component in aloe vera gel may cause bowel cancer.

I don't think people do it just for weight loss, also to feel healthier. Of course they feel better when they return to normal sized meals after a few days of just juice/weird tea/water and lemon!

I have a friend who does this and posts all about it on Facebook, including really patronising recipes for weird food she has made.

[UrsulaBuffay]

Surely it's aloe vera JUICE not gel?

[IWillYeah]

I've attemtped to fast/eat fruit only/ do a juice only detox in years gone by. By late afternoon n day 1 eveyry time I get the shakes and feel faint. Its bollocks.

[MyChemicalGerard]

ursula they all say a shot of aloe vera gel to be taken in the morning when you wake up, I don't know how they can drink it everyday it sounds so gross! I too am sick of being alerted by FB everytime someone posts about how great they are feeling after the detox on the page.

[UrsulaBuffay]

I take a shot of aloe juice- it's disgusting, like hairspray! I've just started because I have some health issues. But gel I would have thought would have something toxic in it to make it like that, also the consistency would be Bleurgh!

[AskBasil]

Detox my arse.

It's just a middle class term for crash faddy diet.

Loadabollox.

'Swat yer liver's for.

[EllenJanesthickerknickers]

My (naïve) niece did a 9 day Aloe Vera Detox. She said the gel was like how she imagined drinking frogspawn would feel. No idea if it was a coincidence but she had a severe kidney infection a week later and was hospitalised.

[WeAreEternal]

I occasionally do 48 hour juice detoxes.

For me they are really good, I have issues with my digestive system and juicing really does make me feel 100 times better.
I also generally drink a lot of water and take a multi vitamin, but since I started juicing two years ago I can see the difference in my health.
It's not for everyone but for me it works.

This aloe detox is a load or rubbish though,
as others have said aloe is a digestive irritant, it used to be a popular alternative to laxatives or salt water purges for people with eating disorders, it mimics the symptoms of a mild stomach upset (basically you have D&V for a couple of hours) so was a good 'cover' for purging.
Obviously this is a milder form, but still why anyone would want that is a mystery.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Aloe isn't like tea tee oil!

I've been reading about aloe being soothing for years, but all this fasting crap on fb makes me glad I'm not on fb

[Thumbwitch]

Aloe is indeed nothing like tea tree essential oil! God, you're lucky you didn't suffer more seriously from drinking a whole bottle of teatree oil, that's sheer craziness. There is at least one case of a child dying from drinking a whole bottle (all of 10ml) of eucalyptus essential oil - it's extremely concentrated (similar chemicals in tea tree and eucalyptus). Aloe vera gel/juice is just extracted/squeezed from the aloe plant, it's not distilled down into essential oils.

The liver is of course your primary detoxification organ in the body, but it does require decent levels of nutrients to make the detox enzymes. Detox support supplements are supposed to make sure you have enough of those nutrients, so that you make all the required detox enzymes, they're not there to do the job for you. I don't have any issue with making sure you have the right levels of nutrients, especially given the general depletion of essential nutrients (primarily selenium) in produce these days.

Aloe vera detox - nah, can't see the point. Years ago I saw something about it supposedly helping to remove the "mucoid plaque" in your gut - I don't believe in that either. I had a colonoscopy in December last year, had to drink some FOUL liquid that cleaned the bowel out good and proper - my bowel was beyewtifully clean and pink after that. No mucoid plaque hiding in corners or anything like that. And anyway, if the "mucoid plaque" was talking about gut bacteria, they're rather essential to our health.

[Thumbwitch]

Aloe has natural mucilaginous components in it that make the "juice" very gel-like, it's not artificially made into gel, as far as I know. It IS disgusting though - I tried it once at an exhibition and gagged on the consistency of it.