Should You Do a Detox or Cleanse? A Doctor Explains

Transcript

you know that feeling when you have had too much to eat and maybe had too much to drink maybe it's a long weekend or a holiday or you've been celebrating or something and maybe you had a few days of overindulging you get that bloated feeling maybe gassy or bowel movements might be a little bit off uh you might feel like you've gained some pounds you just may not be feeling yourself and thus comes the feeling that a lot of you have told me uh the sensation of wanting to cleanse or detox almost this idea of wanting to reverse or turn back the hands of time I'm going to answer the question today uh should you do a detox or cleanse and if so which one you should do uh by the way I'm Dr Jen guys it's good to see you first thing I should say is detoxes and cleanses come in lots of different forms um some people take supplements uh sometimes there are powders that go into like shakes or smoothies or things like that some people do colon cleanses or hydrotherapy some people use laxatives or um they use spices or herbs some people um only drink liquids for a period of time or juice they only drink juice or they do juice things veggies or whatever the case be maybe you see there's lots of different options when it comes to what people do when they detox or cleanse one thing I should say is I have to be honest you know when we see these detox cleanse products online um you know I'm not really sure what we're detoxing or cleansing now many of them will say they're removing toxins but the truth is I'm not sure what toxins are removing because many of the toxins in our body are removed by our organs thank goodness for that um our liver our kidneys our lungs our GI tract helps remove toxins which is a good thing okay that we don't need a colon cleanser detox to actually do this we'd be in a lot of trouble if we did but let's get back to this idea of okay you're feeling kind of crappy you're feeling kind of like you know you ate too much drink too much whatever you want to reset should you do a detox or cleanse and if so which one should you do well first of all a couple things you should know okay um all the detoxes and cleanses are very very different um but I do have concerns with some of them when people start drinking liquids for days and days and days I do worry about say drinking people drinking too much water if that's what they're drinking that can be actually a medical uh problem it can cause a lot of medical issues by the way drinking too much water when it comes to juicing you're only drinking fruit juices juices with a lot of sugar um oftentimes those have lots of sugar and not enough protein people can feel really crappy from those okay um also there are other concerns I mean uh and by the way raising your blood sugar that's another thing too um the other thing is that there's just not a lot of evidence that suggests that detoxes or cleanses actually work regardless of what form they come in so please kind of keep that in mind um and also uh even if they did work they're not a long-term solution I know many people may choose to use them maybe some form of them what have you but they're never long-term Solutions okay so I know you're saying okay well oh here she goes what am I supposed to do am I supposed to do this detox or cleanse well my vote is I think there's a better way to do it okay I want you to employ healthy lifestyle changes to kind of get back to where you were before so rather than going drastic only liquids only this only juices and blah blah I want you just to actually just go back to eating healthy right right that just means lean protein fruits and veggies whole grains and things like that just go back to that okay go back to exercising go back to what you know is a healthy lifestyle to lead as opposed to putting in place some drastic measures that may not ultimately be that that helpful and actually in some cases may cause some problems depending on your underlying medical conditions etc etc okay so that's what I want you to do the good thing is that we have our organs to help detox and cleanse us it's really not about that um so you know you just let your organs do the things they need to do and if you have problems detoxing your body meaning you have problems with your kidney kidneys liver lungs GI tract you probably know that you're working with your doctors which is appropriate um the guidance here is guys I wouldn't spend money on any cleanses or detoxes I wouldn't I also wouldn't do extremes such as you know extreme juicing or you know only drinking liquids or this and that because that may not make you feel very good maybe counterproductive even depending on your underlying conditions may be problematic I say eat healthy you know that should be something that you put as a priority is you know going back to your usual eating healthy exercising and living that healthy lifestyle guys I hope this is helpful you'll let me know what you think in the comments I'm Dr Jen Cottle practicing family physician on your health expert and Video Creator I do daily videos please like and follow my page for those of you on YouTube click the little bell for updates on Facebook thank you guys in advance for sending Stars also um check out my website drshankcottle.com for more information guys I'm Dr Jen I'll see you soon