tz2339

Search archives Subscriber Services Sign up for our email newsletters Newspaper in education Advertising media kit Guide to requesting news coverage Parade Magazine Tracy Jackson massages Donna Abel, above, at We Care Spa in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., as part of a larger alternative-health trend that has been briskly growing in the past few years. Celebrities and health faddists both do it. BY SCOURING OUT THEIR INNARDS, drinking gallons of liquid and popping pills and powders, a nutritional biochemist at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Southern California. “We have wonderful organs, great enzymes, a great system for eliminating toxins naturally.” The perennially popular Master Cleanse, or lemonade diet — in which people survive anywhere from three to 40 days on little more than a brew of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and lots and lots of water and raw vegetables and undergoing colonic irrigation. At right, a sauce made from parsley, cilantro and garlic is poured for participants at a detox spa. Los Angeles Times / KAREN TAPIA-ANDERSEN Past the desert scrub and cacti, at the end of a long drive to nowhere, sits a fenced-in oasis guarded by a big gate.

Press the secret code and you enter a paradise: a spa where the rich and beautiful flock to purify their bodies of the chemical excesses of 21st-century existence. “Between the stresses of everyday life (deadlines, relationship struggles, traffic) and the impurities found in processed foods, and a bevy of detox products exists too, on natural health-store shelves. In fact, cleansing and organ supplements (largely consisting of herbal-based cleanse and detox kits) make up the fastest growing segment within the herbal formulas category, says David Browne of SPINS, a market research and consulting company for the natural products industry. Last year’s growth inner body cleansing was twice that of the year before, Most people who do detox regimens speak of them with the zeal of religious converts. They can’t wait to detox again. But medical professionals urge caution. They say detox diets can be extreme and potentially dangerous.

They also say there’s no evidence that these diets do any good. “The idea that foods are poisonous, or that we need detoxification, or a cleansing regimen to improve our health is without scientific merit,” says Roger Clemens, a nutritional biochemist at the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s like getting your oil changed.” David Oyster, a disc jockey in Colorado, recently completed a detox diet that lasted five weeks. He had tried detox cleansing before, he says, including the Master Cleanse. That left him so depleted he could barely function. But four months ago, he turned again to a detox regimen because he was feeling sluggish. Under the supervision of a nutritionist, he took pills and powders with names such as Toxinout (with L-methionine and L-cysteine, to detoxify the liver, kidneys and blood), ParaDetox (to flush the system) and Oxy-Powder (to oxygenate the colon and remove toxins). And he loaded up on fiber like never before — for breakfast, smoothies loaded with ColonAid (its main ingredient is psyllium husks); for lunch, salads; for snacks, apples and almond butter; and for dinner, salad, a sweet potato or a beet. At night, he took yet more pills, including a probiotic supplement to repopulate his intestinal flora. “I felt more energetic, more able to do brain work, body detoxification more mentally alert and refreshed,” he says.

“I sleep better, my senses are more acute — hearing, smell, taste. “I made body detoxification science documentaries for years. I was kind of skeptical about this. But I decided to try it, and it was a miracle!” DR. NANCY LONSDORF, an internist and former director of the Maharishi Ayurveda Medical Center in Washington, D.C., says the body is designed to get rid of toxins naturally — but in flush toxins away today’s world, then yes, the body is designed to get rid of toxins naturally — but in today’s world, that might not be enough. “If you are feeding someone Big Macs, French fries and making them work hard, having them breathe toxic air, [drink] toxic water, then yes, the body is designed to get rid of whatever garbage is going in.” MOST SCIENTISTS SAY there is no evidence to support the notion that these often extreme cleansing methods do anything except perhaps dehydrate you and throw off your electrolyte balance. When people do the regimens to excess, they can get muscle cramps or pass out, sometimes even push their kidneys to begin to shut down. “It is fraud,” Cedar-Sinai’s Pressman says. “It is a distortion and misapplication of science and medicine. Kidneys and livers don’t need rest.

They don’t need water in huge quantities. What they need is to be used. Our body’s own capacity to detoxify itself is beyond anything we can design.” Susana Belen, the 68-year-old founder of We Care Spa, is not swayed by the lack of science. “Just because it hasn’t been scientifically certified does not mean benefits do not exist. It means no one took the time to prove all of this,” she says. Look at her: She has no pain, takes no medication and has the same pulse she had when she was 28. This — and that 80 percent of her guests return to the spa — is evidence enough that it works, On one recent morning, about 15 We Care flush toxins guests — 5 men and 10 women — gather in the spa’s main villa for a cooking class called “Healthy Digestion.” It is super-hot. No one seems to have much energy. Lounging on sofas, the guests quietly talk — of psyllium, stomachs, digestion and hunger.

“You should have seen what came out of me!” exclaims one woman, referring to the black goo that emerged from her intestines during a colonic irrigation. As they sip tea packed with parsley and cilantro for liver and kidney health, and stir individualized baggies of aloe vera, acidopholus and enzymes into cups before gulping them down as prescribed, Belen imparts some longer-term healthy-eating lessons: the uses of nut milk, the benefits of bread made of hemp and sprouted grains. She encourages guests to drink a little asparagus water every day and tells them artichokes are the best food for the liver. “If you do detox, and you don’t go home and do changes, this is all totally useless,” she says. “By scouring out their innards, drinking gallons of liquid and popping pills and powders, these enthusiasts hope to purge themselves of accumulated metabolic waste and penis enlargement pills man-made poisons — fighting disease, sharpening minds, increasing stamina and (with all that intestinal flushing) flattening bellies. A plethora of DIY detox books are available to help them,.