I totally agree that people take advantage of detoxing. People take advantage of every single thing to make money. Welcome to the world. But you are dead wrong if you think that because people take advantage of it, it makes it completely false. By your logic, germs are a lie because people sell all types of soap. By your logic, bacteria can't exist, because drug companies make a shit load of money off antibiotics.
You see, you have this thing called a liver. Google it for me. Find out what that little magical thing does.
When you do you will find out that your liver is designed to rid your body of 'toxins'. That's why alcoholics have liver damage. Their liver can't keep up with all the toxins in alcohol. Most foods likewise have parts that need to be detoxified with the liver. And yes, this is actual basic science you learn is the 2nd grade.
Did you read what I wrote? I said I don't feel hunger ON A FAST. And most people don't either if they do it right. You don't understand at all what a fast is. When done right, you body gladly lets go of hunger temporarily. If it was so wrong, your body would tell you, it doesn't.
Also ask yourself why people typically don't feel hungry when sick. With your logic and thinking, your body should be so incredibly hungry when sick because of all the work it has to do. But it never is. Maybe it's precisely because your body is working so hard, it doesnt want to process any more food (temporarily). Maybe there are times when your body is asking for a temporarily break perhaps?
I can look in a microscope and see germs, I can see the effects of antibiotics first hand. Show me the science behind this detoxifying magic. Show me.
"Western medicine scoffs at the notion that fasting is necessary to ''detoxify'' the body.
''People think there's a whole bunch of junk floating around in their bodies,'' says dietician Ward. That's nonsense - the liver, kidneys, colon and sweat glands do a great job of waste control. If you want to do something extra, eat more fiber.
You're also fooling yourself if you think fasting will jump start a weight-loss program. Fasting is a lousy way to lose weight - the metabolism slows down so much that when you start eating again, you'll gain weight faster than before.
It is true that fasting may give you a sense of control, says New York psychologist Sandra Haber, who specializes in eating disorders. Many people complain that they can't control their spouse, their work, their kids, or their feelings, and that the only thing they do have control over is food intake, she says.
But if control is the issue, ''you're better off going after it directly,'' she says. In other words, ''Let's talk.''
It is also true that fasting may give you an emotional high. Part of this may come from the stress of early starvation, which triggers adrenalin. And part may be a sense of ''doing penance'' and being ''spiritually clean,'' says Larry Lindner, executive editor of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter.
But fasting can also make you grumpy and weak. Reached on Day 10 of his fast, Purcell was in good spirits, but felt weak climbing stairs and admitted that Day 3, when he had dry heaves, had been ''very difficult.'' He was pleasantly surprised, though, that hunger was not a problem.
....
Fasting - the voluntary abstinence from food - is probably as old as the urge for self-control and spiritual purification, and whether it achieves those ends is a subjective judgment.
But proponents of fasting often claim it has medical benefits, too, like ''detoxification,'' healing auto-immune diseases, losing weight, and restoring bodily harmony. Does it?
With some important qualifiers, the mainstream answer is no.
''Fasting is not good for you medically,'' says Dr. George Blackburn, a Harvard nutritionist. ''There's no such thing as a therapeutic fast.''
Fasting ''sounds like it would cleanse you, but there's really no science to it,'' adds Elizabeth Ward, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
''Fasting is basically bad news,'' agrees physiologist Susan Roberts, head of the energy metabolism lab at Tufts University's human nutrition research center.
The reason they are so emphatic is this: When you stop eating completely, even if you take in plenty of water, you start breaking down protein - muscles - almost immediately.
For the first 12 to 16 hours of total abstinence, there's enough glycogen - stored sugar - in the liver to keep your brain, the chief consumer of energy, happy.
But during the next day and a half, the body makes glucose from amino acids stolen from muscle protein. At first, you lose protein from inside a muscle cell, which can be replaced. But soon, whole cells disappear, and they're hard to replace.
After two days of abstinence, the body does begin burning fat for energy, but it takes 21 days before you adapt sufficiently to starvation that you stop losing protein. Granted, the body's ability to switch from burning glucose to burning fat is a wonderful evolutionary adaptation that has undoubtedly aided survival when starvation, not obesity, was the chief threat.
But burning fat also produces ketone bodies, snippets of fatty acids, that can dehydrate you, give you bad breath and, some nutritionists think, have toxic metabolic effects.
It's true you can live this way for more than 40 days, perhaps even 100, if you're healthy and drink water. But ultimately, of course, if you don't eat, you die. "
Boston Globe Online / Health | Science / If you feel urge to fast, keep it short
