Don’t get your kidneys in a twist: Why doctors don't recommend detox teas, but influencers do
And if a doctor does, they're practicing grift, not medicine.
A yoga teacher recently told my class to twist a particular way to better detox our kidneys. What a terrifying thought. Have my kidneys been super toxic this whole time, the entirety of my wretched life, because I haven’t yet twisted correctly? Is this why my relationships are fraught and I’m such a dud at parties? What is the correct dose for this kind of twist: hourly, daily, monthly, a proper wringing out? Should you do it when you do your laundry to clean everything at once?
On and off the mat, this kind of messaging is pervasive, and reaches a fever pitch each January, when a potato wife’s thoughts are violently wrenched toward self improvement. No shade to resolutions; change is hard, inertia is powerful, and I am grateful for opportunities to begin anew. But so much of this alleged self-improvement is about becoming smaller, more efficiently optimized to be a cog in late-stage capitalism, and align better with traditional gender and societal roles.
Similarly, so much of wellness discourse is a green-washed shield for diet culture grifts and covert classism (and ableism!). Disengaging can feel impossible. Brooke Eby, who brilliantly documents her experience of ALS, describes how only a terminal diagnosis was powerful enough to overcome diet culture’s pernicious hold on her thoughts. This shit runs so deep.
The premise of detoxification, specifically, under the guise of wellness is an excellent racket: a problem invented to sell you solutions, with a convenient dose of subliminal shame about being unclean. There are plenty of detox teas willing to give you a cleanse in the form of a quick diarrheal illness and moderate dehydration. In an increasingly plasticized and plugged in existence, the surface offer of detox makes sense. We are enmeshed with our screens; our food and cooking utensils may be riddled with microplastics; our clothes are made from artificial fibers. Getting a bit closer to nature appeals. (Well, not to me, personally since I loathe being outside. But definitely to others.) Who wouldn’t wish to be more pure and whole?
As a physician, when I think of detox, I am torn between being sad at the detox teas peddled, and wanting in on the scam. So far, my better angels have prevailed. Medically speaking though, these are all lies.
Physiologically, the liver and kidneys are the organs which tightly control the removal of noxious substances through filtration, reabsorption, and chemical transformation. They are brilliant at this and have been doing it for millenia. This brilliance is unenhanced by yogic twists, even really stellar ones (though if you have only one kidney I would urge you to be cautious with your approach to contact sports). On a cellular level, when the organelles responsible for chemical breakdown or filtration are compromised, severe disease states result. Unfortunately, many kids with this kind of metabolic compromise don’t make it to adulthood. The rest of us are detoxifying just fine, twists or no.
Sure, the remarkable and exquisitely controlled ability of the body to filter waste and transform compounds can be overwhelmed. Taking one Tylenol at a time is no problem; taking a full bottle of Tylenol all at one go is a different story. In such cases, including overdoses, chronic exposures such as lead, or - as toddlers in garages seem intent on - ingestions of toxins, we use specific agents and hew closely to established protocols. The medical detoxification process is carefully titrated, utilizing frequent level checks and extensive monitoring. It does not include detox teas.
So what do these detox teas do? Disrespect you. Scam you. Take your money. And also, make you pee or poop. The compounds in these teas, or in the other offers of Big Supplement, are neither tested (for safety, for consistency, for contamination) nor regulated as Dr. Gunter of the Vajenda has described. Predictably, there are consequences. People have gotten really sick from taking detox teas; there have been multiple documented cases of liver failure, as well as cases of life-threateningly low sodium. And these are just the cases that made it to publication; hundreds of patients likely suffered with milder forms of liver and kidney injury and never saw their doctor. These teas are not, as advertised, enhancing the body’s ability to detoxify; instead, they may compromise the very organs we depend on for detoxification.
So what’s a potato wife, eager to turn over a new leaf in the new year, to do? Take pride in knowing your organs are already detoxing better than any laxative tea ever could. It would be nice to live in a world with less toxic material overall, with less plastics and fewer landfills and more green space (never for me personally, but sure, for others, who like nature). That kind of large-scale change requires coordinated effort and sustained advocacy, which is a fine collective resolution to adopt. On an individual level, I would propose the best detox is from diet culture and its brethren Big Supplement and ‘wellness’; from creators who profit by diminishing us; and from products that shrink our world by demanding small ideas and small pants. For a potato wife minded toward reset, I would instead encourage a focus on nourishment, rather than elimination. Which people, ideas, works of art, pets (obviously the correct answer is every pet), and spaces nourish you most? For you it may be nature, in all her awe-inspiring wonder. For me it’s obviously Cheezits, providing minimal physical and high emotional nourishment in every salty orange bite, while watching Drag Race indoors.
Have you ever been tempted by a wellness scam? Let us know in the comments.
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