Detoxification (alternative medicine)

Detoxification (often shortened to detox and sometimes called body cleansing) is a type of alternative-medicine treatment which aims to rid the body of unspecified "toxins" – substances that proponents claim accumulate in the body over time and have undesirable short-term or long-term effects on individual health. Activities commonly associated with detoxification include dieting, fasting, consuming exclusively or avoiding specific foods (such as fats, carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, juices, herbs), colon cleansing, chelation therapy, and the removal of dental fillings containing amalgam. Scientists and health organizations have criticized the concept of detoxification for its unsound scientific basis and for the lack of evidence for claims made. The "toxins" usually remain undefined, with little to no evidence of toxic accumulation in the patient. The British organisation Sense about Science has described some detox diets and commercial products as "a waste of time and money", while the British Dietetic Association called the idea "nonsense" and a "marketing myth". Dara Mohammadi summarizes "detoxing" as "a scam [...] a pseudo-medical concept designed to sell you things", and Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine, describes it as a term for conventional medical treatments for addiction which has been "hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment". Suspicions of the inefficacy of purging became widespread by the 1830s. Biochemistry and microbiology appeared to support auto-intoxication theory in the 19th century, but by the early twentieth century detoxification-based approaches quickly fell out of favour. Even though abandoned by mainstream medicine, the idea has persisted in the popular imagination and amongst alternative medicine practitioners. Notions of internal cleansing had resurgence along with the rise of alternative medicine in the 1970s and following; it remains unscientific and anachronistic.