Introduction
Detoxification is a process that removes accumulated bodily toxins originating in the air, cleaners, cosmetics, food, gasoline, pesticides, paint, and water we are exposed to daily. Further, chronic exposure to various toxins results in enzyme dysfunction, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalance, altered metabolism, and lowers your threshold for resistance to disease. A detoxification program will facilitate the elimination of various toxins from your body and can be accomplished through chelation therapy, colon cleansing, dietary changes, enemas, fasting, hyperthermia, juicing, vitamin C therapy/ascorbic acid flush, and other methods.
Elimination Pathways
Your body uses a variety of approaches to deal with a toxin. If the toxin cannot be directly neutralized, it is excreted either in the urine or feces (the primary elimination pathway) or passes into the lungs and/or skin for elimination.
Enzymes in your intestinal tract are able to deal with many of the toxins entering your body, including dietary toxins and contaminants, alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs, illegal drugs, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, microbes, hormones, cooking mutagens, food colouring, and food additives. These toxins are transformed into other substances and then sent to the liver where they are rendered benign. Twenty five percent of detoxification occurs in the intestinal tract, while the remaining occurs in the liver.
When your elimination systems become overloaded through enzyme deficiencies, congested liver and/or kidneys, lack of perspiration, and the sheer inability to keep up, toxins can build up in the body and become stored in fatty tissue and other areas of the body.
