Pod Insights This Podcast Will Kill You Ep 197 Detox: Enemas for everyone About this episode Ah, the new year. After the last month and a half of indulgent food and drink, disrupted schedules, and laying around the house, who doesn’t feel like they’re in need of a whole-body cleanse? There are plenty of companies who are more than happy to provide that product or service that promises to flush away toxins from your skin, gut, blood, brain, you name it. But what exactly are they selling you? In this episode, we explore the deep roots of the ever-expanding detox industry and the concept behind its billions of dollars in revenue: detoxification. What does detoxification even mean? Is there any truth to the claims that a certain diet or superfood or supplement or colonic or drink or enema or chelation therapy can “detoxify” you? Tune in to find out how many synonyms for scam we can come up with.
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Transcript 12,739 words · 7 speakers
0:01 Speaker 00 This is Exactly Right.
0:06 Speaker 01 Dry hands can be uncomfortable and frustrating, especially when frequent hand washing, changing weather, and everyday wear and tear take their toll. O'Keefe's Working Hands is here to help keep dry hands feeling hydrated and comfortable. O'Keefe's Working Hands creates a soothing barrier on the skin that locks in moisture and prevents further dryness. It's concentrated and non-gracey, and you start to feel relief in one use. Go to O'Keefe'sCompany.com to get yours today. That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S company dot com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands. Yeah, it works.
0:38 Speaker 02 Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:09 Speaker 03 Throughout the history of man, there have been constant epidemics of many diseases. Little has been known or understood as to why these things happen. In recent times, it has been believed that these many diseases are contagious and that germs have spread them. This belief has created a monster as the medical field has steadily found stronger and more potent drugs, poisons, and antibiotics in their constant effort to destroy what they believe to be the cause. A large variety of vaccines and antitoxins have been developed because of the belief in a large variety of bacteria and viruses. Yet, in spite of massive research, manufacturing, and wide use of these items,
1:53 Speaker 03 mankind still goes on suffering from an ever-increasing variety of disease and disorders with no let up in sight. Disease, old age, and death are the result of accumulated poisons and congestions throughout the entire body. These toxins become crystallized and hardened, settling around the joints, in the muscles, and throughout the billions of cells all over the body. Germs and viruses do not and cannot cause any of our diseases, so we have no need for finding various kinds of poisons to destroy them. All diseases, regardless of their names, come within this understanding as only varied expressions of the one disease of toxemia.
2:37 Speaker 03 Basically, all of our diseases are created by ourselves because we have never taken the time to discover the true foods meant for man's use. Very often, an epidemic occurs after holiday feasting. Even the very best of foods in excess can create problems. Since germs do not cause our disorders, there must be another logical reason for the triggering of an epidemic. This is a matter of simple vibration. The better the physical and mental condition a person is in, the higher becomes his vibration. But as he steadily becomes clogged with more and more waste matter, his vibration goes constantly downward until he is ready and in need of a change.
3:22 Speaker 03 If he then comes in contact with one or more who have already started the cleansing process, he picks up the vibration of change and all his functions are triggered into the same action. The person with a toxic-free body and undisturbed mind is the one unaffected by the epidemic.
4:30 Speaker 01 It was so hard for me to not make noises. I know. Having to listen to that. I know. I, okay, was that from, uh, like 2,200 BCE, I hope?
4:44 Speaker 03 Oh, I mean.
4:46 Speaker 01 I can tell by the grammar that it wasn't.
4:49 Speaker 03 Thou art, no, in, in many ways, yes, and in many ways, no. Okay, that was from a book by Stanley Burroughs called The Master Cleanser. And this book, I think, was published in the 1970s. But the original Master Cleanse Diet was introduced by Burroughs in the 1940s. That's from a little chapter of the book called A Word About Quote Unquote Epidemics and Quote Unquote Germ Caused Diseases.
5:15 Speaker 01 Sorry, that book was published in the 70s?
5:18 Speaker 03 Oh, Erin, as if there aren't similar ones today, debunking germ theory. Okay, we usually should not take this much of dismissive tone already, but it's challenging. I mean, and, and the reason I say it's from older, too, is because like the same message has basically applied since humans have formed concepts surrounding disease and health. It goes back to like the humoral theory.
5:42 Speaker 01 Right, humors, et cetera, but I just.
5:44 Speaker 03 Even before, yeah.
5:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, so, um, that's still getting Goodreads reviews. A lot of people are still rating it. It has a four out of five on Goodreads. I didn't look at how many reviews, but, um, as an example, yeah.
6:00 Speaker 01 Okay. Okay, I'm gonna take a lot of deep breaths.
6:04 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:04 Speaker 01 Cleansing breaths, if you will.
6:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:07 Speaker 01 During this episode.
6:08 Speaker 03 We're, we're on the same page. Hi, I'm Erin Welsh.
6:12 Speaker 01 And I'm Erin Allman Updike.
6:14 Speaker 03 And this is This Podcast Will Kill You.
6:17 Speaker 01 Today, we're detoxing.
6:23 Speaker 03 Oh, boy.
6:24 Speaker 01 Talking about detox.
6:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:27 Speaker 01 What is it?
6:29 Speaker 01 Mean?
6:30 Speaker 03 What does it mean? Does it mean?
6:32 Speaker 01 That's the episode.
6:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:36 Speaker 01 Can you do it? Happy New Year.
6:38 Speaker 03 Yes, Happy New Year, first episode of 2026. We're coming to you from the past. We're time travelers here.
6:45 Speaker 01 We are.
6:46 Speaker 03 And predicting that we have all, you know, indulged and eaten some delicious foods and maybe had a little bit of drinks here and there. And you might be feeling like you're getting a lot of ads for detox teas.
7:01 Speaker 01 You need to cleanse somehow.
7:03 Speaker 03 Purifying, et cetera, impurities.
7:07 Speaker 01 So we're here to tell you about that and whether you should or not, except we won't tell you that because again, this is not medical advice.
7:17 Speaker 01 But we'll tell you so you can make up your own mind, I guess.
7:23 Speaker 03 I am so excited for this. There is so much. This took me in the very, the most unexpected directions.
7:30 Speaker 01 I love it when it does that.
7:31 Speaker 03 Me too. Me too. But before we get into like, everything.
7:36 Speaker 01 All of it.
7:36 Speaker 03 It's quarantine time.
7:38 Speaker 01 It's quarantine time.
7:39 Speaker 03 What are we drinking this week?
7:41 Speaker 01 We're drinking water.
7:43 Speaker 03 That's right.
7:44 Speaker 01 That's right.
7:45 Speaker 03 We are.
7:45 Speaker 01 Drinking water.
7:47 Speaker 03 The easiest recipe so far.
7:51 Speaker 03 And arguably one of the tastiest.
7:53 Speaker 01 And one of the best for detox.
7:57 Speaker 03 I mean, I think we're, we're kind of getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here with the punchline being water. But yeah, detox teas are not like, there is no such thing as a detox drink that effectively will detox you from toxins, quote unquote, whatever that means.
8:15 Speaker 01 Can't wait to talk about what that means.
8:16 Speaker 03 Yeah. I guess we'll post the recipe, but like, it's water.
8:20 Speaker 01 It's water.
8:22 Speaker 03 So subscribe to our social media anyway. And, you know, we don't even have to put it on our website because it's water, again. But if you want to go to our website anyway, you can find all sorts of cool things. We've got transcripts. We've got the sources for each and every one of our episodes. We've got links to music by Blood Mobile, who's now on Instagram. We've got links to our bookshop.org. Affiliate page, our Goodreads list. What else do we have? Oh, merch. Patreon, contact us form that's now working again after a spell of not. Sorry about that, everyone. And a submit your first hand account form. Good stuff. Check it out.
9:02 Speaker 01 You really nailed it, Aaron.
9:03 Speaker 03 Thanks.
9:04 Speaker 01 Great job.
9:04 Speaker 03 Thanks.
9:05 Speaker 01 Well, we've got a lot to cover.
9:08 Speaker 03 Indeed.
9:09 Speaker 01 Shall we get into it?
9:11 Speaker 03 We shall. Let's take a quick break and
9:13 Speaker 01 Okay.
9:14 Speaker 03 start detoxing.
9:17 Speaker 01 Dry hands can be uncomfortable and frustrating, especially when frequent hand washing, changing weather, and everyday wear and tear take their toll. O'Keefe's Working Hands is here to help keep dry hands feeling hydrated and comfortable. O'Keefe's Working Hands creates a soothing barrier on the skin that locks in moisture and prevents further dryness. It's concentrated and non-gracey, and you start to feel relief in one use. Go to okeefescOMPANY.COM to get yours today. That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S-COMPANY.COM for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands, yeah, it works.
9:49 Speaker 00 Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable. So over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems.
10:31 Speaker 00 Cloud platforms, data pipelines, AI models, software tools. Most days, these systems operate quietly in the background. But when something changes, like costs go up or rules shift, organizations are forced to confront how much control and flexibility they actually have. So to understand the challenge up close, I traveled to Paris to speak with IBM's Anna Paola Assis and Access CIO Giovanni Daniele, two people who think about these questions every day. Hear the full conversation at ibm.com/smarttalks or wherever you get your podcasts.
11:28 Speaker 03 Erin, we're going to play a game.
11:29 Speaker 01 Oh, I love it.
11:30 Speaker 03 You ready?
11:30 Speaker 01 Okay.
11:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. It's, it's easy. Don't worry, don't sweat about it. It's not, it's just a little pop quiz type of game.
11:36 Speaker 01 Oh, just a pop quiz.
11:37 Speaker 03 I, sorry, just a little bit of adrenaline rush right there.
11:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:42 Speaker 03 Okay, I want you to guess the name of the website that these blog post titles come from. Ready? Does detoxing really work?
11:54 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
11:55 Speaker 03 A heavy metal detox, my personal favorite. You probably have a parasite. Here's what to do about it.
12:02 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. Uh, I'm supposed to guess what website those came from?
12:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:07 Speaker 01 I'm really worried that it's something that you would think is legit. Like, I don't know.
12:13 Speaker 03 Don't worry too much about it.
12:14 Speaker 01 Okay, good. I don't know. Detoxdiet.com, Erin.
12:19 Speaker 03 When we think of pseudo cures and people who promote the spread of pseudo cures, do you want to take a? Is there one name that comes to mind?
12:28 Speaker 01 Dr. Oz?
12:29 Speaker 03 Uh-uh. God, there are so many. Okay, I think that the fact that like, to me, I was like, oh, this will be like an obvious answer.
12:36 Speaker 01 Oprah? Oh, goop, goop. It's one of the outro.
12:39 Speaker 03 It's goop. It is goopy goop.
12:42 Speaker 01 Goopy goop.
12:43 Speaker 03 Goopy goop. Yeah, there are, and those are just a sampling. There's, there's lots more where that comes from. Those are the ones that were more detox related. And by the way, do you want to know about what you're supposed to do for your alleged parasite?
12:56 Speaker 01 Is it ivermectin?
12:57 Speaker 03 It's not. According to the author of that blog post, quote, "In my experience, an eight day mono diet goat milk cleanse accompanied by a specific vermicube made of anti parasitic herbs is the most successful treatment," end quote.
13:12 Speaker 01 For what?
13:14 Speaker 03 The parasite that you probably have.
13:16 Speaker 01 Your friendly neighborhood parasite.
13:18 Speaker 03 Right, but really you're just pooping out the lining of your intestines when you see that in the toilet.
13:23 Speaker 01 Goat milk mono diet?
13:26 Speaker 03 It means just goat milk.
13:27 Speaker 01 I can guess that.
13:29 Speaker 03 I'm just saying, I know, I know. But yeah, I mean, I called out Goop because they're one of the biggest offenders in promoting these pseudo cures, but they are far, so far, far, far, far from the only ones profiting off of this fear mongering and snake oil. In 2025, the detox products market was estimated at nearly $70 billion globally.
13:54 Speaker 01 Just for detox products?
13:55 Speaker 03 Detox, yep. And over the next five years is predicted to grow substantially with a forecasted revenue of $95 billion by 2030. Sounds like a lot, right? Like $95 billion is a lot. That's just a tiny sliver of the global wellness industry, which in 2023 was estimated at 6.3 trillion, predicted to hit 8.5 trillion by 2027.
14:22 Speaker 01 Wellness, yeah.
14:23 Speaker 03 Yeah. What detox means, or what constitutes a detox product, it's not always clear cut by design, but think of, you know, your master cleanses, your colonic, your chelation therapies, books promoting detox diets, skincare products that claim to rid you of wrinkle causing toxins, those stickers you put on the bottom of your feet that are supposed to leach away heavy metals from your body, I don't know, like magnet bracelets and stuff, green juices and superfoods, supplements that allege to eliminate harmful waste. I mean, like, we could spend the rest of the time just talking about the products.
15:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:01 Speaker 03 But what is it that these detox products, what are they actually selling?
15:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:07 Speaker 03 Right? They're not selling you ways to detox. They're not selling you some, you know, active ingredients that's, that's doing anything at all. What they're selling you is an opportunity to reinvent yourself, a sense of protection from the dangerous world outside, and absolution from the unwise indulgent choices that you have made. Essentially, they're selling you hope and rebirth. And with this, detox products are carrying on a millennia old tradition, spending money on products that at the best do nothing and at the worst do harm, so that you can feel like you have made the optimal choice for your health.
15:51 Speaker 03 Detox is such a vague term that tracing its history or the history of the idea of detox, it's a slippery beast. But if we think about a detox product as something that restores the body's balance, or quote unquote flushes out waste, or jumpstarts your metabolism, or enhances your liver's detox capacity, then the history of these elixirs, purgatives, teas, diets, cleanses, enemas goes back millennia. And I want to distinguish here, just right off the bat, between detox as in for certain drug and alcohol programs. This is like, we're talking about detox in the wellness industry.
16:31 Speaker 01 Yes.
16:32 Speaker 03 I know you'll talk about the difference, yeah.
16:33 Speaker 01 I will, because I do think it's a really interesting part of how we view the concept of detoxification.
16:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:40 Speaker 01 Like, the way that we use that word in medicine can mean multiple different things. And I do think that that's such a... So we'll talk a little bit more about it later.
16:46 Speaker 03 Right. And it has been co-opted by the wellness industry to sell meaningless scam products.
16:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:53 Speaker 03 Okay. I haven't said these words in a while, so I'm excited I get to say them. The Ebers Papyrus, Ebers Papyrus, I still don't know the right way to say it.
17:03 Speaker 01 Someday.
17:04 Speaker 03 Eight years later. From ancient Egypt, written around 1550 BCE, describes various suppositories, purgatives, enemas, and emetics, all to rid the body of the disease-causing agent. Diet and impure foods were considered to be the primary drivers of disease. And so these formulations were intended to basically like, clean out your guts, thus evacuating the impurities and preventing them from reaching your bloodstream where they would cause disease. And maybe these various recipes would be administered orally, like a mixture of milk, sycamore fruit, and honey, which was guaranteed to open the bowels.
17:43 Speaker 01 Open.
17:44 Speaker 03 Or they might be delivered another way, like via a cow's horn with the end cut off.
17:51 Speaker 01 But...
17:51 Speaker 03 Stuck into your butt.
17:53 Speaker 01 Okay.
17:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:57 Speaker 01 Sorry, I just was like, I was expecting like an enema type, but the cow's horn really threw me off there.
18:05 Speaker 03 Oh, well, that's, that's the tip of the iceberg. That's the cow's horn tip of the iceberg.
18:11 Speaker 01 Okay.
18:12 Speaker 03 Bile salts and ox bile were often common enema ingredients delivered.
18:17 Speaker 01 Interesting.
18:18 Speaker 03 This way, yeah. Hundreds of recipes, hundreds, are listed in the Evers Papyrus for medications to be administered via the rectum. The legend goes that the ancient Egyptians invented enemas after watching the ibis, the bird, you know, like that, that bird.
18:35 Speaker 01 Longing legs.
18:36 Speaker 03 Long, yeah.
18:37 Speaker 01 Big beak.
18:37 Speaker 03 Storky thing, yeah.
18:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:40 Speaker 03 Sorry, bird nerds. Ornithologists. Ibis's that they, after watching the ibis draw up water into its beak and then insert it into its butt to wash out decaying poop. Ibis's do not do this. Like, they do not self administer enemas. Let me just say that. Let me clarify. But apparently they do splash water on glands near their butts. And so it's probably like they saw that and then they.
19:07 Speaker 01 They use their own little bidet. They've made their own bidet.
19:10 Speaker 03 Exactly. Love it.
19:11 Speaker 01 Love that.
19:11 Speaker 03 But also, I don't know, like, is this just like somebody, a just so story that somebody was like, oh, and then Galen was like, by the way, the Egyptians saw the ibis doing this and that's why they thought about enemas. So, anyway.
19:25 Speaker 01 Okay.
19:26 Speaker 03 But however, people came to use enemas. Also, enemas were widespread all over the ancient world.
19:33 Speaker 01 Right.
19:33 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. Everyone, everyone came up with enemas.
19:36 Speaker 01 Honestly, it makes sense, right? Like, you've got two main routes.
19:39 Speaker 03 Exactly.
19:39 Speaker 01 You're gonna use them both.
19:40 Speaker 03 You're gonna, you're gonna use them both, yeah.
19:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:44 Speaker 03 And enemas were popular, very popular, in ancient Egypt and in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome and really across the entire ancient world. Enemas everywhere.
19:57 Speaker 03 Ancient Babylonians used enemata, which is the plural for enema? Or is like you can use that, one of the plural? Enemas, yeah. As early as 600 BCE, this recipe was thought to expel the disease-causing demons from the body. Ready? Quote, "Mix rock salt and ammonia with unmixed wine. Let him take it without food through his mouth as well as by his anus, and sprinkle him with it and he will recover." Just covering all the bases there.
20:24 Speaker 01 Just everywhere.
20:25 Speaker 03 Everywhere. In ancient Greece, there were literally enema doctors. Latroclisteris? Clisters was the much more common word used until the 19th century, but it was not specific to the rectum. It was also like included vaginal douches and like bladder lavage and stuff like that. Hippocrates and Galen loved enemata. And also enema comes from the word, the Latin from meaning throw it in. Throw it in.
20:56 Speaker 01 Just toss it in there.
20:57 Speaker 03 Toss it in. They were, they were used as a standalone, like just, just to like clean it out. Kind of like you're just purging, right? Or to administer medicines. Some physicians opted for straight up water or saline, while others preferred a more complex mixture with like oil and honey and milk and other ingredients. Bials, bile was a really common ingredient from various animals. From ancient China, quote, "Secure a large pig's bile and mix with a small quantity of vinegar. Insert a bamboo tube, three or four inches long into the rectum and insert the mixture." End quote.
21:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, yeah.
21:33 Speaker 03 Yeah. Don't really know what bile will do up there.
21:37 Speaker 01 A large, a large pig's bile is also an interesting, like what does that mean exactly?
21:43 Speaker 03 Oh, like the bile from a large pig.
21:45 Speaker 01 Oh.
21:46 Speaker 03 That's, that's my interpretation.
21:47 Speaker 01 Not like the whole gall bladder.
21:49 Speaker 03 I don't think so.
21:53 Speaker 01 A large pig's bile. Got it, got it, got it.
21:58 Speaker 03 My bad.
22:02 Speaker 03 The reverence that these physicians held for enemas is evident in the way that they wrote about them. There are entire books or chapters dedicated to their use, who they recommended receive an enema. Like, this was everyone, unless you already had a fever, in which case, like, maybe lay off the enema.
22:19 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
22:20 Speaker 03 But everyone, enemas for everyone.
22:23 Speaker 01 Enemas for all.
22:24 Speaker 03 And then what they thought enemas could cure. Everything, again.
22:27 Speaker 01 Everything.
22:28 Speaker 03 Enemas for every one and everything. You know, there's kidney stones, gout, jaundice, weight gain, malaria, indigestion. I mean, you name it. Enemas were really just another very popular tool in the toolbox of humoral medicine, whereby a buildup of some substance was at the root of disease.
22:48 Speaker 01 Right.
22:49 Speaker 03 Galen, in the 2nd century AD, basically described it as, like, every organ in your body produces waste products that need to be fully eliminated, otherwise they will cause disease.
23:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, and, and they apparently cannot do it themselves, so we must administer enemas.
23:05 Speaker 03 Do something. We must take action. Yeah.
23:08 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah.
23:08 Speaker 03 And so this idea, over the years, kind of changed a little bit here and there, but it's very similar to this idea called auto-intoxication, or intestinal auto-intoxication, whereby, like, it's in, these toxins are coming from inside you. The call is from, coming from inside the house.
23:27 Speaker 03 The Persian physician Avicenna, from the 11th century CE, also endorsed enemas for this purpose. Quote, "The enema is an excellent agent for getting rid of the superfluidities at the intestinal tract, as well as for allaying pains over the kidneys and bladder, and for relieving inflammatory conditions of these organs, and also for relieving pain, and for drawing superfluidities from the vital organs of the upper parts of the body." Everything.
23:51 Speaker 01 Everything.
23:52 Speaker 03 Everything. The, this idea of auto-intoxication is actually a really interesting one, not just because of like how long it lingered and medical, you know, the medical realm. And, but also for the fact that like, there might be some truth to it based in like, our gut, uh, brain microbiome axis and like, there are some dysbiosis that actually can cause major issues, blah, blah, blah.
24:16 Speaker 01 And that's kind of all part of the same idea that like, sometimes things are off balance in our own bodies.
24:21 Speaker 03 Yes, yes.
24:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:23 Speaker 03 Right. Um, but I also find this idea so fascinating because it, yeah, it sounds exactly like or very similar to the ads for detox teas, just replace enema with cleansing tea, right? Like, this will restore the balance. This will get rid of those impurities that have built up in your body. And I, I did not plan to take us down through the history of enema, of enemas, enamata.
24:49 Speaker 01 I'm so thrilled that you did, though.
24:51 Speaker 03 Me too. There are so, it's such, so much fodder. It's incredible. It's incredible. But I think that like, first of all, enemas were not the only tools out there, right? There was bleeding, purgatives, uh, emetics, saunas, fasting, water, meditation, herbs, like, everything. So many different cultures practiced many different methods to rid the body of what they perceived to be impurities and whatever that meant. Sometimes it didn't involve any physiological thing at all. It was just like meditation, right?
25:21 Speaker 01 Impure thoughts.
25:22 Speaker 03 Impure thoughts. Oh, Graham and Kellogg and all that. But, but I, I think that enemas really stood out to me because of the language used to describe, you know, what they do.
25:35 Speaker 01 Very specific of like, the, the buildup, the impure, the, the
25:39 Speaker 03 Right.
25:40 Speaker 01 Toxins or the like.
25:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:43 Speaker 01 It's, yeah, it's really interesting.
25:44 Speaker 03 And like, the vague explanations as to why they do what they do, what they're actually doing, who should have it, everyone, again. And, um, and yeah, and it's just like, also fun. So, anyway. They were incredibly popular. So these enamata, you're like, okay, cow's horn, that threw me off.
26:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:05 Speaker 03 That's the least of it. All right.
26:08 Speaker 03 All shapes and sizes, all different delivery systems, made up of all kinds of materials from cane stalks to bamboo, cow horn, of course, ivory, the syringe, like, how do you deliver the water? Might be made from the scrotum of a deer, goat or ox. It might be made of leather hide, pig's bladder, or delivered directly via mouth through the tube, like you would just have an assistant help you with that.
26:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:34 Speaker 03 In later centuries, especially with the invention of the vulcanization of rubber, metal and rubber replaced these metals.
26:42 Speaker 01 Side note, I don't think I knew that cows' horns were hollow.
26:46 Speaker 03 Yeah, I used to have one that I got in North Carolina when I was a child and I loved it so much. I got it at like one of those little tourist shops and you would blow, like you could make a horn noise.
26:57 Speaker 01 Oh, like a conch.
26:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. I don't think I knew that. I haven't spent enough time around horns, I guess.
27:06 Speaker 03 It would be heavy to carry around if it were.
27:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:10 Speaker 03 Yeah. So there you go. Instant enema.
27:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:14 Speaker 03 Yeah. But, so, okay, the popularity of enemas, I'm skipping over a lot of history here. There's, we could do a whole episode on enemas. In fact, I held some back in case we do a whole episode.
27:24 Speaker 01 In case we do.
27:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:27 Speaker 03 But yeah, I mean, they were pretty much quite popular from ancient times and to the 17th, 18th centuries. And then they weren't just like popular, they were the rage. Like, all the rage. So whereas the, for instance, whereas the 14th century English surgeon, John of Arden, recommended that everyone use an enema three to four times a year, even if you were healthy. By the 18th century, early 18th century, Parisian socialites were taking them three to four times a day.
28:02 Speaker 01 What?
28:03 Speaker 03 What, indeed. Yeah.
28:05 Speaker 01 Three to four?
28:08 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:10 Speaker 01 Oh.
28:11 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:11 Speaker 01 I can think of a lot of ways that that could go wrong.
28:13 Speaker 03 Oh, there it did.
28:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:16 Speaker 03 It did, yeah. Okay, so for, this is from a 1985 paper on the history of enemas. Quote.
28:25 Speaker 03 I went deep down the rabbit hole, Erin.
28:28 Speaker 01 Give it to me.
28:29 Speaker 03 Okay. Quote, "It became customary in France to take an enema after dinner, and a lady was considered indelicate if it were known that she had omitted the practice." End quote. The goal, like, why were people taking so many enemas?
28:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:46 Speaker 03 Uh, purification, whatever that meant. Purification.
28:50 Speaker 01 They weren't just, like, all constipated and they, like, needed?
28:53 Speaker 03 I mean, I don't know, like, it's so hard to know. Constipation was a preoccupation, has been a preoccupation of humans forever. It was the root of a lot of, it was a lot of fear.
29:05 Speaker 01 Okay.
29:05 Speaker 03 Around constipation.
29:05 Speaker 01 It's the buildup. It's the buildup.
29:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was like, what's happening to that poop that's stuck in my body? It's releasing all these toxins. That's why I'm getting tuberculosis. Like, that was sort of the A to B.
29:16 Speaker 01 Okay.
29:16 Speaker 03 Yeah. Louis the 11th, who reigned in the 15th century, was a big fan of enemas and even ordered them for his pet dogs on occasion.
29:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:25 Speaker 03 And he, he wasn't the only French monarch with a thing for enemas. And also, like, I just, I'm sorry in advance, the papers that I read really highlighted the use of enemas in France. I don't know if there were, like, a couple of major academic papers that came out. So a lot of these examples come from France.
29:42 Speaker 01 Well, hey.
29:43 Speaker 03 You know, Louis the 14th, so he was king during the 17th and early 18th centuries, received, over his reign, over 2,000 enemas and reportedly would receive visitors while getting one.
29:58 Speaker 01 I mean, they'd take a while sometimes, so.
29:59 Speaker 03 I was gonna say, with 2,000 enemas, like.
30:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:02 Speaker 03 You got a massive task at that point.
30:03 Speaker 01 You've got stuff to do.
30:04 Speaker 03 Right, right. Get that business going.
30:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:09 Speaker 03 They were so commonplace, enemas, that they appeared in literature, like, the Shakespeare even mentions enemas. And they also appeared in art, and, like, naughty art. The recipes for enemas or enema liquid grew more inventive. Sometimes it was scented with pleasing odors like rose or orange or tinted with nice colors to give it more visual appeal.
30:32 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
30:33 Speaker 03 And it wasn't just the liquid that people experimented with. The delivery system was also up for improvement, like the kleister chair. What is a kleister chair?
30:44 Speaker 01 Please tell me.
30:45 Speaker 03 Quote, "A bench-like piece of furniture with a rectal nozzle sticking upright in the middle. The user sat on the nozzle while pumping a handle up and down to inject the enema."
30:55 Speaker 01 Okay.
30:56 Speaker 03 Okay.
30:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:58 Speaker 03 It gets better.
30:59 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
31:00 Speaker 03 Because there was also something called the fumigator.
31:03 Speaker 01 Please tell me about the fumigator.
31:07 Speaker 03 I will, I will. I cannot wait. The fumigator was a metal canister filled with burning tobacco, right? You got the metal canister, burning tobacco in the middle. Two tubes attached to it.
31:19 Speaker 01 Okay.
31:20 Speaker 03 One tube went up your butt and the other into an assistant's mouth to blow smoke up your butt. So you know that saying?
31:30 Speaker 01 That saying?
31:31 Speaker 03 That's what it's from. That's what it's from.
31:33 Speaker 01 What did they think that this did? I mean, aside from like a new way to enjoy your tobacco.
31:46 Speaker 03 I have to imagine that, first of all, they thought it did everything. And then there were people who were like, obviously, like, I think that some of the plays from France were especially like making fun of this widespread faith in enemata being like, they don't actually do anything. So I think the phrase, like, "Don't blow smoke up my butt," that's what this is from. Is this like, okay, you're failing to deliver on your promise.
32:14 Speaker 01 You're failing.
32:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:18 Speaker 01 Oh, that's so fascinating, Erin.
32:22 Speaker 03 I know.
32:22 Speaker 01 And they were all used for like so-called medical purposes. Because I feel like I could also see these being used for pleasure reasons exclusively.
32:31 Speaker 03 They were also, hence the naughty art. Yeah, yeah.
32:33 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah. But that's like, makes more sense than just like.
32:37 Speaker 03 No, this was like, very, very much medical.
32:41 Speaker 01 Medical. Okay. All right.
32:43 Speaker 03 The fumigator was thought to be especially helpful to resuscitate the drowned, or the nearly drowned.
32:50 Speaker 01 Oh, dear. Okay.
32:52 Speaker 03 Yep. Then there was Kellogg, as, as, you know, as in Kellogg, cereal Kellogg.
32:57 Speaker 01 Cereal, mhm.
32:59 Speaker 03 Pure oxygen enema.
33:02 Speaker 01 Do you know, Erin, when I was on the tram recently in Denver, I saw ads for home oxygen canisters that you can just have at home.
33:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:11 Speaker 01 Wow, you could use it for an enema now.
33:13 Speaker 03 Well, I don't, I don't.
33:14 Speaker 01 Or back in the day.
33:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:16 Speaker 01 Sorry, not now.
33:17 Speaker 03 Definitely don't think you should. Yeah. And I do think it's really interesting, like, the parallel between, you know, just thinking about these, the enema, kind of like, what were they used for? Everything, right?
33:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:28 Speaker 03 Have it, just have it there. Healthy, sick, whatever, this is what you need.
33:32 Speaker 01 This is what you need.
33:33 Speaker 03 And just like today, women in the 19th century were specifically targeted with advertisements for enemas.
33:42 Speaker 01 Interesting.
33:42 Speaker 03 The prevailing belief that was that women were more susceptible to constipation, and thus more susceptible to toxins than men. And so some doctors recommended daily enemas in conjunction with leeches and castor oil for, quote, rheumatism, asthma, epilepsy, hysteria, ulcerated sore throat, convulsions, and influenza. End quote. Yeah. I mean, they were so out of control popular that in some countries, laws had to be instituted restricting their administration to be done by doctors alone. Because too many pharmacists apparently were getting their hands in the enema game.
34:20 Speaker 01 And people were getting hurt, I presume?
34:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:22 Speaker 01 Yeah. Okay, that's just a given.
34:26 Speaker 03 It's a given. It has absolutely happened.
34:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay.
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35:55 Speaker 00 Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
36:14 Speaker 03 The number of patented enema delivery systems from the 18th and 19th centuries is truly outrageous. Like, I was, I was working on this on all of our recent travel, like on airplanes, and I kept having to like shield my screen or like turn down the brightness so that people wouldn't see it as me scrolling past these illustrations of enemas over and over and over again. Yeah.
36:37 Speaker 01 I love imagining the people sitting next to you.
36:39 Speaker 03 Being like, what is she doing?
36:41 Speaker 01 What are you working on over there?
36:42 Speaker 03 Probably no one even looked at all. But eventually, as with all things, of course, enemas fell out of style as patent medicines and Nostrums took over, things that you could swallow rather than having to administer through your butt. While the delivery system changed for a lot of these detoxification, purification recipes, the claims and vague medical language did not.
37:06 Speaker 01 Okay.
37:07 Speaker 03 So Brandreth's Universal Vegetable Pills from the late 1800s asked, "What is it that causes this poor, abject wretch to look so downcast, that eggs him to desperation and that takes away all the joy and happiness of this life?" End quote. The answer? "In nine cases out of 10, it is simply the result of a disordered liver." End quote. These pills rid the body-
37:35 Speaker 01 Reorder your liver.
37:36 Speaker 03 Right, they reorder. So they rid the body of, "Evil forces that might upset the digestion and render the blood impure." End quote.
37:45 Speaker 01 Can you remind me the year?
37:47 Speaker 03 That was the late 1800s.
37:48 Speaker 01 Late 1800s. Okay, so they, at that time, this is interesting in the context of how our bodies actually detoxify, they were pinpointing the liver, even all the way back then.
38:00 Speaker 03 I mean, it's a good, yeah, I don't know when the functionality of the liver was clear, or when people were working on that.
38:09 Speaker 01 But at least at that time, they were like, "You need to purify your liver. We can, with our product, enhance the function of your liver." Okay, I love this. This is so fun.
38:20 Speaker 03 But it also sounds like that, so I just read you that ad, you have that in your mind, and I'm gonna read you the claims from a cleanse tea from 2023.
38:30 Speaker 01 Yes, give it to me.
38:32 Speaker 03 Quote, "Had too much of a good thing? Feeling out of balance, a bit heavy or puffy? Then it's time to get clean. The ingredients' cleansing properties encourage healthy digestion and help to keep the kidneys flushed." End quote. It's the same.
38:49 Speaker 01 It's the exact same. We're gonna say kidneys this time, liver's overdone now.
38:53 Speaker 03 Right. Let's just get a little bit of a specific organ, though, in there to kind of add some scientific credibility.
38:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:01 Speaker 03 Right. So there's like the vague claims about toxins and/or physiological upset? Check. A promise that all parts of your life will improve if you just take this pill, tea, cleanse enema? Check.
39:12 Speaker 01 Check.
39:12 Speaker 03 No substantive information about active ingredients, mechanism, concentrations, et cetera?
39:17 Speaker 01 Check. Check.
39:18 Speaker 03 Not subject to mandatory safety testing? Check.
39:21 Speaker 01 Check.
39:23 Speaker 03 It's true that the 2023 tea is required to disclose ingredients, unlike Brandreth's universal vegetable pills, but that tea does not have to state, and basically none do today, how much of each ingredient is present, or they also don't have to establish a safe limit for those ingredients.
39:43 Speaker 01 Nor do they have to provide any efficacy data whatsoever.
39:46 Speaker 03 Nope.
39:47 Speaker 01 None.
39:48 Speaker 03 None. Long story short, the detox teas and cleanse supplements of today are essentially the enemas of the past, or vegetable pills of the past, just with updated language. It's less rid thyself of impurities and more flush out those yucky toxins.
40:04 Speaker 01 Ooh, you're so puffy.
40:09 Speaker 03 By the end of the 19th century, this idea of toxins causing a vast array of diseases, it took on a more scientific tone, as some physicians formed this idea, or like formalized this idea, auto-intoxication, which I referred to earlier, where it was believed that the bacteria in your retained poop led to a buildup of toxins and ultimately disease. And so this kind of married this new concept of germ theory with the ancient, deeply held innate belief that poisonous substances, from the food we eat, from the water we drink, from the air we breathe, even from within, are at the root of all of our illnesses. A leading proponent of auto-intoxication wrote in 1887, quote, "I have said that the organism
40:52 Speaker 03 in its normal, as in its pathological state, is a receptacle and laboratory of poisons. Man is in this way constantly living under the chance of being poisoned. He is always working toward his own destruction."
41:08 Speaker 01 That's so interesting, Erin.
41:11 Speaker 03 I know.
41:12 Speaker 01 I mean, because it's not like wrong. Like, we are, we are constantly exposed to toxins.
41:20 Speaker 03 We are.
41:20 Speaker 01 And to toxic substances and to things that can cause cell damage. And so is every animal and living thing on the planet.
41:29 Speaker 03 And the thing is, like, auto-intoxication, it's, it's not, there are impurities. There are choices that we make that where we eat food, that's not great for us. Ultra-processed foods, right? Cured meats, not great for us.
41:45 Speaker 01 Yep.
41:45 Speaker 03 Alcohol. Really bad. Yeah, tobacco. And yet, the problem is not with those claims, but it is in saying that this pill, this supplement, this tea will fix that for you.
42:01 Speaker 01 Well, it's, it's like assuming that like, because, oh, I've found this thing, therefore, our bodies are all broken? And like, I will sell you the key? I, ugh.
42:13 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because it's like, well, what do you do about, if auto-intoxication, if this idea that like our retained poop is causing all these toxins in our body, what do we do about it? Well, again, constipation is the issue, right? But what causes constipation? In the eyes of some leading auto-intoxication proponents, it's the colon. So the scientist-
42:39 Speaker 01 So get rid of it?
42:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:41 Speaker 01 No.
42:42 Speaker 03 Yeah. No, Mechnikoff, who was like a very famous scientist, he claimed that the colon was a vestigial organ.
42:47 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
42:49 Speaker 03 I found a paper by Kellogg, our fave, in 1917, titled, I love this, "Should the Colon Be Sacrificed, Or May It Be Reformed?"
43:05 Speaker 01 Our whole entire colon.
43:07 Speaker 03 Colon.
43:09 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh.
43:10 Speaker 03 And I know.
43:11 Speaker 01 And then we'll just wait a few weeks till our poop episode so you can understand how important your colon is.
43:16 Speaker 03 V important, VVV important.
43:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, so, okay, remove it, that is one strategy. First, first, though, maybe try some colonic irrigation, enemas, bring those back on to the scene. But if those didn't work, then yeah, elective removals of the entirety or bits of the large intestine were done. And I don't know how many were done, but the colectomy era, quote unquote, lasted about 10 years, from, say, 1910 to 1920, 1907 to 1917, roughly.
43:47 Speaker 01 That feels way too recent.
43:49 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But fortunately, fell out of favor. People were like, even Kellogg was like, I think the colon can be reformed. I don't think we need to get rid of it.
44:04 Speaker 03 But the concept of detox or products or practices to eliminate impurities from your body, that was here to stay. In the 1940s, Stanley Burrows introduced the Master Cleanse, which you heard in our firsthand account. It was a liquid-only concoction of, also known as lemonade diet, I think, lemon juice, maple syrup, water, cayenne powder, you know, the famous one.
44:25 Speaker 01 Such a classic. I feel like every few years, it really makes a comeback and everyone gets back into the Master Cleanse specifically.
44:31 Speaker 03 Yep, yep. Yeah, it's because celebrities jump on the train. They're like, oh, you know, so and so did this for this movie and lost 20 pounds in a week.
44:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, they did. They starved themselves.
44:43 Speaker 03 Starved themselves, yep. And, yeah, so the Master Cleanse promised not only detoxification, but also weight loss. So then weight loss kind of became wrapped up into this, really starting in the late 1800s, but then in the 20th century, just increasingly so.
44:58 Speaker 01 Okay.
44:59 Speaker 03 And the Master Cleanse might have like really kicked off what our modern era of this is and really incorporated the dieting part of it. But there sprang up throughout, in the decades that followed, countless diets, teas, superfoods, supplements, regimens, programs, bracelets, accessories, procedures that promised to eliminate toxins from the body, thus bringing you a happier, healthier.
45:22 Speaker 03 Life.
45:22 Speaker 01 You.
45:23 Speaker 03 Yeah. I mean, it would take hours just to list the product names, let alone the baseless claims that they make. And I know that you'll explain why these claims are baseless.
45:33 Speaker 01 Right.
45:33 Speaker 03 But to quote a paper I read about fad diets, quote, "Detox approaches defy the general principles of human physiology, as the liver and kidneys are quite efficient in removing both exogenous and endogenous toxins from our body, along with extrarenal excretion of toxins in sebum and sweat." End quote. Yet, these products are ubiquitous, and the industry is growing like never before. How? Why? I can't hope to answer that huge of a question, but I do think it has to do a great deal with how they're marketed. They start off, they all start off with this premise of fear or a lack.
46:17 Speaker 03 You are living in a risk-filled, dangerous world. Everything around you, the food you eat, the liquids you drink, the air you breathe, contains harmful substances that will accumulate in your body. You're missing something in your life, and that's why you're unhappy. And then there's this sense of blame. If you didn't eat those foods, maybe you wouldn't feel so bad. But no one is exempt from this moralizing, right? Next, they offer agency. These substances will continue to ferment in your body, building and building, until you act. Not only do you have the agency to do something about this with X product, but you will be foolish to let this opportunity go. You have a responsibility to yourself,
47:00 Speaker 03 and not drinking this tea or committing to this diet would be a shameful act, not only to yourself, but to your loved ones. You can and should make the right choice here. And then, they promise the stars. If you follow this diet the precise way, this will happen. If it doesn't, it's because you have failed.
47:21 Speaker 01 You did it wrong.
47:22 Speaker 03 You did not commit. You did this.
47:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:25 Speaker 03 There's, I want to read you a quote from a Goop post titled, "Does Detoxing Really Work?"
47:31 Speaker 01 Oh, no. Okay, let me, let me prepare myself for this.
47:34 Speaker 03 Take a deep breath. Cleansing breath again.
47:37 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
47:38 Speaker 03 Here we go. Quote, "We must turn this thinking around and adopt a detox lifestyle where we are living in a healthy and reasonable way most of the time so that we are constantly detoxing because we are constantly exposed to unwanted chemicals and save the binging for the bad stuff, break down and have some yummy barbecue ribs and fries if you must, but make that the exception." Or maybe a cheese platter is your big weakness, as long as it isn't a daily cheese platter." End quote.
48:07 Speaker 01 There is so much moralizing around food.
48:11 Speaker 03 Around food, yeah. "You must be constantly vigilant to the danger that surrounds you, and if you aren't, you're a failure. There is no range of acceptable choices, there is one right answer." And this advertising strategy works so well because these companies convince us, they manipulate us into believing that we can optimize our life, that our lives are incomplete, but contentment is just around the corner for a mere $19.99 a month, plus shipping and handling.
48:38 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
48:39 Speaker 03 And I'm not saying that people shouldn't want more or shouldn't buy whatever things that they want to buy, or that they should just be, you know what, you should be happy with what you've got. Like, it is natural to want more, to want to be happier, to fill your things, fill your life with things that, you know, that's all fine. What I'm saying is not about the wanting. My issue is with the companies that do such a great job of manipulating us into feeling that inadequacy, like detox teas promising to rid us of impurities when our kidneys and livers are already doing a heck of a job. If we look back at the history of science and medicine in this country, we can see
49:18 Speaker 03 this, this really remarkable pattern where patent medicines and snake oil salesmen absolutely flourish in times of chaos and crisis, which feels, I mean, very much like what our world is going through right now.
49:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:34 Speaker 03 And I think it comes down to feeling like there is so much out of your control that we want to make any changes that we can. We want to have whatever control we can, and so we can say, "I want to fix this one thing in my life because I can. This company is telling me that I can."
49:49 Speaker 01 Right.
49:49 Speaker 03 So my hope for 2026 is for us all to cling to reason, establish expertise and shift our skepticism, you know, to the brands making these sweeping claims without a shred of evidence. And I talked way too long, Erin, because I got really into this episode.
50:08 Speaker 01 I loved it.
50:09 Speaker 03 But now I'll turn it over to you to tell us what toxins actually are and how detoxification actually works within our bodies.
50:16 Speaker 01 I cannot wait to. I'm so excited.
50:52 Speaker 01 Before we get deep into how our bodies detoxify, quote unquote detoxify, I do want to focus for a second on this idea of toxins.
51:02 Speaker 03 Thank you.
51:02 Speaker 01 Because, yeah, I think that this word, it comes up so much in like these disinformation campaigns that people love to run. And it's far more reaching than just the idea of detox. But let's get into it, shall we? We've talked on this podcast so many times about how the dose makes the poison, right?
51:23 Speaker 03 Yeah.
51:24 Speaker 01 Essentially, any substance that exists can be harmful to our bodies and to our cells at a cellular level, dependent on the dose. There are some things like water, which is essential for life, that is beneficial at most doses, but still can cause harm if in excess.
51:43 Speaker 03 Yep.
51:44 Speaker 01 And there are other things like arsenic or mercury that are incredibly harmful even in very small doses, right? And those are the kinds of substances that we usually think of as toxic, right? These are substances that even at small doses are harmful to our cells. If you really want to get pedantic, and you know that I love to.
52:06 Speaker 03 Love it.
52:07 Speaker 01 Technically, a toxin means a biologically-produced substance.
52:12 Speaker 03 Oh, interesting.
52:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, so technically, the word toxin is only referring to things that are from plants, or animals, or bacteria. It has to be biologically-produced. And if we're talking about substances that cause harm, that are toxic, that are maybe metals.
52:27 Speaker 03 Like mercury.
52:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:29 Speaker 03 Arsenic, whatever.
52:30 Speaker 01 Arsenic, or things that are like drugs, phosphates, like stuff that we are making, those technically aren't toxins. The correct term would be toxicant, or just like toxic substance.
52:44 Speaker 03 Okay.
52:45 Speaker 01 I love that I got to teach that to you, because I felt like I was getting really too much there.
52:49 Speaker 03 I mean, it is pedantic, but I appreciate the designation. I can appreciate when you are pedantic.
52:58 Speaker 01 Pedantry. I feel like, in common parlance, obviously, we use the word toxic, we use the word toxin to refer to a lot of different things, but I do feel like just knowing that helps you be a little bit more alert. Like, are people even using these words correctly?
53:12 Speaker 03 Absolutely not.
53:13 Speaker 01 If you're saying toxin, what are you talking about?
53:14 Speaker 03 Absolutely not.
53:16 Speaker 01 But how are substances that are harmful to our cells, that are toxic substances, how do they cause damage? They can do this in so many different ways. Some substances might, as we break them down, generate free radicals, right, which can cause damage to our cells via oxidative damage. Some substances might end up depleting our cells' ability to metabolize things, like we talked about in alcohol metabolism. Other substances just might straight-up damage cells. They might induce cell death. There's a lot of different ways that so many things that we come into contact with every day, be they're medicines, drugs, heavy metals, pesticides, organic or inorganic pollutants,
54:00 Speaker 01 things that we eat in our foods, because plants are full of toxins, or toxic substances, secondary metabolites that they make in order to, we think largely, escape predation from herbivores, right? We are exposed to toxic substances all the time, so we have evolved mechanisms to deal with toxic metabolites in our bodies.
54:25 Speaker 03 We have.
54:26 Speaker 01 Evolutionarily. All animals have these mechanisms.
54:30 Speaker 01 So this idea of quote unquote, or so-called detoxification is real insofar as our body does in fact have to manage and deal with toxic substances. On a cellular level, all of our cells have to deal with this. And like cell by cell, we have detoxification mechanisms that I'm not going to dig deep into. Because the superstars in our body, when it comes to like body system level clearance of these toxic substances are our liver and our kidneys. And also our GI tract, which I don't think gets enough credit in this. Yeah, okay, we can give some cred. We'll give some credit. Yeah. But I want to real quick also mention that I do think that some of the reason that
55:14 Speaker 01 we, like, I'm going to go through the steps of how our liver and kidneys actually process these toxic substances. What does detox mean in our bodies, right? But I think that some of the reason that we use the word detox to mean a lot of other things, like sometimes we use detox colloquially to mean like we're abstaining from, like digital detox. Yes. That just means I'm not doing technology for a while, right? Right, right, right. I think that maybe comes from the fact that we use the word detox or detoxification in medicine clinically, also to mean weaning somebody off of a substance on which they're dependent. Right. So that's like alcohol or opioid detox, something like that.
55:59 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. That process is about abstaining from a substance and waiting as your own body metabolizes that substance. And sometimes might require additional medications or things to like monitoring to make sure that it's a safe process. But I think that maybe that version of detox, like alcohol detox, that kind of a thing, might be part of why we think of this as just like, oh, a quote unquote cleanse. I don't know. Hmm, yeah. Like, it's, but it's a different, I'm going to not talk about that. I'm talking about what is our body doing to deal with toxic stuff? Right. Okay.
56:38 Speaker 01 So our liver, I said, does most of the detox of most potentially harmful substances. And it does this in three main phases: metabolism, conjugation, and elimination. Not every substance has to go through each of these, so we'll talk at the end about like other ways to rid the body of toxic substances. But first, we metabolize things. So that means that we break substances down into smaller pieces, or we break them down in ways that hopefully makes them less toxic. Much of this process happens with a group of enzymes called our cytochrome P450s. Should I know this?
57:20 Speaker 01 No, but I just love, I love cytochromes so much. But these are a group of enzymes, there's like six, there's tons of them, but there's six major ones that are responsible for the breakdown or the detoxification of nearly all of the drugs and stuff that we are putting into our body. Like the drugs, the, the foods, like anything that is producing potentially toxic substances. So called xenobiotics is like an umbrella term for a lot of this stuff. Most of them are broken down, phase one, by a group of enzymes called these cytochrome P450s. But there are a bunch of other enzymes that are involved in this. This process, the goal is to break things down to be less toxic.
58:05 Speaker 01 Sometimes, though, it actually creates more harmful substances. As we talked about in our alcohol episode, the breakdown process of alcohol, how we add like OH groups to it and break other things off, actually produces things like reactive oxygen species that can end up causing damage to our cells. Right. But that's why phase one is not the end. The second step in this detoxification process is called conjugation, which just means sticking things on. So this means literally sticking on other compounds to the stuff we've just broken down. Specifically to make them more water soluble.
58:46 Speaker 01 So it turns out that a lot of the toxic stuff that we might be exposed to or ingesting is what's called lipophilic. So it's attracted to fats. Yeah. And just like water and oil don't mix in your salad dressing unless you have an emulsifier in there. Mm hmm. Our liver has a whole system of other enzymes that help to emulsify these toxic things in our bloodstream. That's not a great analogy because it's not quite emulsification, but you can think of it that way. I can imagine just like what the liver is doing, like shake it up. Yeah, it's just, it's just adding things to it, right? You've got to add something. You've got to, okay. To make them more water soluble. Yeah.
59:26 Speaker 01 So that allows for these fat soluble compounds that would otherwise stick around in our bodies to be dissolved so that we can pee or poop them out. And that's the final phase, or this third phase of detoxification, which is elimination. Elimination, yes. So most of the stuff that we make water soluble will end up passing through our kidneys. And our kidneys, they also do some detox on their own, but they are the big, important part of our system, of our body system, that is excreting all of these metabolites that our liver does a good job of breaking down. Right, right. They're carrying it away. Exactly, yeah. Getting it out. The other big player is our biliary system, old friend
1:00:10 Speaker 01 of the pod. That's our liver, our gallbladder, et cetera. Ah, yes, yes, old friend.
1:00:16 Speaker 01 And that means that our, as this stuff gets broken down, sometimes instead of going to our kidneys, we squeeze it into our gallbladder and push it out with our bile. And then eventually we poop it out. Okay, that's how we detox. Sometimes, phase one, two, and three detoxification doesn't work for every substance, right? For some things, elimination might not be possible. We might not have a mechanism for that, like we see with iron, for example. Mmm. So with some substances like heavy metals, our liver, again, has enzymes and mechanisms to bind things up.
1:00:56 Speaker 01 So that they are in a form that they're not causing any damage. So iron, if we're using that as an example, gets bound to a protein called ferritin. And that way, it's not just roaming around causing free radical damage. It's bound up in a protein and therefore not causing harm.
1:01:12 Speaker 03 Hmm. That's very interesting. Also, just like thinking about the evolutionary pathway that had to have. Like, I would love to to get some sort of comparative physiology going on here.
1:01:25 Speaker 01 Um, I found an interesting paper that was more focused, and I didn't end up citing it because I didn't use a lot of this, but they're they were looking at like plant secondary metabolites and herbivores and like the detoxification pathways and things like that in these herbivores to deal with these plant secondary metabolites and stuff. It's super interesting, like, we all have to deal with this, right?
1:01:46 Speaker 03 Well, and then, like, you think about herbivores, and then what if there's like a carnivore that's eating the herbivore that has that has those mechanisms? But then what if the mechanisms haven't taken care of that poison yet? And then the toxin and then?
1:01:57 Speaker 01 And if your carnivore doesn't have those same mechanisms, yeah, it's it's a lot. And carnivores tend to have less. Anyway, so I'm not going to get deep into it because I didn't read enough about it. Mm hmm. Don't quote me.
1:02:07 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:02:10 Speaker 01 But similarly, sometimes we just have to, if there's a lot of reactive oxygen species, which is a common, common, common, common cause of damage to our cells that may be produced in so many different ways and just during normal metabolism, sometimes we just have to neutralize those and we're not doing this whole phase one, two, and three. We have other ways, whether it's enzymes or just chemical antioxidants that are binding up these and blocking them essentially so that they're not going out and causing damage. Finally, there's increasing evidence of the role of our gut microbiome in the detoxification process in mammals in general.
1:02:50 Speaker 03 I mean.
1:02:50 Speaker 01 We don't know, we don't fully understand it, but microbes also have to detoxify. And they have similar, but usually different enzymatic processes to what we see in our own livers and kidneys. So they're not using the exact same enzymes.
1:03:07 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:03:08 Speaker 01 But they are still doing the same stuff, if that makes sense, just in different ways. So yeah, we're doing detox all the time and it is our liver and our kidneys and our guts that are doing it. And this is a complicated process, all right?
1:03:27 Speaker 03 I mean, it sounds quite, a lot of players involved.
1:03:29 Speaker 01 There's a lot of players.
1:03:30 Speaker 03 A lot of steps, yeah.
1:03:31 Speaker 01 I'll also just throw out there that there is known genetic variation in our metabolism in terms of a lot of these cytochromes especially, but also some of the like phase two metabolism stuff, which means that some people might be faster metabolizers, some people might have a buildup of toxic substances longer than other people. So there is a lot of really interesting research being done on that, especially for people who are really into like the idea of personalized medicine, where if we know how you are going to metabolize X, Y, and Z, then we might recommend one drug versus another, or you might need a higher or a lower dose of something. And so I think that's an interesting area of future research. But right now, for
1:04:13 Speaker 01 very few things do we have, like you need a genetic test before X, Y, and Z medicine. There are some medicines that like we have to do a genetic test because we know that you're going to metabolize it differently if you have one gene versus another.
1:04:26 Speaker 03 That's, I mean, that is such a fascinating world of like, yeah, personalized medicine, like what's
1:04:33 Speaker 01 Exactly. Yeah. But that's a different episode here. So that's the end of that. So I want to answer the question of whether any product that claims to detoxify you can actually do it. And hopefully, if you've heard all of the steps that it takes to deal with toxic substances in your body, it is very clear that the answer is no. There is no single product, food, supplement, topical administration of anything that you can do that will detox for you. Your body has to do that.
1:05:13 Speaker 01 However, companies are smart now, as we heard in those things. So the next thing that they love to do is claim that their product supports your own detoxification mechanisms.
1:05:25 Speaker 03 Oh, Erin, I'm, I have, ooh, I hate it so much. I, I cannot stand seeing that on supplement bottles or cereals.
1:05:36 Speaker 01 Liver supports.
1:05:37 Speaker 03 Right. Supports heart health, supports kidney function.
1:05:40 Speaker 01 Exactly. So is there any data to support this idea? There is no good data to support, not just any particular detox diet or supplement or fasting protocol, but even there is no data to support the idea of detox diets on a broad scale.
1:06:02 Speaker 03 Right.
1:06:03 Speaker 01 And let me tell you why. Like, I want to dig a little deeper onto why that is, that we don't have data to support this.
1:06:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:10 Speaker 01 First, our bodies are complicated. The types of toxic substances that we encounter are really varied. So there's two main questions that we have to answer that have not been answered to be able to say that any of these products work. Right? First, can anything that you ingest actually change or so-called support your body's own detoxification mechanisms broadly? So I'm going to get into that.
1:06:40 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:06:40 Speaker 01 Is there anything that we can be ingesting that would actually support our liver health? Okay?
1:06:45 Speaker 03 Probiotics?
1:06:46 Speaker 01 Listen, and two, what the heck are we trying to detox from?
1:06:54 Speaker 03 Oh, I mean, everything, Erin. The world is a dangerous place and also, but it is.
1:06:59 Speaker 01 It is, but you've got to be specific. What are we being exposed to and at what levels? And are these things harmful at the levels at which we are being exposed? So let me dig into the evidence on these two points.
1:07:11 Speaker 03 Okay. Yeah, but you, you just said you've got to be specific. No one is specific.
1:07:16 Speaker 01 No, no, no, no, no.
1:07:17 Speaker 03 No one has to be specific.
1:07:19 Speaker 01 No, I know, but I think they should be.
1:07:25 Speaker 01 So to get at question number one, is there anything that we could be eating that could be helping our kidneys or our liver be better at detoxifying?
1:07:34 Speaker 03 Like all the foods that have antioxidants in them? Like blueberries and superfoods?
1:07:39 Speaker 01 So here's the thing, Erin. There is certainly data out there that there are certain foods or certain chemical compounds, if you want to dig really deep down, in our foods, like antioxidants, like various vitamins, that may help, or in some cases even be essential in our body's detoxification processes. Some of these substances might be necessary cofactors in some of these enzymatic reactions. They may function as antioxidants themselves, be protective in our bodies against reactive oxygen. There is definitely data that there are compounds in especially our fruits and our vegetables that are beneficial for our bodies.
1:08:20 Speaker 01 However, almost all of the data on these substances is in cell culture or animal studies, not in clinical trials, especially if we are trying to say, do these substances help support detoxification mechanisms? These enzymes that we know are involved in detox, right? These data that we have on this is not in human trials.
1:08:44 Speaker 03 Okay, so but let's just like pause there. And I want to try to understand physiologically the mechanism that jumping from extrapolating from lab and animal studies to humans, like you said that some of the products that are contained or the cofactors and vitamins, eating fruits and veggies and so on, are essential for us. Are we getting enough on a daily basis?
1:09:11 Speaker 01 It depends on what you're eating, Erin.
1:09:13 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:09:15 Speaker 01 I don't know.
1:09:16 Speaker 03 Well, but like, you know what I mean? We talked about like vitamin C and scurvy.
1:09:20 Speaker 01 Right.
1:09:20 Speaker 03 And like, the vast majority of people get vitamin C.
1:09:24 Speaker 01 You get plenty of vitamin C. So yeah, the same is true for most of the other stuff.
1:09:30 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:09:30 Speaker 01 Right? And it is important to note, like you're saying, that the dose makes the poison even for these beneficial substances. Because there are some compounds that we've found in plants, in vegetables and fruits, that might help induce detoxification enzymes, so might help them to work better at one concentration, but inhibit them completely at other concentrations.
1:09:52 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:09:53 Speaker 01 So the short answer then is like, no, there's no one thing. There's no one magic pill. There is no one supplement. And it's very interesting that, because I read a couple of papers that were written by people who have their own detox clinics, okay? As an example.
1:10:13 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:10:15 Speaker 01 And I could quote from them.
1:10:18 Speaker 03 I mean, we're talking detox clinics as in like, what we've been talking about these past two episodes, not detox clinics in a clinical sense.
1:10:26 Speaker 01 I'm talking about detoxification lifestyle programs.
1:10:29 Speaker 03 Got it, got it.
1:10:30 Speaker 01 That they will sell you, that you can go to their clinic to learn how to do. But even in those, and I won't actually quote because it's like way too long, but all of those papers come to the conclusion that is the exact same conclusion as every major medical and public health organization that has ever come up with dietary recommendations. And that is that to support your body's intrinsic detoxification processes, our diets should be composed of a variety of whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains should be mostly based on plants. We should get a variety of proteins, make sure we're getting lots of fiber,
1:11:13 Speaker 01 drinking mostly only water and not other beverages, avoiding alcohol, having access to clean water that's uncontaminated by heavy metals, and being engaged in moderate activity and exercise. Like, it is mind blowing to me that even people who are selling this stuff know that there is not one thing that we can pick out of a plant that is ever going to be better than whole plants themselves, right?
1:11:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:11:40 Speaker 01 It's
1:11:41 Speaker 03 Is it mind blowing though?
1:11:42 Speaker 01 But they'll still sell you their supplement.
1:11:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, of course they are. Because it doesn't matter, like that. The science behind it doesn't matter. Except the science is used is to sell information.
1:11:53 Speaker 01 Correct.
1:11:53 Speaker 03 Is is misused.
1:11:55 Speaker 01 Correct.
1:11:55 Speaker 03 Weaponized, yeah.
1:11:57 Speaker 01 Exactly. And the other way that it's weaponized and misused is in this idea of that second question, like, do we have any evidence that we actually need detoxification support? Are we being exposed to such high levels of so-called toxic substances that we need this over-the-counter chelation therapy? Those are very dangerous, by the way.
1:12:19 Speaker 03 Very dangerous.
1:12:20 Speaker 01 And definitely not a good idea. But if you are exposed to high levels of heavy metals like lead or mercury at a level that can cause harm, then yes, you will need treatment. Because your liver and your body might not be sufficient or fast enough to get rid of these compounds before they're causing harm. That is why we have medications that have to be administered under strict supervision because they are also dangerous medicines to be able to bind up things like heavy metals and rid our body of them, allow us to poop them out because we use things like chelation therapy. There are definitely things that we are being exposed to in our modern world today
1:13:05 Speaker 01 that we maybe weren't exposed to hundreds or definitely not thousands of years ago.
1:13:10 Speaker 03 Right?
1:13:11 Speaker 01 There are also things that we were exposed to a lot more that we're not exposed to as much today.
1:13:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:13:16 Speaker 01 And it is true that we still don't know enough about what should be considered maximum safe exposure levels of things like persistent organic pollutants like we see in pesticides or things like BPA or other phthalates that are in plastics. And there is a lot of news, of course, out there about forever chemicals in general. And we don't have enough data about them. It's true.
1:13:40 Speaker 03 Yes, and there is like, I feel like we are living in a world that is full of things that can harm us, but we don't, like you said, we don't know enough about how much of it. We all live very, very, very different lives, even if you're living on the same street as somebody else, how much you're getting exposed to, your genetic predisposition to how fast you metabolize certain toxins, like all of these things are very variable.
1:14:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:14:07 Speaker 03 That can all be very true, and it is.
1:14:10 Speaker 01 And it is.
1:14:11 Speaker 03 And?
1:14:11 Speaker 01 And there are plenty of companies that are claiming that their product will detox you from these compounds, be they heavy metals or other environmental pollutants, even if you have no data to suggest that you have actually been exposed to levels high enough to cause harm, because especially for heavy metals, like we actually do have data on that, like how much is going to cause harm. There is no data that any of these products that are claiming to detox you from these substances will do anything for you.
1:14:43 Speaker 03 Or blogs.
1:14:44 Speaker 01 And in many cases.
1:14:45 Speaker 03 Or recipes, or diets.
1:14:46 Speaker 01 Exactly. And in many cases, they can cause serious harm, especially the ones that are targeted like that, like, oh, you need a heavy metal detox, you need a parasite cleanse. Those often end up damaging your liver. And like, the over the counter chelation therapies and things that they market, they can A, bind up other metals that are actually quite important in our body in trace amounts, so then they can make you be deficient in zinc or copper or things like that, and they can also end up binding calcium, so then you can be severely hypocalcemic and then you can die. Like, it's not, these things are not without the potential for harm. So like, yes, we need to be ensuring that our regulatory agencies and our scientific research agencies are doing the research and asking the right questions, especially about these chemicals that we are being exposed to, at
1:15:31 Speaker 01 what levels of exposures do we have the potential to cause harm in the short term and the long term? And also, the research on, in the event that we are being exposed to high levels, what are additional treatment options? We should be looking into these things that are in our natural products, what things can support detoxification or elimination if someone is actually exposed to high enough levels to cause harm. None of these products, or diets, or fads that are on the shelves have any data to back them up.
1:16:01 Speaker 03 No. And they continue to sow mistrust in established science and medicine by saying germ theory isn't real, "Buy my book on the master cleanse instead."
1:16:14 Speaker 01 I think, honestly, for me, if I just can complain for a moment.
1:16:18 Speaker 03 That's what we've been doing for the past hour and a half.
1:16:20 Speaker 01 I know. For me, I think one of the things, there's a lot that gets to me about this detox trend in general. And it's not just the clear grift that the supplement companies or other organizations claiming to detox you are running. It's not just that like they're counting on and they're preying on our lack of understanding about biology. It's not just those things. For me, it's also so frustrating that these detox products push this notion that our bodies are broken and we need their products to fix them, because our bodies are dang incredible. Like, our kidneys and our liver are working so hard every day, they never get appreciation.
1:17:04 Speaker 01 And to be told that a tea can do their job is offensive.
1:17:08 Speaker 03 I mean, it's, there's just like, there is so much that is upsetting about it, because it's like, every single product is telling you that this is going to change your life for the better. This is the thing that you need that will make your life happy.
1:17:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:17:20 Speaker 03 And that's not the case. And it just is like, it just kind of feels gross.
1:17:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know.
1:17:28 Speaker 03 I feel toxified by detox advertisements.
1:17:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. I agree. The end, Erin.
1:17:39 Speaker 03 Sources?
1:17:39 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:17:42 Speaker 03 I have so many sources about. Enemas and beyond. I have a lot. There is a two parter I read by Friedenwald and Morrison. They're both published in 1940, The History of the Enema. It's a two parter.
1:17:57 Speaker 01 Love it.
1:17:57 Speaker 03 And then there's a paper that I really enjoyed by Baki from 2025 called The Eternal Allure of the Panacea: How Narratives and Biases Sustain Panaceas.
1:18:08 Speaker 01 Love it.
1:18:09 Speaker 03 And then by, this is one of my favorite papers I've read recently. It was, everyone should go, it's by Eberhart, published in 2022, titled You Probably Have a Parasite: Neoliberal Risk and the Discursive Construction of the Body in the Wellness Industry. Absolutely fascinating.
1:18:27 Speaker 01 I love that.
1:18:28 Speaker 03 Fascinating.
1:18:29 Speaker 01 I'm gonna read it.
1:18:30 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:18:32 Speaker 01 I don't know that my papers are quite that amazing, but the biggest bummer for me, it was hard to find more up to date studies. So the two best ones that I found that were really like overviews of especially those, the detox diets and the detox pathways and things, the two best papers I found were both from 2015. One was by Hodges and Minich, and it was titled Modulation of Metabolic Detoxification Pathways Using Foods and Food-Derived Components: A Scientific Review with Clinical Application. And the other was by Klein and Kiyat, also in 2015, Detox Diets for Toxin Elimination and Weight Management: A Critical Review of the Evidence. There was one other one from 2017 that was really more focused on weight loss strategies, but they had a little bit about detox, but there wasn't
1:19:16 Speaker 01 a lot of updated ones. I also had a few different papers that go way more deep dive, if you want it, on hepatocyte detoxification and like detoxification pathways in the liver. So there's a paper from 1991 and a book chapter from 2018. And then I have more, like I said, including ones that were written by people who are huge proponents of the idea of detoxification. So you can find them all on our website, thispodcastwillkillyou.com.
1:19:41 Speaker 03 You can. Big thank you to Blood Mobile for providing the music for this episode and all of our episodes.
1:19:47 Speaker 01 Thank you to Leanna Scolacci and Tom Breyfogle and Pete. I realize I don't know everyone's last name, huh? Pete and Brent and Jessica and everyone that makes this possible.
1:19:59 Speaker 03 Yes, thank you, thank you. And thank you to you listeners and watchers. Happy 2026. Welcome to another year of this podcast will kill you.
1:20:08 Speaker 01 Oh, rate, review and subscribe. We forgot to say that at the beginning.
1:20:11 Speaker 03 Start off your year right by rating, reviewing and subscribing to this podcast will kill you.
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