You are doing yourself a huge disservice by not opening your mind to it.  Please leave comments.

The point is that no matter where we go in our modern environment, there will ALWAYS be areas of toxicity that are almost impossible to avoid.  Here’s another example:  I was with my wife at our favorite restaurant here in Cabo San Lucas enjoying some good Mahi Mahi we’d just caught when the person at the table next to us pulled out a cigarette and was almost blowing it in our faces!  My wife started caughing because she is allergic to cigarette smoke, but this was something we couldn’t have avoided because we were right in the middle of dinner and it was so unexpected.

I enjoyed reading the article below which I believe is relative to the point I am trying to make.  Please leave your comments under this post to let me know how you feel:

John Anderson Formulating Isagenix Products

Situated at the summit of an auspicious mountain is the glorious Yumbulagang palace, the oldest palace in Tibet, with more than 2,000 years of history as a spiritual and healing center for kings and Dalai Lamas. Nowadays the palace is still a sanctuary for Buddhist monks and travelers alike who hope to take in the sublime views of the landscape below. The surrounding valley is so pristine and beautiful that legend has it that drinking water from a perennial spring found there will cure any disease.

You could say the palace is an ultimate place of purification where one can drink in pure spring water, breathe in pure air and enjoy health-giving foods grown from the nutrient-rich earth in the region. If you happen to be a monk living there, then you probably don’t need nutritional cleansing.

As for the rest of us, we live in a completely different world. In our daily lives our bodies are under constant onslaught of stressors that come in the form of pollutants—via food, water and air—from a poor diet, and from the stress of busy schedules, conflict and strain at work, conflict in relationships, and even conflict in traffic. There’s little doubt that traditional nutritional thinking won’t cover our needs. We need extra help for helping us guard our bodies, help us to detoxify and to lose weight.

Now, there is plenty of reason to be leery of claims regarding safe, long-term weight loss and optimum health after being subjected to hundreds of “miracle” fad diets over the years. Whenever I hear about someone who has lost a lot of weight and has kept it off for longer than a few months with little effort, I’m the first to find the story just a little too hard to believe.

I know also that I receive a variety of e-mails questioning the need for nutritional cleansing. Most come from high skepticism because the simple fact is that “most diets don’t work.” But just as you may have discovered since trying nutritional cleansing, the whole-system approach that Isagenix provides does work, and it contains the right nutrients and botanicals given at the right time for maximum support to the body.

Ask a Tibetan monk about health and he’d tell you that you mustn’t lose faith in the body’s capability to produce miracles. Isagenix may not be exactly a miracle—the system was created with careful research and design—but just ask anyone who has witnessed or experienced his or her own success story and you might just agree Isagenix is a phenomenon. And, we have it to share with the world.

Bill Wheeler, Ph.D., ACSM
Isagenix Chief Science Officer

I thought this “Are You Toxic” video by Isagenix was perfect for this post.

Every day we’re continually exposed to toxins in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the items we touch. Learning more about these potentially harmful chemicals can be critical for making decisions to protect long-term health. As with any subject, toxins are best understood through a little history.

Toxins—or xenobiotics—have always been part of the natural environment. Many of them are made by plants, bacteria, and animals as defenses to keep predators at bay. The greater the abundance of toxins in a species, the more likely they will survive. This natural arms race has produced millions of different kinds of toxins including venoms and poisons.

Human exposure to toxins also depends on how food is prepared. The use of fire was a novel way to deal with food toxins. Heat breaks down many plant and animal defenses. Another example was fermentation, in which microorganisms produce a food that is edible. As our ancestors improved upon their culinary talents, they were able to expand their palates.

Humans would eventually enjoy a wide variety of foods spanning all parts of the world. As they did, new foods and food preparation techniques would introduce new toxins. Examples are the chemicals produced by heat, such as char, nitrosamines or acrylamide, which can each be carcinogenic.

The act of living itself also comes to us at a cost. Toxins are produced within the human body from simply being alive day to day. Toxins may, at times, be used to battle foreign bacteria or viruses. These can cause harm as they work to protect the body, but after their job is done, they are detoxified through biochemical processes.

Modern World

In our modern environment, pollution and food processing has increased our toxic load considerably. Humans

Continual flow of pollutants into water sources increases our risk of exposure to toxins.

have added thousands of new chemicals that pollute our air and water. These toxins can often end up in our foods, not just in plants, but concentrated in the animals that we eat. Food is also laden with chemicals in form of pesticides, processing agents and artificial ingredients.

As our bodies are endlessly exposed to toxins, the toxins can overwhelm the body’s natural detoxification defenses. A slow accumulation of toxins in our bodies may eventually disturb our natural processes.

It only adds to our toxic load when—in an age where portion sizes have grown out of proportion—we eat a lot more food than ever before. Most of the foods available are designed, not to support us nutritionally, but to appeal to the power of our taste buds. Our busy schedules have also made processed foods all the more convenient, adding to the waistline-expanding potential of sedentary lifestyles, and putting further burden on our bodies.

Human Body

The human body has had to adapt over the generations to removing varying toxic loads. Our bodies come equipped with powerful protections in forms of detoxification or cleansing systems. They are found throughout the body: in the stomach, the intestine, the liver and the kidneys.

The liver is a primary detoxification organ, metabolizing thousands of different chemicals we’re exposed to daily. Much of what we eat must pass through our livers. As the liver breaks nutrients down, it also metabolizes toxic substances. In most cases, these toxins are cleared from the blood, then eliminated through bile or urine. At other times, they can become stored in fat.

In addition, each individual cell contains its own inherent protections from the daily stresses of simply living. These include powerful detoxification and antioxidant enzymes, which help maintain cellular integrity so that the cell may function appropriately.

Nutritional Cleansing

Our ancestors found ways to enhance many of the body’s internal detoxification and cleansing systems. These

Nutritional Cleansing Assists The Liver, a Primary Detoxifier

nutritional cleansing methods, which have been around for thousands of years, are only now beginning to be understood. A common practice was the use of fasting along with herbal teas or special botanicals. The reduced food intake would allow the body to purify itself through rest and renewal. Botanicals such as aloe gel, licorice root and ashwaghanda root contain bioactives that encourage detoxification within the liver and in the individual cells.

Age-old traditions of nutritional cleansing have now been combined with modern technologies. Isagenix is a company that has achieved this task with Cleanse for Life™, a drink specialized to support the liver, the immune system and cellular health with vitamins, herbal teas and other botanical ingredients. The ingredients were chosen to help protect the body from daily pollutants and promote their detoxification.

As a dietary supplement, Cleanse for Life can be taken daily for nourishment to help deal with daily toxic load and stresses. Alternatively, when taken as guided in the Cleansing and Fat Burning System—a program rich in nutrition and low in calories—one can reap benefits of “deep cleansing” and a sound approach to weight management.

Balanced nutrition and nutritional cleansing are key strategies for coping with daily toxins, but there are others. Although there’s no way to avoid all toxins, one can reduce exposure as much as possible. It can be achieved by simple lifestyle changes such as choosing clean fruits and vegetables, drinking clean water, using non-toxic skin care and seeking out fresh air whenever possible.

If you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, then there are a few things of which you should be aware if deciding to use the Cleansing and Fat Burning System.

Type 1 diabetes

It’s common to have lower levels of glucose while on the products. Be careful with your use of insulin. I recommend to my patients that they cut their insulin in half while they do this program and adjust it accordingly. I also recommend my patients use short-acting insulin. Please consult your doctor before adjusting medication. You cannot expect to get off of insulin, of course, but you can expect to feel better and lower the levels of insulin required.

During the Shake Days you may find that the glucose levels increase. This is expected, but if the rise is too high then you can consider switching to diluting the shake with our unflavored whey protein, IsaPro, or having ½ a shake 4 times a day or ½ a shake 2 times day. Watch your glucose levels to guide you.

Type 2 diabetes

Monitor your glucose levels closely since it’s easy to have low levels while on the program. I personally recommend to my diabetics that they cut their medications in half if they are going to start on the 9-Day Program and if they are using insulin to only use the shorter-acting insulins. Please consult your doctor before adjusting medication.

A temporary glucose rise would be OK since it’s better than you falling into a hypoglycemic state, which is more dangerous than a hyperglycemic state. What we generally see is a reduction of both medication and glucose levels with this program. The Shake Days may very well show an increase in the glucose levels but as your weight goes down this generally is self-correcting. If this rise is too great for you then you can switch to just the IsaPro or you can use ½ a shake 4 times a day or reduce the amount to just ½ a shake 2 times a day.

I have also seen my patients no longer require any type of medication for diabetes, but individual differences doesn’t make this the case for everyone.* At the very least you should see a reduction in your weight and a reduction in the amount of medication that you are using.

Dennis Harper, DO
Isagenix Scientific Advisory Board Chair

This information on this Web site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient and her or his physician or other health-care professional.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

If you want more information on Isagenix and Diabetes I can put you in touch with my fried Rob who has MS and diabetes and can tell you all the good benefits he has received as a result of cleansing with Isagenix.  Just fill out the contact me form and I’ll get your information over to him.

Does Fasting Rid the Body of Toxins?

Dear Cecil:

A fairly sophisticated colleague just completed a five-day water fast, something he does two-three times a year to “purge his body of toxins.” A Harvard-educated client of mine keeps going on fruit-juice-based fasts–again to purge the toxins. And an old friend from grad school is now engaged in a very expensive round of “chelation” to push the toxins out of her body. Me? I’ve always thought that this is what we have a liver and two kidneys for. So, here are my questions: (1) What the heck are these toxins anyway? (2) Can they be measured? (3) Where do they come from? (4) How do we get rid of them?

— Thomas B. Siegman, New York, New York

Toxins We Breath

Oh, there are lots of toxins. Ethanol, now. Toss back a shooter or six at your brother’s bachelor party and chances are next morning you won’t be saying, Whoa, it’s great to be alive. Nicotine’s another. Ozone, carbon monoxide, and other compounds derived from auto exhaust. Fat in foods isn’t a toxin in the strict sense, but consume it in excess and from the standpoint of long-term health effects you’re slowly poisoning yourself.

As soon as you begin to list toxins, however, it’s obvious the detox regimens you describe aren’t apt to be much good at getting rid of them. Better you should stop smoking, eat and drink less (and exercise more), and quit driving that SUV. But how much fun is that? It’s more entertaining to spend a few days and sometimes a pile of money on a water fast, an herbal diet, chelation or “ayurvedic” therapy, or some other form of new-agey hokum, after which you can resume your wicked ways.

Some will object: It’s not the known toxins I’m worried about, it’s the ones that sneak up on you. You know the rap–thousands of chemicals have been introduced into the environment in the past century with little or no testing; it isn’t so much any one poison as the accumulation of poisons that will kill you; etc. Never mind that the question of low-level effects remains controversial, that we haven’t seen any big die-offs locally (in contrast, Russia and many eastern European countries have seen marked declines in life expectancy due to environmental factors in a much broader sense, e.g., alcoholism), and that the experts, to the extent they’re willing to guess, generally attribute red-flag indicators of ill health such as cancer to obvious causes like smoking.

The thing is, even if we concede for the sake of argument that obscure toxins are a threat, there’s no reason to think that detox therapies offer any protection. Examples:

• Chelation. This therapy involves intravenous infusion of the chemical disodium EDTA, which binds to metallic ions in the body (including heavy metals) and allows them to be excreted. Early experiments suggested that chelation dissolved the calcium in arterial plaque and reduced hardening of the arteries and other circulatory problems. Subsequent research has largely failed to replicate these results, and the current consensus is that chelation is effectively snake oil. Not only is it expensive, it depletes your body of the metals you want to keep, too, including important micronutrients such as zinc.
• Fasts and herbal diets. Lots of variation here, but the idea generally is to stop eating whatever you’ve been eating (or anyway cut back) and heavy up on water, juice, herbs, or some other holistic Drano that will flush the bad stuff out of your system. Abrupt changes in diet are always a little dicey; I came across one account of a kid who gave himself serotonin syndrome (confusion, tremors, fever, etc) after downing tryptophan and St. John’s wort to detox himself from ecstasy, a therapy he’d seen recommended online. I suspect this kind of thing is rare and that most diets and fasts won’t harm you if you keep them up for only a short time, and of course a balanced low-cal diet coupled with exercise and stuck to long-term can have major benefits. But the notion that you can somehow purge toxins for a few days and be done with it is for the birds.
• Ayurvedic medicine. Popularized by Deepak Chopra, ayurvedic medicine grew out of transcendental meditation (remember the Maharishi?). There’s more to it than detoxification, but herbal diets, purification, and so on are part of the mix. No proven benefit, although I imagine positive cash flow has increased Chopra’s personal sense of well-being.
• Colonic irrigation/colon cleansing. Trendy names for the good old enema. What next, bloodletting?

In short, you’re quite right–the human body has its own highly evolved mechanisms for eliminating toxins that, under normal circumstances, you don’t need to enhance with anything more elaborate than indoor plumbing and a good magazine. By the same token, if you’re overtaxing your liver and kidneys, you don’t need a water diet, you need to rethink your life.