Time for a Brain Cleanse?

The continuing appeal of juice cleanse and detox products is a mystery. Amazon lists 2,785 detox and cleanse products in this vibrant weight loss category. Yet no evidence for a meaningful health benefit from colon cleanse products exists.

The human colon does not need cleansing. As a matter of fact, the microbiome that lives in the colon does a great deal to keep people healthy. Screwing up its happy little home in your gut might even be a bad idea. But one thing is certain. When you send Amazon $89 for Juice from a Raw 3-Day Organic Juice Cleanse, that money is gone.

The New York Times puts it pretty succinctly in a recent article:

To say that drinking juice detoxifies the body isn’t quite the same as claiming leeches suck out poisons, but it’s fairly close.

The Times asked gastroenterologist Antoinette Saddler of the George Wasington University School of Medicine to review an “expert” essay about cleansing. She didn’t get very far before giving up on finding any meaning in it and quitting.

The author of that essay, a doctor selling a book called The Detox Prescription, told the Times it’s really all about getting more vegetables.

Perhaps it’s time for a brain cleanse. Scams like this seem to be clogging the consumer psyche.

Click here for more from the Times.

Brain Cleanse, photograph © Petras Gagilas / flickr

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April 22, 2016