Source: St. Joseph News-Press | March 10, 2009
Erin Wisdom
Mar. 10, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) — Think of it as spring cleaning for your body.Just like the superfluous belongings and dust-filled corners and crevices in your home need to be cleaned out occasionally, so do the unwanted things that have taken up residence in your anatomy.
“That’s the premise for all disease: toxins in the body,” says Tim Jordan, a licensed massage therapist who works in the office of chiropractor Dr. James Golden. “Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, joint and muscle stiffness, digestive problems, poor eyesight, low energy — you think that’s just part of getting old, but it doesn’t have to be.”
An answer to the problem of toxins we all encounter and absorb in our daily lives — not only through food but also through cosmetics and cleaning products and air pollutants and more — are body purification, or detoxification, programs, Mr. Jordan says. There are a lot on the market now, and people should be wary of ones that seem to be too quick and easy a fix, he adds. But choose one that does work, and the effect on the body is “basically like turning back the speedometer on a car, slowing down the aging process.”
Dr. Golden and Mr. Jordan have recently begun offering a 21-day purification program created by Standard Process that utilizes whole-food supplements in the form of vitamins and shakes; organic, unprocessed food; and water. Together, these stimulate the body’s detoxification organs — the liver, kidneys and intestines — and enable them to more efficiently remove toxins from the body.
A person’s diet during these 21 days should be high in fruits, vegetables and lean meat and low in refined foods, sugar and saturated fat. As a result, many people lose weight over the course of the detoxification, Mr. Jordan says. He adds that some also see results much sooner than expected, including one of his clients: An 88-year-old man who had struggled with constipation for years and thought it would always be a part of his life. But after just a week on the program, he’d experienced noticeable improvement in his body’s functioning, Mr. Jordan says.
Another popular purification program is Isagenix, which offers nine- and 30-day programs and uses herbs, vitamins and minerals to cleanse the body and provide it with vital nutrients. Dr. Sivi Helsel, chiropractor at Activate Your Health in St. Joseph, first used the program two and a half years ago and — although she was already using other products and felt fine — found she was much more energetic four days into her nine-day cleanse and was also sleeping better. In addition, she lost eight pounds and 18 inches.
“I thought, ‘If I’m generally healthy and can notice a difference, what will it do for my patients?’” she says, adding that now, she does a cleanse every Monday by consuming little other than the Isagenix drinks and snacks. “I love it because it cleanses every system, all 100 trillion cells, in the body. The U.S. is kind of behind on (cleansing), because other countries have been doing it for years.”
Although the Standard Process and Isagenix programs focus on cleansing the entire body, some programs focus only on a specific system. Diane Waddell, a nurse at Heartland Complementary and Integrative Medicine is using a two-part cleansing program called Ultimate Cleanse, created by Nature’s Secret, that uses herbs and fiber in tablet form to clean out the colon.
“It’s one of the better ones out there,” she says of the program, adding that it also works for treating parasites and should be followed for one to six months.
Beyond this kind of cleanse, Ms. Waddell recommends consuming antioxidants, which help purify the body of damage-causing stray electrons called free radicals. Antioxidants can be found in a variety of foods — including certain teas, cilantro, garlic and leafy green vegetables — yet almost everyone her clinic has ever tested has been deficient in antioxidants, she says.
Making antioxidants a regular part of your diet is just one aspect of preventative health, she adds — and maybe, after following a purification program, a person will be more motivated to avoid exposure to toxins as much as possible. This is something Mr. Jordan hopes he’ll see in clients who go through the Standard Process purification program.
“After 21 days, I hope people adapt to a healthy diet,” he says. “We live too short and die too long. Modern medicine can keep us alive longer, but why not stay away from the doctors as long as possible?”
Purification programs often aren’t cheap, and it’s important for people to take time to choose which one will work best for them, Dr. Helsel adds. But choose one that works correctly, and it’s well worth the time and cost.
“Really, the body’s the miracle,” she says. “Cleansing it just gets it unclogged so it can function like God made it to.”
Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.
Newstex ID: KRTB-0283-32790727
