quick weight loss

Mark Vaughan, Author of You Are Not A Fit Person, Challenges the Benefits of Using a Cleanse to Lose Weight

You Are Not A Fit Person: The Book

West Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) September 30, 2011

Cleansing is one of the most misunderstood practices that people undertake for their health. Not only does it refer to many different practices, from fasting to the use of laxatives, to only drinking liquids to irrigating your colon, it is also claimed by its supporters as a panacea for everything from liver disease, obesity and cancer to improved energy and reduced ‘belly bloat’.

Despite the fact that any physical benefits from cleansing appear to only be anecdotal and lack proper clinical research, there are a myriad of products and procedures on the market to help you ‘cleanse’ your body.

“These diets are so popular right now, mostly because people think they’re a quick fix for shedding pounds,” says Jennifer Ventrelle, R.D., a nutrition counselor at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The problem is that there isn’t evidence that cleanses to anything to help long term weight-loss.

Jillian Michaels the no-nonsense celebrity trainer of Biggest Loser fame and more recently a co-host on the Doctors has her own ‘Triple-detox and cleanse’ pill for sale in local stores and on her website, right under the image of Jillian looking you in the eyes and telling you that ‘America’s TOUGHEST trainer helps YOU lose weight’. The Kardashians endorse a cleanse program that goes by the name of ‘Quicktrim’, and this is to name just two of the most recent celebrity cleanses.

Jillian Michaels’ product does not even claim that you will lose weight with the program, although she was recently sued for her diet claims associated with her other diet pills. According to the You Are Not A Fit Person blog, “Even the claims of these diets are weak. I mean pathetically, anemically weak.” The best you can do with her product is to ‘Feel Lighter’ and reduce ‘Belly Bloat’.

The Kardashians’ product might even be more sketchy, if that is possible, because it promises to “Detox all night! Iso-Cleanse helps remove toxins and impurities out of your system that many diets fail to even take into consideration.” This is quite impressive for a product that contains FD&C yellow #6 and FD&C blue#2.

“In fact, the detoxifying properties of these products is surprisingly mysterious”, according to Mark Vaughan. “There is no agreement amongst cleansers as to what ingredients or methods promote cleansing”. Without scientific studies to show what methods work, if any, how could a sane person choose one cleanse over another? From seaweed to blueberries, cayenne pepper to lemonade, Acacia Bark to Irish Moss Powder, each product has its own unique list of ingredients along with its claims that it detoxifies the body. According to Stephen Barrett, M.D. of Quackwatch, “This “autointoxication” theory was popular around the turn of the century but was abandoned by the scientific community during the 1930s. No such “toxins” have ever been found”. So, without any toxins to remove, every product can claim equally that it detoxifies, and subsequently the market is full of products that claim do just that.

“I believe that the entire cleanse market is based upon a fundamentally flawed belief that the human body can be visualized as a machine, rather than biologic entity, so you end up with people suggesting that you can ‘clean out the pipes’, or ‘give your digestive system a break’, or other analogies that don’t make sense to the human body”,says Mr. Vaughan. This is further exacerbated by the belief that we are living in a toxic environment. Marketers are quick to jump on this bandwagon, suggesting that toxins may actually cause weight gain.

People end up taking these cleanses to feel healthier, when in fact they may be doing damage, “most of the so-called ‘detox’ supplements and diets on the market aren’t regulated by the FDA and are potentially harmful, especially if they’re very low-calorie or contain diuretics that flush your body of potassium and other crucial nutrients,” Ventrelle says.

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