Why Detox Diets Are Bullshit

Let’s face it, detox diets and detox supplements are all the rage.

Annoying family members are selling them… Zuckerberg’s algorithm is peppering you with ads for them… and even some celebrities are hopping on the bandwagon (#ad).

So what gives?

Can you really detox your way to a fitter body with a bunch of pills, shakes, and socks (they’re a thing), or are you being sold a LIE?

Welcome to the absolute shit-show that is the detox industry.

Why Is The “Wellness” Industry So Big?

If you look at the graph above you can see that obesity has been getting out of control in the last few decades.

People are eating more and doing less than ever before, and it fucking shows.

But even in these strange times, the so-called “wellness” industry continues to grow. It was valued at a whopping $56B (BILLION!) last year, and that’s expected to grow to $88B within the next ten years.

Unfortunately, this sector is propelled detox supplements, which promise to fix your body from the inside out. The boffins behind these brands have mastered the art of the sale, and are quite happy to take advantage of people’s desperation to lose weight by offering what appears to be a simple solution to a complex problem. Their behaviour has produced some of the most outrageous (and in some cases disgusting) sales techniques I’ve ever seen. More on that below.

What Is A Detox Diet?

It’s a crash diet with add-ons.

You’ll see all the usual claims about fast weight loss results, and minimal effort, coupled with buzzwords about “cleansing your system” and oftentimes a little-known ingredient which they hail as the solution everyone has been missing.

But beyond the front page hype you’ll see they use all the same old tricks.

Reducing your daily calorie intake to absurdly low levels.
Insisting that you cut out one or more food groups (usually carbohydrates, as this causes water weight loss which they can wrongly claim is fat loss).
Make you stick to a list of so-called “good foods” and “bad foods”.

That’s how fad diets have been doing it since the 1980s, and th detox diet template is largely the same.

However, detox diets will take things a step further by instructing you to purchase expensive supplements/products in order to “speed up the weight loss process by ridding your body of unwanted toxins”. These items range in craziness from juices, shakes, and capsules to creams, facemasks, and crystal eggs which are supposed to be shoved up your hoo-haa!

Does Science Back Them Up?

Of course not.

Make no mistake, this is an industry build on woo.

The primary aim is to make money, and the easiest way to do that is to tell the customer exactly what they want to hear. This often involves promising instant solutions that have dogged people for years, and telling people that their recent weight gain wasn’t down to the 12-pack of Oreo’s they scoff every night while bingeing Netflix, but rather a wicked combination of toxins, free radicals, and the evil power of rock n’ roll!

And then they promise to make it all go away for a chunky monthly subcription.

The whole industry is a shit-show reminiscent of the Wild West, and regulations need to be tightened in the near future if we want to stop these absolute thundercunts from doing serious damage to people.

For example, Herbalife (one of the biggest retailers in this sector) has been repeatedly fined over the last 8-years for lying to its own customers about what its products can do and how much money they can earn as an affiliate. Those fines now add up to an eye-watering $380 million!

Thankfully, science is beginning to pay more attention to the nonsense which is going on here, and has started calling out several companies on their bullshit claims.

This makes it considerably easier for people like me to help others avoid such fuckery!

One of the first studies to to so arrived in 2009, when a team of French researchers contacted the world’s top 15 best-selling manufacturers of detox products to ask them to provide detailed explanations of the specific “toxins” which their producs were supposed to eliminate from the body. (1)

The list included several heavy hitters like Garnier, Boots, Innocent (and more), and none of them could give the information!

Check this out:

Despite claiming to “rid the body of unwanted toxins” on the label, none of the manufacturers could identify the specific toxins their own products would eliminate.
None of them had any evidence to show that their own products were effective.
None of the manufacturers could prove that their products were safe for human consumption.
None of the them could agree on a solid definition for the word toxin.

And in 2015, we finally got the study which is considered by many to be “The Holy Grail” on this topic. (3)

Published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, this comprehensive meta-analysis (a study which looks at every study ever done on a topic) delivered the following damning verdict on detox supplements:

“There is not enough data to support the outlandish claims being made on the products, and what little data they do have is not convincing at all due to a lack of control groups, a reliance on self-reporting, and clear sampling bias.”

– The Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics

detox diets and detox supplements review

The Definition Of A Toxin

The reason none of the manufacturers could give a solid definition for the word toxin is because they didn’t want to be caught out for lying.

Because in doing so they would be admitting that their own products are useless.

However, I’m not them, so I can tell you what a fucking toxin is! In order for something to be deemed a toxin it must be dangerous to life. So that means anything which can kill you (which I guess is everything?), and it’s important to remember that the dose makes the poison, not the ingredient itself.

For instance, there are several fruits which contain cyanide (apples, peaches, cherries_ but you’d need to eat a truckload of them for it to become toxic. Likewise, even water could become toxic if you drank it non-stop. Heck, the great Freddie Mercury once sang “Too Much Love Will Kill You”, and he was probably fucking right. (2)

The 5 Worst Detox Products Of All Time

Unlike fa diets, the detox industry doesn’t solely revolve around weight loss.

This opens the door to all kinds of tomfoolery, because no matter what your ailment may be (low energy, mood swings, spotty skin, cancer), there’s a ~~nuclear bell-end~~ “detox guru” out there who claims to have the fucking cure for it!

So let’s take a look at what I consider to be the 5 worst offenders.

The Master Cleanse

The Master Cleanse is a short-term diet which found fame in 2006 when Beyonce mentioned it in an article.

Its creator claims that it can cure you of any disease known to man (not joking), as well as giving you insane weight loss results.

Claims of huge weight loss are par for the course with silly diet plans like this, but the fact that they are targeting vulnerable people (they have ads aimed at cancer patients) shows us that these chumps are apocalyptic-level thundercunts, and I hope their next poo is a hedgehog.

Anyway, the diet plan itself consists of eating just 600 calories per day (!) and swallowing a bunch of laxatives in order to “cleanse your body of toxins” (where have we heard that before?).

Here’s what researchers from Harvard had to say:

“The Master Cleanse remains a popular Hollywood diet, despite have zero data to show its effectiveness.

The trainee is instructed to follow a very low 600 calories-a-day diet which is lacking in protein, fat, and essential vitamins and minerals. The suggested daily laxative regimen can also lead to severe dehydration.

Trainees see rapid weight re-gain after stopping The Master Cleanse and returning to a regular balanced diet, because the vast majority of the weight which was lost was not fat, but water.”

Anything Sold By Gwyneth Paltrow

Oh, Jesus, it’s time to talk about Goop!

This is the lifestyle brand from ~~actress-turned-liar~~ actress-turned-saleswoman Gwyneth Paltrow. It sells a large variety of nonsensical products which claim to be magic bullets for anything related to wellness, chi, and weight loss.

Paltrow and co. have made millions of dollars from shilling this nonsense to her gullible social media audience, and it shows no signs of slowing down – even after she poked fun at her own customers in a TV interview for believing all of the silly claims they make!

Some of the products and advice given by Goop! is just useless, e.g. a $66 jade egg which you’re supposed to jam inside your lady garden “to achieve oneness” (yeah, here’s what a Gynaecologist had to say about that!), and elsewhere the advice becomes rather dangerous, like when Gwyneth told new mothers that the best way to lose baby weight is to do a 2-week raw goat milk cleanse, and then even recommended using said goat milk to ween their kids off breast milk (please don’t do that, because it’s really fucking dangerous).

Detox Smoothies, Teas & Shakes

Ping!

Your phone just buzzed, and it’s your old schoomate Jayne.

And before you have a chance to remember she used to relentlessly bully you, she’s offered you the chance to live your #dreamlife by joining her ~~multi-level marketing scam~~ home-based business opportunity selling weight loss shakes.

Ah, it’s a story as old as time itself.

Yet despite all of the hype, there isn’t a single shred of scientific data to support the claims being made by these companies, and the price of the products has been heavily inflated to ensure that sale reps are compensated for signing up new members (which often encourages them to make even crazier claims than the ones already being made).

Detox & Fat Burner Capsules

This is the kind of thing you’ll see being advertised by reality TV stars and influencers, who are mostly happy to slap their face on anything in exchange for money, and will sometimes even dish out bonkers diet advice, too.

But while I can forgive this type of shithousery from social media folks, I can’t be so forgiving when it comes to fitness professionals.

I’m talking about you, Jillian Michaels.

You see, after achieving fame via The Biggest Loser, Ms. Michaels went on to launch a supplement company which has done its very best to take advantage of her inexperienced audience at every turn.

A good example of this is Probiotic Replenishment Metacaps, a so-called detox supplement which they claimed could “clear away harmful toxins while supporting the colon, digestive system, and liver”. None of those statements were true, so the product was quickly removed from sale, and this wasn’t even her first rodeo, having been sued for making false advertising claims on her fat burner capsules on no less than three prior occasions. Wowza!

Wearables (masks, wraps, socks, pads, and creams)

Not all heroes wear capes, and not all detox supplements involve shakes and pills.

Take detox foot pads, for instance. You’ll stick these to the bottom of your feet before bed, and awaken to see a nasty layer of brown sludge on them.

The manufacturer claims this is “a dangerous combinations of toxins which have been pulled from your body overnight”, but it’s really just wood vinegar, an ingredient within the product which is known to turn brown when combined with human sweat.

And then there’s the altogether different (but equally disturbing) colon cleansing capsules.

Yep, I’m going there.

After popping some of these bad boys you’ll shotgun your toilet in a scene reminiscent of Arnold Schrwarzenegger vs the T-1000, and those of you who are brave enough to look down at the bowl will notice your poop looks like a long black snake.

The manufacturer claims this is because their miracle capsules have yanked a bunch of dangerous toxins from your body, but really it’s because they contain a polymersing agent, which is like putting a plastic overcoat on your poop.

Nice.

Russ’ Take-Home Advice

Tighter regulation is badly needed in this sector, but until that day arrives you must keep your wits about you when anybody mentions the word “detox”.

To make it clear; no supplement has been shown to do a better job (or even an equal job) than your own internal organs when it comes to detoxifying the body.

Check this out:

Liver: Your liver blocks dangerous substances in food from entering the bloodstream.
Colon: Regular bowel movements will eliminate those dangerous substances.
Kidneys: Your kidneys remove dangerous substances from the body via urine.
Lungs: Your lungs eliminate dangerous substances via breathing.

This built-in tag team is more effective than prime Ric Flair & The Four Horsemen.

So in the future, if you think you might have a problem with any of these internal organs, please go to your local doctor and not the fucking internet!