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Ep 325 – The Rogue Pharmacist: The Truth About Detox
00:17:21
“Detox” is a buzzword and a trend, but the science behind it often gets lost. In this episode of The Rogue Pharmacist, Ben explains what detox really means in terms of the liver, kidneys, and lymphatic function – and how this impacts the skin. ...
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Calling all forward thinking estheticians, it's time to redefine the art of skincare and embrace a revolutionary approach that begins with your clients.
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Skin Cell Health.
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I'm pharmacist Benjamin Knife Fuchs WELcoming you to Truth Treatment Systems where beauty begins. At the cell, we believe you're not just a beauty professional, you are a healthcare professional. You want to make a positive difference and you want to make a good living and we will help you do both. We're here to support your out of the box thinking and empower you to question traditional products, outdated formulations and old school ingredients. Imagine a world where solutions to the skin's enigmatic conditions lie just beyond the horizon. At Truth, we're not just a skincare brand. We're a movement that encourages you to explore better solutions and find that aha moment that changes the game. You are an artist and a healer of the skin and we're here to provide the canvas and the tools for you to create tailored protocols leaving generic ones in the past. Sign up now at truthtreatmentspro.com and receive two complimentary mineral rich electrolyte sheet masks. That's truthtreatmentspro.com where healthy skin is beautiful skin.
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Hello and welcome to ASCP and the Rogue Pharmacist with Benjamin Knight Fuchs. In each episode we will explore how internal and external factors can impact the skin. I'm Maggie Stasik, ASCP's program director and joining me is Ben Fuchs, skincare formulator and pharmacist. Hi Ben.
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B
Hello Maggie.
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C
Detox, quote unquote, is a buzzword and a trend, but the science behind it often gets lost, I think. So Ben, can you explain what detox really means? And I'm thinking like in terms of liver, kidneys, lymphatic function and how is this impacting the skin?
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Well, detox is kind of interesting word because the body is a detoxifying system. We, we have a built in ability to detox because we're surrounded with toxicity. Even paleolithically from an evolutionary perspective, there was toxins everywhere. So when we think about detox, the body is very, very equipped, particularly as you mentioned, the liver, also the kidneys and the skin for that matter, to detox. The real thing about detox is the tox part. And the best way to detox is not to tox, to avoid the talks. And the most important source of toxicity? Well, the two most important sources of toxicity are number one, what we put into our bodies voluntarily, food idea specifically. Although you know, people inject also either legally or illegally. And that's another way that we get toxicity. And then there's also toxicity that is a byproduct of things, of our body's metabolic processes. So there's two ways you can look at detox. First of all, the best way to detox is not detox in the first place. And then the second way to look at detox is to support the body's ability to clean itself out. You know what the best, absolute best way to support the body's ability to clean itself out is, aside from not putting stuff in in the first place, is to fast. Now, fasting in a way you could say is like not putting stuff in the first place. But when you fast, your body goes through a process called autophagy. Have you heard of this?
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I haven't.
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Autophagy is self cleaning. Body cleans itself out. And it cleans itself out on a microscopic level and a macroscopic level. On a microscopic level, cells will actually commit suicide when, when we fast. When, when the cell doesn't have to deal with toxicity. That's coming in through the digestive system, it goes through a process called apoptosis. Have you heard of this?
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I have, yeah.
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Apoptosis is cellular suicide. And that's a microscopic cleansing. And then also autophagy occurs and that's where the body will clean out dead cells. So between apoptosis and autophagy, you have a microscopic cleansing or cellular cleansing. But then there's also a macroscopic cleansing that occurs when you fast, and that's through the digestive system. The digestive tract will actually clean itself out when you stop putting food in. And this is kind of interesting to me, you know, when you stop eating for six, seven, eight hours, you hear a rumbling in your tummy, right? And most of us, when we hear that rumbling in our tummy, think, oh, I'm hungry, I gotta go eat. But really, that rumbling in your tummy is the sound of something called the migrating motor complex. I'm not sure if we've ever talked about that. The migrating motor complex, the mmc, is a complex of a neuromuscular complex that activates the digestive tract and propels food down from the intestines and outside the body. And this migrating motor complex is activated when we don't eat. When we eat, the migrating motor complex stops or slows down so that you can have time to extract the nutrients from your food. So eating slows down. The migrating motor complex. When we stop eating, the migrating motor complex kicks in and cleans the body Out. And so cessation of food is a great way to clean the digestive tract out. In fact, people who fast will notice they have these incredible bowel movements, like two days after they fast, and they'll be like, I didn't eat anything. How could that happen? Well, what happens is the migrating motor complex kicks in and cleans everything out. So that rumbling in your tummy is a sign that your body is cleaning itself out. And when we think about detoxification, we don't often think about the digestive tract cleaning itself out. Detoxification sort of conjures up images of metabolic detoxification, like you said earlier, at the level of the liver and the level of the kidney. But really, macroscopic detoxification is the most important way to detoxify. And accumulation of waste in the intestine is a major, major source of toxicity. So the first best way to detox is to fast. That's the best way. You'll get macroscopic cleansing or detoxification by cleaning the digestive tract out and microscopic via autophagy and apoptosis, support of both of those processes. What you're talking about, though, is really interesting. And that's the liver and the kidneys and the skin. And that's more of a biochemical detoxification. And, oh, I should tell you one more way to detoxify, and that's water. Water flushes everything out. And that's one of the benefits of drinking water. Clean water and dehydration, unfortunately, is endemic because we don't drink anywhere near enough water. And on top of that, we. The beverages many of us consume are actually diuretics. They actually cause us to lose water. So when you drink coffee or you drink soda pop, which many of us are, that's where we're getting our liquids from. We're actually losing fluids. So dehydration can exacerbate toxicity. And drinking water is another great detox. And between fasting and water, you have two of the best ways to detoxify. You don't have to have a special formula. You don't have to go to a special healthcare professional. Anybody can drink water and fast. That's why I love those two strategies for detoxification. But then there's also the metabolic detoxification that occurs in the liver and that occurs in the kidneys. The kidneys and the liver, primarily. And then also the skin, to a certain extent, has a detoxification property. In fact, the skin's been called your third kidney. And this is one of the reasons why you Want to be very careful about occlusive topicals. You know, most topicals are occlusive so called. I always do this when I say moisturizer, right, you can't see it, but air quotes the word. There's a lot of reasons why you don't want to use them, but one reason is you're occluding the surface and you're keeping the skin from me being being able to do its detoxification business or at least impeding it or limiting its ability to detox. So the skin has been called your third kidney and that's a detox detox organ. But the main organs are the liver and the kidneys. And the liver, much of its has several ways it provides detoxification properties or helps us detoxify. One is with the body's most important detoxification fluid that nobody ever talks about as a detoxification fluid. And I consider it to be, if not the most important, probably not the most important, but in the top three or four most important substances in the body, and that's bile. Bile is a detoxification fluid. And supporting bile is critical for detox, particularly for detoxification of one of the most important toxins in the body that nobody thinks of as a toxin, which is old hormones, especially old estrogen. Estrogen is a very, very powerful molecule and has to be cleaned out of the body. And this is extremely important for women because as women age, they don't clean out estrogen as effectively. And many of the.
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Signs and the.
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Symptoms of menopause, hot flashes, anxiety, weight gain, thyroid problems, cancers, fibroids, et cetera, are really signs that estrogen is not being detoxified. You don't really think about estrogen as a, as a substance that needs to be detoxified, but it is, and it's detoxified several ways. One way is by cleaning it out of the body through bile. But if your bile is sticky and sludgy, which occurs as toxins accumulate in the body, that's not going to happen as efficiently. And estrogen will start to build up. In fact, a very toxic form of estrogen called catechol estrogen, which is really the estrogen bad guy when it comes to estrogenic symptoms. So making sure that your bile system is working pristinely. And there's a couple ways to do that. One is by using bile support supplements like bile salts or things to help you secrete bile, like Swedish bitters, for example, or anything stimulating like dandelion greens or horseradish, or things that Have a stimulating effect, can help help you produce bile. Precursors to bile can be helpful. Lecithin. Lecithin granules are amazing. For anybody who has bile issues or gallbladder issues. The precursors to lecithin, which are found in eggs, Eggs are also, by the way, a great source of lecithin. And then also the amino acids taurine and glycine can be helpful. And then if you have had a gallbladder removed, you got a problem, because the gallbladder stores bile and the gallbladder, ironically, is removed. When you have a bile problem, they take the gallbladder out. Now you got a bigger bile problem. So Coley cystectomy, which is the fancy way of saying gallbladder removal, is very common. Half a million gallbladders are removed every year. I'm telling you, if you've had your gallbladder removed or if they're suggesting that you have your gallbladder removed, be very careful. And so supporting bile health is very important. Keep your gallbladder if you can, and if you do have gallstones or that's. That's a sign that your bile is not doing its job. That is sticky and it's sludgy. And that's a reason to follow other detox procedures, which are fasting and water. And I'll tell you a couple supplements that you could use to detox here in a minute. The second way that estrogen is cleared is with enzymes in the liver. And so supporting estrogen detox by using things like calcium, d glucarate, sulforaphane. Have you heard of sulforaphane? That's, that's, that's a. That's found in broccoli. In fact, cruciferous vegetables in general are very detoxifying. They support detoxification enzymes in the liver for women who have estrogen problems or any kind of detoxification, really. Sulforaphane is found in broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, the cruciferous vegetables. If I was a woman, I would be doing cruciferous vegetables every single day. Particularly if you have estrogen, estrogenic health issues. Progesterone can help you balance out. Estrogen methylation is one of the ways. Have you heard of this process, methylation? So methylation is one of the ways that we can clear out estrogen or detox, detoxify estrogen. In fact, methylation is one of the ways that we detoxify a lot of substances. And you can get methyl. Methyl. They call methyl groups from like, supplements like choline or methionine. And then also sulfur is a very important detoxifying substance. Sulfation is one of the ways that the body, the body detoxify substances. So make sure you're getting sulfur msm, sulfur either in a supplemental form or eating sulfur containing foods, which are high protein foods. Eggs are particularly good source of sulfur. Anything that stinks after, if it's left out for a while with the sulfur smell, like eggs and fish, those tend to be good sources of sulfur. So that's another great detoxification strategy. And then, you know, it's funny because I haven't mentioned heavy metals and I haven't mentioned like most of the toxins people think of when they think of toxicity, pesticides and, and phthalates and drugs. Drugs, by the way, are major toxin. Prescription drugs, like the kind of prescription drugs you get from the doctor, major toxin. And if you are on a prescription drug for the rest of your life, they love saying that you're going to be on this the rest of your life. Your number one health challenge should be to figure out how to get off that prescription drug and to wean yourself off. You always want to do it with your doctor. You don't have to, you don't have to like listen to your doctor. You can tell your doctor what you're doing, but you do want to have your doctor in the participate with you. It's your right to not take a drug. A lot of, a lot of times when people go to the doctor, we think, oh, I can't. The doctor told me. Sometimes people say my doctor said I have to be on this. No, you can be, do whatever you want to do, but it's always important to involve your physician in the process. Drugs, definitely prescription drugs or of course, you know, non prescription drugs, illegal drugs, those act like toxins. And then also alcohol, major toxin. And I, you know, I've been known to tip a, have a, have a shot of vodka here and there, you know, but there ain't no getting around it. It's a toxin. And that hangover you feeling the next day, that's a sign of toxicity, major toxicity. So there's really, you know, I hate to come down on the side of, you know, little sisters of the poor and you know, the Salvation army or something like that, you know, but alcohol has got to be recognized as the toxin that it is. And then the whole issue of xenoestrogens, you familiar with those, xenoestrogen, those act as toxins as well. So supporting liver health by using The B complex, essential fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin C, major detoxifying. And it doesn't get appreciated as a detoxifying substance. And then all the hormonal strategies for helping, helping support bile, for clearing out, clearing out old hormones and then leaky gut. And then one of my favorite detoxification strategies, chelation therapy. Have you heard of this?
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I've heard. Chelating agents.
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Chelating agents, right. So when we talk about toxicity, really the blood is where the toxins are gonna reside. And this is what causes most of the problems, whether these are toxins from food or toxins from the intestine. Um, and cleaning out the blood is a very important strategy. And there are substances in nature that do just that. They actually chelate, which means chelate comes from the word claw in Latin. You can think of like a magnetic attraction and actually will pull toxins out of the blood. And there's lots of different chelating agents that you could use as nutritional supplements. You can also go to a chiropractor, naturopath, or even an MD and they can inject EDTA into your blood. And that like acts like a chelating agent. But if you want to use supplements to chelate N acetylcysteine, which not only is possibly the most important and powerful liver detoxifying substance anybody could ever use, it's also a chelating agent. And by the way, NAC is used in emergency rooms for people who have liver toxicity from Tylenol or aspirin poisoning. Super powerful detox. In fact, I recommend people take use NAC daily whether they have toxicity issues or not, just as a preventative for toxicity. Bentonite clay, charcoal. These are used for. Charcoal is used for poisoning. But it wouldn't hurt you to use charcoal every day. Just don't take it with your supplements or if you're taking medicine, don't take it with your medicine. Cause it'll, it'll purify that. Bentonite clay is a great chelating agent. Have you ever used bentonite clay? Bentonite clay is really interesting. It's. It's clay. You put it in water and you stir it and you look at the water and it looks like a mud puddle and almost looks disgusting, but you drink it, it tastes awesome. It tastes really, really good. And it's a great detoxifier, Great chelating agent. Plant derived minerals. I love, and you probably know this, I love ionic plant derived minerals. I use them in all a lot of my skincare formulations, including my peels, because they're incredible detoxifiers. And these plant derived minerals should be in veggies and we should be eating our veggies. But because we don't eat our veggies, we don't get the advantage of them. So supplementing with plant derived minerals either if you're using my products, use our biomimetic mineral mist to spray with or our full cellular repair complex. Any plant derived ionic and colloidal minerals will have detox properties much like, much like bentonite, clay and then of course, all the vitamins, vitamin E, the antioxidant vitamins. Vitamin E is detoxifying vitamin C, as I mentioned earlier. Selenium, wonderful detoxifier, particularly for, for estrogen detoxification. You know, sugar, it needs to be regarded as the toxin that it is. After we need a little bit because everybody needs a little bit of glucose in their blood. After that, it can be very toxic and it needs to be regarded as a toxin. So going low sugar, and that includes, you know, foods that break down into sugar like breads and cereals and grains. That's another great detoxifying strategy. And then using nutrients to help your body process sugar is another way that you can go.
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That concludes our show for today and we thank you for listening. But if you just can't get enough of Ben Fuchs and the ASCP's rogue pharmacist, you can find him@truthtreatments.com for more information on this episode or for ways to connect with Ben Fuchs or to learn more about ascp, check out the show notes.