How might we help flush the pollutants stored in our fat that come spilling out into our bloodstream during weight loss?
“Fasting to Detox”
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Most persistent industrial pollutants,
like organochlorine pesticides
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such as DDT and PCBs,
were banned several decades ago,
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and dioxin emission
is strictly regulated.
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However, we’re still exposed to these
chemicals through several routes,
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the major source of which
is contaminated food,
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especially fatty animal products
such as fish, meat, and milk.
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When we eat these chemicals,
they get primarily stored
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in our own fatty tissue
where they slowly leach out
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into our bloodstream,
but better in our fat
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than in our brain
or other vital organs.
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Having more body fat may
actually play a protective role
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by sequestering
the toxins away,
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but they can come spilling
out when we lose weight.
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Body weight loss increases
the concentrations
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of potentially toxic pollutants
in obese individuals.
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Of the 19 pollutants studied,
they all went up,
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15 significantly so.
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Every study that has looked at it
found increased blood levels
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of toxic pollutants
accompanying weight loss
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whether induced by diet
or bariatric surgery:
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increases between 14 and 388
percent with a large enough loss.
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The more weight that’s lost,
the higher the pollutant levels
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climb because all those
chemicals stored in your fat
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over all those years
come spilling out.
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The theoretical concern is that
if released into the blood
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at a faster rate
than they are cleared,
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the levels of these compounds
could become toxic,
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causing side effects, such
as sweating, headache, and nausea,
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but the opposite happened when
PCB-poisoned patients were fasted.
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In 1979, about 2000 people
in Taiwan were exposed
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via an industrial accident
that contaminated rice oil,
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leading them to have a
higher body toxicity burden
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than even long-time
consumers of seafood.
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But after a modified
fasting regimen,
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all 16 patients they tried
it on showed improvements,
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with some enjoying dramatic
relief of their sufferings,
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but this was after just
a few days of fasting;
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so, they couldn’t have really
lost that much body fat.
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And, they didn’t measure
PCBs before and after;
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so, it’s not clear they were
experiencing some sort of detox,
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nor what relevance
this has for people
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who haven’t been
acutely poisoned.
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The initial rise in pollutant
levels in the first year
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of weight loss may
eventually stabilize or fall.
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Check out what
happened in Biosphere 2,
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a remarkable experiment designed
to be a completely closed ecosystem,
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the longest sustained
period of humans isolated
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in a confined environment
on record.
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But due to crop failures,
it turned
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into a 2-year experiment
of calorie restriction.
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They all lost about 25 pounds
in the first 6 months
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and stabilized there,
and while the levels of PCBs
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and a DDT metabolite
known as DDE initially went up,
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they appeared to start
coming back down,
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but that initial spike
is quite a jump.
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That’s one of the reasons
health authorities recommend women
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don’t try to slim down
during breast-feeding.
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For example, here’s a woman
whose breast milk levels
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jumped up after she had fasted
and lost about 20 pounds.
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Because fat is mobilized
into breast milk,
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the secretion of human
milk is a major way
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these pollutants are eliminated
from the mother’s body.
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Breast is still best regardless,
but you can keep your levels lower
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by not going out of
your way to lose weight
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until after breastfeeding
is finished.
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What can one do to help flush
the contaminants during weight loss?
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One of the reasons the pollutant
levels in the biosphere subjects
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eventually dropped is because
they were eating a high fiber diet
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centered around fruits, whole grains,
beans, nuts, and vegetables,
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and we know that fiber can
bind to these pollutants
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and potentially flush
them out of the body.
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So, when losing weight,
eating lots of whole grains
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may be important to increase
the elimination of pollutants
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while, of course, cutting down
on animal fat, including fish,
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so you don’t pile on
extra at the same time.
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What about just
eating some Pringles?
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What was the dietary intervention
in this randomized trial
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to decrease the body
burden of pollutants?
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Subjects were randomized
to 24 fat-free Pringles
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a day or regular Pringles.
What?! Why?
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It all started with this
crazy case report of a guy
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heavily contaminated by PCBs
who managed to rid himself
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of 90 percent by losing
weight eating potato chips
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made out of the fake fat olestra,
which doesn’t get absorbed,
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and so appears to pull
pollutants out of the bloodstream
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into the stool for elimination.
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It works in mice, increasing the
excretion of hexachlorobenzene
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30-fold and cutting the levels
in their brains in half,
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but in people, the drop in PCB blood
levels with the olestra Pringles
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was not statistically significantly
greater, and for some reason,
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LDL bad cholesterol levels shot
up 28 points in the olestra group.
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And, while olestra and drugs
like cholestyramine may absorb
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pollutants and remove
them from your system,
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they also may cause you
to dump fat-soluble vitamins.
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So, to get the best
of both worlds,
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losing pollution
without losing vitamins,
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fiber-rich foods
maybe our best choice.
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Instead of olestra
supplementation to detox,
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why not try to not tox
so much in the first place.
