Comprehensive Cleansing

© Copyright 2003 by Victoria Bowmann, Ph.D., USA
(Explore Issue: Volume 13, Number 1)

In the more than 25 years that I have been in private practice in cleansing and detoxification, I have seen, experienced, and guided others in many different types of cleansing. In previous issues of Explore ! for the Professional, I have focused on colon health and its concerns with Chronic Constipation (Vol. 7, #3), Inflammatory Bowel Disorder (Vol. 7, #4), Colon Detoxification and Cleansing (Vol. 7, #5) and Juicing for Detoxification and Cleansing (Vol. 8, #2). The focus of this article is to look at cleansing the body: to include blood, lymph, GI tract, liver, and colon.

There is a difference between cleansing and fasting. Cleansing is a means to address systems of the body while focusing on the reduction of the toxic loads which are contributing to the sluggishness of that organ, gland, or system. Many individuals wish to target the detoxification organs (colon and kidney) as well as the liver and gall bladder. I certainly think these need to be addressed, and perhaps best to address first. However, my question for this article is this: Don’t we want a clean body, not just clean elimination organs? One would hope that having efficient detoxification organs would obviously facilitate a clean body. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity is steadily increasing. In order to remain healthy, we need to also cleanse our bodies.

A cleanse does not treat any medical condition; however a cleaner body may experience a change to, alleviation of, or improvement in symptoms to a disease. If we compared our bodies to our cars, how well would our car run if we hadn’t changed the oil or flushed out the radiator or had the transmission serviced in our lifetime. A well maintained car runs better than one that is “run into the ground”. Even though there is a difference between an inanimate object and our bodies, the analogy is still of some value. Since our bodies have a healing capability (which are cars do not), when the body is clean and nourished properly, isn’t it possible the healing mechanism is more responsive. So cleansing heals nothing, however it often sets up the body to be able to do its own healing.To differentiate from a fast, let’s look at the differences. Fasting is the elimination of food from the diet for a period of time, sometimes only one day, and other times extended to 40 or more days. It is important to remember that the body has nutritional needs even when it is fasting, therefore, I do not recommend a “water only” fast for more than one day. Certainly, a fast will reduce the demands on the gastrointestinal tract, however, it is depriving the body of its needs unless these are provided in some manner, perhaps with diluted vegetable juices or vegetable broths.