Did you know, if you turn up in hospital after swallowing something poisonous, one option is big glass of activated charcoal, 50 grams to be precise.
It is in the BNF and everything.
Check it out.
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/charcoal-activated.html
So why charcoal and what does activated mean?
You take charcoal made from things like wood or coconuts, then you process it at very high temperatures which changes its internal structure, reducing the size of its pores and increasing its surface area.
This results in a charcoal that is more porous than regular charcoal.
The charcoal’s porous texture also has a negative electrical charge, which causes it to attract positively charged molecules, such as toxins and gases.
It is this porous nature plus negative charge that helps to trap toxins and chemicals in the gut, thus preventing their absorption into the blood stream.
Because activated charcoal is not absorbed by your body, it can carry the toxins bound to its surface out of your body in faeces.
This is really important for toxins ingested coming down into the gut but also toxins already in the cells (brain, muscle, organs etc) which the body is trying to remove.
They are taken from the cells into circulation, then processed in the liver.
Then, when the body pushes out bile for fat absorption, the toxins get pushed out with them into the small intestines.
Ideally, these get removed via the faeces and are gone forever.
But the body needs to recycle bile, so in the lower small intestines and colon 95% of bile salts are reabsorbed back into circulation…..and so are the toxins – You RE-TOX
This is well established in pharmacology with drugs like diazepam, aspirin and morphine.
Drugs are conjugated (joined to) glucuronic acid, glutathione, sulphate, glycine and others in the liver then pushed out when bile is excreted.
So we want to bind up any toxins in the gut, exogenous or endogenous, to stop them getting back into the blood and us building up high levels of toxins as we age.
Hence, we can use charcoal.
Remember we live in a world toxic beyond anything our evolutionary detox machinery can cope with.
From mercury in fish and amalgam fillings, to arsenic in your rice, to PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) in your non-stick pan, to microplastics in your testicles and arterial plaques.
The idea of a detox may send the so-called “skeptics” into a rage, see this from the Guardian.
They even quote our old friend Ernst:
His arrogance and ignorance is astonishing, he’ll say anything to get published.
He might like to explain how this patient of mine accumulated such high levels of NAE as found in the cosmetics and dye she was exposed to from the age of 15 as a hair and nail technician, when she developed chronic fatigue syndrome and later ulcerative colitis?
Or why she just can’t seem to remove all the petrol derivatives? (she travels long haul every 6 weeks).
Or styrene? (her husband likes to microwave in plastic)
The reality is we should be helping our detoxification system daily.
This is nothing fluffy and alternative.
Air pollution is believed to kill 8.79 million people a year.
Check out the study:
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/40/20/1590/5372326
It does not get any more mainstream or deadly than that, it makes COVID-19 look pretty meek.
So we can use simple, cheap and effective activated charcoal to help our body remove unwanted toxins of all sorts.
From daily toxins to nasty food poisoning, to your windy pops, you can bind it all with charcoal.
Remember we need bile to flow for the toxins to be pushed out, so a good digestive bitter helps too – try something nice and tart like apple cider vinegar or herbs like globe artichoke.