By Donnie Yance
“It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.”– Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
I am excited to share this new series on detoxification. It will be the perfect opportunity to do some ‘Spring cleaning’ and will come in 5 parts.
Introduction To Detoxification
Natural detoxification is an orchestra of daily activities that our bodies use to process and eliminate toxins, pollutants, and metabolic byproducts. Some of these byproducts include hormone metabolites and waste molecules related to energy utilization from eating and breathing. The body, or as I like to say, the Life Force (The Governing Intelligence) of the body, is constantly repairing, maintaining, eliminating, and recycling. Everything at some point becomes old or damaged, and needs to be broken down, detoxified, and then eliminated. Detoxification is closely tied to protection, adaptation, energy management, and broadly speaking, nourishment.
We can expand the concept of nourishment to include anything that is good for us including: sleep, oxygen, water, sunlight, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, service, friendship, joy, and love.
When we consume clean nourishing food, water, and air, we simultaneously get all the nutrition we need for a healthy system, and take in fewer toxic molecules. Rather than burdening our detox systems with even more pollutants, healing foods can actually aid in detoxification. Every aspect of our daily lives impacts our system’s ability to operate at an elite level.
Through the food we eat, the water we drink, shower, or bathe in, the herbs and nutrients we take in, the air we breathe, how we breathe, and most of all, the balance of our inward and outward selves, we determine our state of health. The holistic system’s networks: physical, mental, and spiritual, can all harmonize to nourish and detoxify on a daily basis.
Herbal medicine can be a powerful ally in supporting the body’s natural detoxification systems. Many herbs work by enhancing the function of organs responsible for filtering and eliminating toxins, such as the liver, kidneys, and digestive tract. They contain compounds that help neutralize harmful substances and encourage the body to eliminate waste efficiently.
Some examples of food-like herbs that are nourishing plants and are amazing at detoxification include: nettles (Urtica spp.) and dandelion (Taraxacum spp.), both of which I have written previous blogs about.
Nettles: A Nutritious Spring Treat
https://www.donnieyance.com/nettles-a-nutritious-spring-treat/
Dandelion: Much More Than A Weed
https://www.donnieyance.com/dandelion-much-more-than-a-weed/
Also read, Organic Herbs or Wild Herbs – What You Should Know
https://www.donnieyance.com/organic-herbs-or-wild-herbs-what-you-should-know/
Detoxification Occurs Within 3 Levels of Biological Networks
1) Molecular – This occurs within the cell and includes such things as genotoxins which are molecules that damage the genetic information within a cell, causing mutations which can lead to cancer and other diseases. This is closely tied to epigenetics as well, which is everything that affects the way your genes are expressed, other than the DNA sequence itself.
Another important component is called mitophagy, which is the cleanup process for eliminating damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria. The mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell that turn fuel into energy. When they are young, healthy, and cared for, they are efficient at providing energy with few waste products (free radicals). But then, stuff happens, we get older, poor eating and life-style habits build up, and our mitochondria become less efficient (poor energy) and create more toxins.
That’s why I always say the first order of business is to tune the engine before you replace the muffler. When our body’s mitochondria (the engine) are working efficiently we make less pollution, therefore the burden of detoxification is reduced.
The body is a complex organism, and as such, it takes energy to maintain proper functioning. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the source of energy for use and storage at the cellular level. The hydrolysis of ATP drives all energy pathways of the body including detoxification.1
The orchestration of molecular transformations that occur within cells require multiple steps (catabolic and anabolic) for creating energy. When any parts of this process are compromised our energy efficiency diminishes and the burden of toxic byproducts increases.
© 2010 Nature Education All rights reserved.
Catabolic pathways involve the breakdown of nutrient molecules (Food) into usable forms (building blocks). In this process, energy is either stored as ATP for later use, or released as heat.
Anabolic pathways then build new molecules out of the products of catabolism, and these pathways typically use energy. The new molecules built via anabolic pathways (macromolecules) are useful for building cell structures and maintaining the cell.2
When your body is under stress, natural detoxification takes a back seat. Your system’s primary focus shifts to survival mode, directing energy and resources toward managing immediate stressors rather than conducting routine maintenance and cleansing. This is where the adaptogenic herbs become particularly valuable; by helping to regulate your stress response, they create an internal environment where your body can safely return to its natural detoxification processes. By supporting stress resilience first, adaptogens help establish the foundation needed for effective detoxification to take place. They work with your body’s natural mechanisms to restore balance and “tune the engine” to burn fuel more efficiently, and free up more energy for your sports-car-body to perform with precision and power.
Our mitochondria make physical contact with almost every other membrane inside the cell, thus impacting all cellular functions.3 The flow of the Life Force, or Qi, can be broadly correlated with the flow of mitochondrial energy inside our cells.
2) Cellular – This involves removing toxins at the cellular level, as well as supporting the cellular redox/antioxidant pathways, and aiding in the yin/yang balance of cellular birth and death. This includes apoptosis (cell death from within) of old or damaged cells, as well as autophagy, and mitophagy. Autophagy literally means ‘self-eating’, and is an outward-to-inward process of the breakdown and recycling of damaged cellular components.
Before a substance can be excreted by an organ system, it has to undergo a transformation. Our body has an advanced system of metabolic pathways designed to detoxify foreign substances, toxins, and internal byproducts. Biotransformation changes the chemical nature of a toxin, reducing its activity, and making it easier to excrete. Electrolyte and chemical diffusion across cell membranes help remove metabolic waste, maintaining a healthy cellular environment.
3) Organ Systems – can be divided into two network systems:
- Organismic – The liver, spleen, and lymph system filter and detoxify waste products from the bloodstream, preventing harm to the body.
- Organs of excretion – Lungs expel carbon dioxide and water vapor; sinuses filter debris from the air; bowels eliminate solid waste; kidneys filter blood and produce urine; and the skin excretes sweat to regulate temperature and remove waste.
Multi-Scale Autoregulatory Networks
“The objective of Bioregulatory-Network-Systems Medicine is to improve patient outcomes by supporting a patient’s autoregulatory capacity.”
Enhancing Autoregulation
A healthy system is one that self-regulates in the face of disruptions. Autoregulation is a fundamental mechanism of all biological networks and is highly context-dependent.4 A common example is when you cut your finger. Without any thought on your part, autoregulation triggers a complex cascade of clotting and healing factors to repair the wound. You can watch this self-healing system in action over a period of a few days. Healthy lifestyle factors, foods, and herbs, such as those we will discuss in this series, can all contribute to enhancing this inner-healing system of autoregulation.
Signaling pathways underlying the beneficial effects of representative Qi-invigorating herbs and their active ingredients on ameliorating Chronic organ (Kidney) disease and its complications.5
“In every living being, there exists a certain force that opposes disease.” – F. Ellingwood
Slow and Gentle Is Always Best
Every day should include some activities that support detoxification rather than waiting for things to build up, and then attempting a heroic cleanse every once in a while. Most of the time, these cleanses are surface-level purging, and only really help the elimination processes of the body, but may not impact all of the needed elements of detoxification.
Also, many toxins get stored in the adipose (fat) tissue, and if you go too quickly or fast too aggressively, you can overwhelm the body’s detox capabilities because so many toxins get released all at once. I believe that slow, gentle, and comprehensive is the best way to detoxify. Occasionally, there may also be a place for specific detox programs such as the elimination of uric acid in gout, or supporting the gallbladder to reduce sludge or stones as the need arises.
The Importance of Adaptogens for Detox Optimization
Adaptogenic herbs help the body respond more efficiently to stress and free up more energy for detox. Some herbs can also stimulate circulation and support lymphatic flow, which further aids in flushing out unwanted substances. Including these detox herbs with a balanced lifestyle can be a gentle, natural way to promote the body’s ability to cleanse and restore itself.
According to Alexander Panossian, “adaptogens initiate the adaptive stress response by stimulating cellular and organismal defense systems, activating intracellular and extracellular adaptive signaling pathways and expression of stress-activated proteins, resulting in transient changes in protection or repair capacity and increased non-specific resistance and adaptation to stress.”6
The normal paradigm of one drug for one disease is not appropriate for adaptogens as they can have numerous pharmacological effects and indications.
The age-related decline of Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs) in the liver contributes to reduced liver detoxification and protection from toxic substances.7 In most people, a decline in activation of HSPs by stress is associated with aging and age-related disease.8 Remarkably, HSP does not decrease with age in some individuals who live more than 100 years.9
Adaptogens enhance HSPs as cellular stress protectors.10
Adaptogens like Eleutherococcus senticosus, Rhodiola rosea, and Schisandra sinensis have demonstrated remarkable safety profiles through acute and subacute toxicity studies. What’s particularly noteworthy is these adaptogens’ ability to create a state of non-specific resistance against a wide range of toxic substances.
This protective effect has been observed against highly toxic chemicals including:
- Industrial chemicals (Chlorpyrifos, phosphorus, aniline)
- Pharmaceutical compounds (Cyclophosphamide)
- Poisons (strychnine)
- Chemical compounds (sodium nitrite)
- Various narcotics (sodium barbital, hexenal, chloral hydrate)
- Common solvents (benzene, acetone, ether)
The demonstrated resistance to such a broad spectrum of toxic substances, along with protection against harmful microbes, strongly suggests these adaptogens possess inherent anti-toxic properties. This protective capacity, combined with their established safety profile, makes these adaptogens particularly promising for further research and therapeutic applications.11
Deep Detoxification, Especially in Your Brain, Takes Place During Sleep
The fluid in your brain actually washes in-and-out in waves during sleep, helping clear out waste. Researchers at Boston University have found that, “during sleep, the fluid present in the brain and spinal cord — called the cerebrospinal fluid — washes in and out like waves, helping the brain get rid of accumulated metabolic ‘trash’.”12
An early study from 2013 found that beta-amyloid (the protein that is correlated with Alzheimer’s disease) disappeared faster from the brains of mice when they were asleep, suggesting that sleep helps clear toxic molecules from the brain.13
In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), your liver is important for Life Force or Qi restoration, and it’s most active in the earliest hours of the morning. During sleep, Qi draws inward to restore the body. This phase is completed between 1-3 a.m., when the liver cleanses the blood and performs a myriad of functions that set the stage for Qi moving outward again.14
Liver detoxification is a key physiological process responsible for the clearance of toxic substances from the body. A healthy diet, a good night’s sleep, and nutritional supplementation can support liver detoxification and help mitigate the negative effects of toxin burden.15
Hormesis and Detoxification
Hormesis is a biological phenomenon where a low dose of a substance or stressor can have a beneficial effect on an organism, while a higher dose can be harmful. This concept is often used in toxicology and health sciences to describe the dose-response relationship between a substance and its effects on living organisms.
Hormesis governs a multi-faceted pro-survival program.
When exposed to mild stress, cells and organisms respond with a variety of adaptive cellular programs that lead to a preconditioned state. When an intense stress is subsequently applied, the preconditioned organisms exhibit increased stress resistance and eventually improved survival. mtROS= mitochondrial reactive oxygen species.17
Hormesis is a Crucial Concept in Detoxification:
- Detoxification through exposure: Your body exercises detoxification when exposed to low levels of toxins including: radiation, pesticides, and heavy metals. If your body isn’t exposed to any toxins, then it doesn’t need to prepare its defenses. This low-level exposure prevents laziness in our systems, acting as a sort of ‘training’ for our body’s natural defense mechanisms. By regularly encountering small amounts of these toxins, our bodies become more adept at processing and eliminating them efficiently. It’s important, however, to understand the difference between safe, low-level exposure, and harmful, dangerous levels of toxic substances. Always consult with a healthcare professional before attempting any form of detoxification.
- Building adaptation: Through hormesis, we build both protection and adaptation, which is perhaps the single most important aspect of health. It is through adaptation that we build resilience. However, in an unhealthy system, we don’t adapt, but instead get sick and develop many of the diseases prevalent in our society today.
Through hormesis, cells respond to stress by activating several protective processes, like repairing DNA, boosting antioxidant defenses, and cleaning out damaged cellular components. Each of these actions has its own unique effects and is controlled by a network of signals that work together. In short, hormesis is a way for cells and organisms to respond to a challenge by becoming stronger and more ready for future challenges.18
On the left side of the diagram, a small dose of the agent induces minor stress and damage which leads to healthy adaptation, protection, and homeostasis.
The right side, on the other hand, demonstrates a lack of hormesis through a greater exposure to the agent, which creates high levels of stress and damage and insufficient adaptation, which results in increased cytotoxicity and disease.19
“Hormetic strengthening is a key and under-recognized aspect of a healthy system and specifically detoxification.” If you have no toxic exposure, your body doesn’t get trained to detoxify. It becomes weaker. By training the system, we create a reserve of strength, with increased stress tolerance, adaptation, and survival.20
Concepts Inspired by Eclectic & Physiomedical Herbalism
- Enhance Vitality– by strengthening the individual in a rational and non-toxic manner. It is essential to focus on promoting the overall well-being of a person by balancing the endocrine and nervous systems, as well as improving metabolism, digestion, and assimilation. This approach ensures that the body is functioning optimally, and has the necessary energy to maintain health and vitality.
- Detoxify– It is crucial to pay attention to the various systems that work together to remove toxins and waste. These systems include: the blood, lymph, liver, kidneys, bowels, lungs, and skin. By carefully assessing each of these areas, it becomes possible to determine where detoxification is needed and then address the specific requirements with the appropriate remedies. This process helps to cleanse the body, allowing it to function more efficiently and support overall health and well-being.
Each phase of detoxification plays a vital role in maintaining the body’s overall health by efficiently removing and disposing of waste materials.
Phase I: Modification
In phase I, the toxin is modified by adding a chemically active functional group through reactions such as oxidation, reduction, hydroxylation, and demethylation. Interestingly, the goal of this phase isn’t to detoxify the compound, but rather to prepare it for phase II. In fact, modification can often result in a metabolite with increased toxicological activity compared to the original compound. The most common phase I reaction, oxidation by the cytochrome P450 enzyme system, transforms relatively harmless compounds like polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and paracetamol (Acetaminophen) into more toxic and reactive electrophilic metabolites. The liver is the most common location for p450 activity, but the p450 enzymes are also found in many other tissues throughout the body including: the intestines, lungs, kidneys, and brain
Phase II: True Detoxification
Phase II is considered the “true detoxification” step. In this phase, the metabolite is combined or conjugated when the liver adds a substance such as: glutathione, cysteine, glucuronic acid, glycine, or sulfur. This conjugation significantly alters the chemical structure, inactivating the compound and making it easier for the body to excrete.
Interrelationship between Phase I and II Pathways
It’s important to note the interrelationship between phase I and II pathways. They are interconnected through overlapping substrate specificity, allowing various drugs to be metabolized through multiple pathways. The balance between these pathways plays a critical role in regulating toxicity.
The overlapping specificity creates competition between substrates for enzymes and between enzymes for substrates. Toxin concentration, endogenous compound concentration, and enzyme activity are the main factors determining the primary detoxification pathway.
Under normal conditions, an activated phase I metabolite can be immediately conjugated. In cases of overdose, however, phase II pathways are challenged by excessive toxin concentration. Conjugative enzyme activity increases to handle the influx of toxic compounds, but the rate is limited by the availability of the endogenous compound being attached. When the toxin concentration exceeds the capacity of the conjugation pathway, alternative phase I pathways become more active, leading to systemic toxicity. To completely eliminate toxins, the balance between activating (phase I) and deactivating (Phase II) reactions must be restored. This process will continue to be covered in future articles in this series.
Conclusion
To sum up, detoxification is a continuous and essential process that supports the body’s ability to repair, adapt, and maintain optimal health. Nourishing foods, herbs, lifestyle choices, and proper sleep play pivotal roles in aiding the body’s natural detox pathways, ensuring that toxins are efficiently processed and eliminated. It’s important to take a slow and gentle approach to detoxification, allowing the body to manage toxins without being overwhelmed. The concept of hormesis highlights how low-level exposure to toxins can actually strengthen our system’s resilience. By supporting detoxification across molecular, cellular, and organ levels, we promote vitality and longevity, ensuring the body remains adaptable and healthy in the face of environmental and metabolic challenges.
In part 2 of this series, we will delve into environmental toxins, endocrine disruptors, and other pitfalls of modern life that need to be avoided and eliminated from our bodies, homes, and lives.
About the Author:
Donald R. Yance is the founder of the Mederi Center. A Clinical Master Herbalist and Certified Nutritionist, Donnie is renowned for his extraordinary knowledge and deep understanding of the healing properties of plants and nutrition, as well as of epigenetics, laboratory medicine, oncologic pathology, and molecular oncology. He is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild, National Association of Nutrition Professionals, Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, and the Society for Integrative Oncology.
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