Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam here with another classic episode
Speaker 1: from former host Christian Sagar, and this one we tackle
Speaker 1: the phenomenon that is juice cleanses. What do they actually
Speaker 1: do to our bodies? And what about us needs cleansing
Speaker 1: in the first place? Hey brain Stuff, Christian Sager. Here,
Speaker 1: let's talk about purity because we are surrounded by toxic
Speaker 1: stuff in this modern world. Car emissions in our air,
Speaker 1: factory runoff in our water, herbicides and pesticides, and our
Speaker 1: food trolls and our comments sections. If our bodies are temples,
Speaker 1: every pizza role is a desecration. How can we become
Speaker 1: pure again? Well, juice cleanses supposedly rid our bodies of
Speaker 1: toxins and restore our digestive systems. Depending on the specific
Speaker 1: and sometimes copyrighted cleans you spend a couple of days
Speaker 1: to a couple weeks consuming nothing but liquefied fruits, vegetables,
Speaker 1: and maybe some nut milk. Since lots of people are
Speaker 1: pretty bad about eating enough fruits and vegetables to begin with,
Speaker 1: this may mean that during a juice cleanse, you'd be
Speaker 1: getting more vitamins and minerals than usual. These are substances
Speaker 1: that your body needs to turn food into energy and
Speaker 1: to grow and maintain cells. Some even have antioxidant properties,
Speaker 1: which means that they can help prevent cellular damage under
Speaker 1: particular circumstances. The benefits of these vitamins and minerals are real,
Speaker 1: but keep in mind that your body can only process
Speaker 1: a certain amount of them at once. After that, you're
Speaker 1: just going to excrete the rest. Research does show that
Speaker 1: eating fruits and vegetables rich in these substances can decrease
Speaker 1: some risk of some diseases in the long run. The
Speaker 1: key phrase here is in the long run. The best
Speaker 1: way to reap these benefits is to consistently eat five
Speaker 1: or more servings every day. One juice bin isn't gonna
Speaker 1: do much. Consuming nothing but juice for a few days
Speaker 1: also means that you'd get a lot less fiber, fat,
Speaker 1: and protein, and way fewer calories than normal. Fats and
Speaker 1: proteins are just as essential for healthy cellular function as
Speaker 1: vitamins and minerals, and fiber in the diet is actually
Speaker 1: part of your colon's normal cleansing system. It absorbs water
Speaker 1: and water soluble waste in your intestines and moves everything
Speaker 1: on out. Plus fiber can slow down your body's uptake
Speaker 1: of sugar, keeping your blood sugar levels more stable. Without it,
Speaker 1: and considering the high levels of fruit sugars and the
Speaker 1: limited calories involved in a juice diet, you will feel
Speaker 1: extra hungry and may experience dizzy and blood sugar spikes
Speaker 1: and crashes. A day or two of this shouldn't do
Speaker 1: any harm to the average person, but restricting calories and
Speaker 1: nutrients for much longer than that can trigger starvation mode.
Speaker 1: Your body doesn't know when it's going to get more food,
Speaker 1: so it slows your tabolism down. When this happens too often,
Speaker 1: the change can be permanent, so is it worth it? Psychologically,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll probably lose a little weight to the decrease
Speaker 1: in calories, which might be what you're looking for, and
Speaker 1: people around the world have been using short fasts to
Speaker 1: practice mindfulness for hundreds, if not thousands of years. But physiologically,
Speaker 1: juice cleanses don't help clear toxins out of your body.
Speaker 1: The thing is that your liver and your kidneys are
Speaker 1: natural detoxifiers. They filter bad stuff out of your body
Speaker 1: all the time, but they need the full complement of
Speaker 1: nutrients provided by a healthy diet in order to do so.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by me and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other topics, is
Speaker 1: it has stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production
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