Detoxing is a very powerful and beneficial process to go through, but with some many different detox diets, you may be wondering how to detox your body for best effect.

Your body’s own detoxifiers

Your body has it’s own natural detoxification system. The liver, kidneys, gut, skin and lungs are the organs most involved in ridding your body of harmful substances and waste products. Here’s a quick guide to how they handle toxins.

This is your body’s main processing plant. Its job is to make safe -detoxify – all potentially harmful substances. Once disarmed, these substances can then be eliminated via the kidneys, lungs or bowel. This work is carried out by thousands of enzymes. These enzymes require certain nutrients to help them to do their job. This is where your diet can really help your liver.

Foods to help your liver detox
Cruciferous vegetables (Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower); suphur containing foods (onions, garlic); brightly colored fruit and vegetables (tomatoes, apricots, peppers, blueberries, carrots); lemons.

Supplements to help your liver
Milk thistle, artichoke extract, garlic, dandelion, fennel.

Kidneys

Their job is to filter out waste products such as urea (which is produced when the body breaks down proteins) from your blood into your urine. It’s amazing to think that 7 liters (12 pints) of fluid pass through your kidneys every hour, so it’s important to drink plenty of water to dilute the toxins and to help the kidneys carry out their job efficiently.

Foods to help your kidneys
Water; all fruit and vegetables; parsley leaf; herbal teas.

Supplements to help your kidneys
Dandelion; horsetail; goldenrod; cranberry; celery seed.

Gut

Your intestines not only process nutrients and toxins, but also propel indigestible material such as fiber, and potential toxins (from the bile) to the bowel. Fiber helps to mop up some of the toxins, stopping them getting absorbed into your body and carrying them to the bowel. Here they are disarmed by friendly bacteria and eliminated in the faeces.

Foods to help your gut
Fiber-rich foods: fruit (especially apples, prunes, berries, dried fruit): vegetables (especially carrots, broccoli, cabbage}; flaxseeds (linseeds); beans; lentils; oats (unless you are gluten intolerant); barley.

Supplements to help your gut
Fiber supplements (psylliirm); probiotic supplements; fructo-oligosaccbarides; aloe vera; chlorella.

Skin

Your skin plays a big role in detoxing your body and getting rid of toxins. Some toxins are eliminated in your sweat, others in your skin oils (sebum) and others via the shedding of dead skin cells.

Foods to help your skin
Water; fruit and vegetables; flaxseeds; essential oils flax oil, walnut oil, pumpkinseed oil or blended essential oils); Pumpkin seeds,

Supplements to help your skin
Ginkgo biloba; essential fatty acid supplements (flaxseed oil, evening primrose oil); antioxidant supplements; golden seal root.

Lymphatic circulation

Your lymphatic system is like a drainage system. It carries waste products and potential toxins that are too large to enter your bloodstream from your cells to the lymph nodes for processing. They are then returned to the bloodstream and are finally delivered to the liver for detoxification.

Foods and herbs to help your lymphatic circulation
Water: echinacea; sarsaparilla root.

Other ways to help your lymphatic circulation
Manual lymphatic drainage massage; dry skin brushing; Epsom bath salts.

Lungs

They filter out waste gases that you produce in your body, such as carbon dioxide, as well as toxic gases that you breathe in.

Foods to help your lungs
Fruit and vegetables (especially apples, onions, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries).

Supplements to help your lungs
Antioxidant supplements