Toxic waste

If there's one word related to health issues that makes me cringe, it's the word "toxin."

This term gets thrown around all the time.  I was given a gift card for a massage for my last birthday (which was wonderful, by the way), and afterwards, the masseuse told me that I needed to drink lots of water that day because the massage had "loosened up toxins" and I needed to drink a lot to "flush them from my system."  A while back, I was buying some fresh turmeric root at a local organic grocery, and a lady smiled at me in a friendly sort of way, and said, "Oooh, turmeric!  It's wonderful at detoxifying the body!"

What gets me about the use of "toxin" and "detoxify" is that the people who use those terms so seldom have any idea about what particular toxins they're talking about.  If I was just a wee bit more obnoxious than I am -- an eventuality no one should wish for -- I would have said to the masseuse and the lady in the grocery, "Can you name one specific chemical that massage and/or turmeric releases in my body that I need to be concerned about?"

Chances are, of course, they would not have been able to; even in supposedly informative articles in health magazines, they're just lumped together as "toxins."  The word has become a stand-in for unspecified "really bad stuff" that we need to fret about even though no one seems all that sure what it is.

And then buy whatever silly detox remedy the writer of the article suggests.

This all comes up because of an article I read in Science-Based Medicine called "Activated Charcoal: The Latest Detox Fad in an Obsessive Food Culture," by Scott Gavura.  In it, we hear about people dosing themselves with activated charcoal as a "detox" or "cleanse," because evidently our liver and kidneys -- evolved over millions of years to deal with all sorts of unpleasant metabolic wastes -- are insufficient to protect us.

No, you need "activated charcoal lemonade."

I wish I was making this up, but no.  People actually are adding gritty, pitch-black charcoal to their lemonade, in order to make it "soak up toxins."

The problem here, as Gavura points out, is that activated charcoal is used in detoxification, so there's that kernel of truth in all of the nonsense.  Actual detoxification, I mean, not this pseudoscientific fad-medicine horseshit; detoxification of the sort done in cases of poisoning.  I know this first hand, because of an incident involving a border collie named Doolin that we once had.  My wife and I had visited northern California, and dropped by the wonderful Mendocino Chocolate Company, makers of what are objectively the best chocolate truffles in the entire world.  We bought a dozen truffles of various sorts and brought them home with us, babying them through our travels during high summer.  We got them home successfully, and on the first day back...

... Doolin pulled the box off the counter and ate all twelve chocolate truffles.

As you undoubtedly know, chocolate is highly poisonous to dogs, so off Doolin went to the vet to get a (real) detoxification.  One of the things they did was feed her activated charcoal.  We found this out because on the way back home from the vet, Doolin puked up charcoal all over the back seat of my wife's brand-new Mini Cooper.

Doolin survived the chocolate incident, although she almost didn't survive our reaction to (1) the thousand-dollar vet bill, (2) black doggie puke all over the new car upholstery, and worst of all, (3) not getting our chocolates.  Despite all that, she went on to live another six healthy years, thanks to modern veterinary science and the fact that she was cute enough that we decided not to strangle her.

But I digress.

So charcoal does have its uses.  But you're not accomplishing anything by adding it to lemonade, except perhaps (as Gavura writes) having the charcoal absorb nutrients from your digestive tract, making whatever food you're eating less nutritious.  Because charcoal, of course, isn't selective about what it absorbs -- it'll absorb damn near anything, including vitamins and other essential nutrients.

Facts don't seem to matter much to the alt-med crowd, however, and now there's charcoal everywhere.  Over at the webzine Into the Gloss, writer Victoria Lewis tells us about taste-testing a bunch of different charcoal drinks, and her analysis includes the following insightful paragraph about "Juice Generation Activated Greens":

I decided to drink this ultra-vegetable-filled (kale, spinach, celery, parsley, romaine, and cucumber) juice for breakfast.  It tasted exactly like a super green juice—a little salty but otherwise, totally normal.  I did end up eating some granola afterwards (juice diets have never been for me), but this one felt good and extremely healthy.

Which, right there, sums up the whole approach.  Screw medical research; if consuming some weird new supplement "feels good and extremely healthy," then it must be getting rid of all those bad old toxins, or something, even if it tastes like vaguely lemon-flavored fireplace scrapings.  It's all about the buzzwords, the hype, and the feelings -- not about anything remotely related to hard evidence.

But of course, since now we have renowned nutritionists like Gwyneth Paltrow getting on board, the whole "charcoal juice cleanse" thing is going to take off amongst people with more money than sense.

Makes me feel like I need to go eat some bacon and eggs, just to restore order to the universe.

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To the layperson, there's something odd about physicists' search for (amongst many other things) a Grand Unified Theory, that unites the four fundamental forces into one elegant model.

Why do they think that there is such a theory?  Strange as it sounds, a lot of them say it's because having one force of the four (gravitation) not accounted for by the model, and requiring its own separate equations to explain, is "messy."  Or "inelegant."  Or -- most tellingly -- "ugly."

So, put simply; why do physicists have the tendency to think that for a theory to be true, it has to be elegant and beautiful?  Couldn't the universe just be chaotic and weird, with different facets of it obeying their own unrelated laws, with no unifying explanation to account for it all?

This is the question that physicist Sabine Hossenfelder addresses in her wonderful book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physicists Astray.  She makes a bold statement; that this search for beauty and elegance in the mathematical models has diverted theoretical physics into untestable, unverifiable cul-de-sacs, blinding researchers to the reality -- the experimental evidence.

Whatever you think about whether the universe should obey aesthetically pleasing rules, or whether you're okay with weirdness and messiness, Hossenfelder's book will challenge your perception of how science is done.  It's a fascinating, fun, and enlightening read for anyone interested in learning about the arcane reaches of physics.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Pearls of wisdom

I swear, sometimes it seems like the universe is listening.  And laughing at me.

You may recall from Saturday's post, about people thinking that drinking distilled water can cure and/or kill you, that a few days previous I'd wondered what happened to all the alt-med woo-woos, that it seemed like we hadn't heard anything from them in a long while.  Then a loyal reader sent me the distilled water link, and I found out I was wrong.

But apparently pointing out that the quacks hadn't quacked in a long time has now opened the floodgates.  Because a different loyal reader sent me another link yesterday, this one worse than the distilled water one.

This site claims that there's a "herbal remedy" that -- and I promise I'm not making this up -- can be stuck into a woman's vagina to "detox the imprints left behind by her ex-boyfriend."

The product, which is called "Goddess Vaginal Detox Pearls," is a little lump of various herbs wrapped in a piece of cloth that supposedly can reduce menstrual cramps, increase libido, kill parasites, and "detox your ex."  The head of the company that sells these things, Vanessa White, explains that every time a woman has sex, the man leaves an imprint on her "yoni, womb, and uterus area."

The "pearls," she says, have a "vibrational energy" that can somehow sync up with the bad vibes left behind by your former lover and pull those out.  "I remove (insert person’s name) from my womb area during this cleanse," is what you're supposed to say, instead of what seems more reasonable to me, which is, "I wish like hell I had a higher IQ."

Oh, and you're supposed to leave the thing up there.  For days.

So, okay.  I have a few reactions to all of this, as follows:

• If having sex leaves a mark on your uterus, you're doing it wrong.
• The only "imprints" I can think of left behind from consensual sex are the possibilities of pregnancy and STDs, and I don't see the "Goddess Pearls" doing anything about those one way or the other.
• Sticking random, non-sterile objects into your various bodily orifices seems like a good way to end up with toxic shock syndrome.  I know I'm male, so my perspective on this might be a little off, but I think I'd prefer still having the vibrational energy frequencies of previous lovers hanging around than I would dying in horrible agony of TSS.
• If you have parasites in your vagina, you may want to see a doctor.
• "Ewwwww."

Worse still, you should read some of the comments left by reviewers.  Wait, cancel that; many of these reviews came with photographs, and despite being a biologist and relatively inured to gross stuff, I think I'm going to need some therapy to get over looking at them.  As I read along, my expression got closer and closer to this:

Women who have used these things have had burning pain, various sorts of discharge that I would prefer not even thinking about, and -- in at least two cases -- have lost pieces of their vaginal lining.

If that doesn't make you stay in a protective crouch for the rest of the day, you're made of sterner stuff than I am.  And that's even considering that, as aforementioned, I'm male.

But of course, there's the usual "this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any medical condition" disclaimer, which apparently is meant to mean, "We can ask you to do any idiotic thing we want in the name of health and still get off scot-free.  We could ask you to stick cow shit up your nose.  We could ask you to stand on your head outside, stark naked, in the middle of January, and sing the National Anthem.  We could ask you to stare straight into the Sun to absorb its healing rays directly into your retinas.  And the reason we can do this is because: many of you would do it without question.  And afterwards, claim that the quantum vibrations of your auras were much improved or some fucking thing.  And then look around for the next 'cure' we're peddling."

So, yeah: if I haven't made the point clearly enough, (1) do not stick random stuff into your orifices unless you're sure they're sterile and won't burn your insides so bad your tissue starts sloughing off.  (2) Having consensual sex does not leave an imprint on your internal body parts.  And for cryin' in the sink, (3) please exercise a little critical thinking before you buy the latest thing from the alt-med gurus.

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In 1983, a horrific pair of murders of fifteen-year-old girls shook the quiet countryside of Leicestershire, England.  Police investigations came up empty-handed, and in the interim, people who lived in the area were in fear that there was a psychopath in their midst.

A young geneticist from the University of Leicestershire, Alec Jeffreys, stepped up with what he said could catch the murderer -- a new (at the time) technique called DNA fingerprinting.  He was able to extract a clear DNA signature from the bodies of the victims, but without a match -- without any one else's DNA to compare it to -- there was no way to use it to catch the criminal.

The way police and geneticists teamed up to catch an insane child killer is the subject of Joseph Wambaugh's book The Blooding.  It is an Edgar Award nominee, and is impossible to put down.  This case led to the now-commonplace use of DNA fingerprinting in forensics labs -- and its first application in a criminal trial makes for fascinating reading.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Foot bath cure

A few months ago, I wrote a post about a guy who claimed that all you need to do to purge your home of "negative energies" (whatever those are) is to place a glass of vinegar and salt on your windowsill.  Vinegar, which clearly has magical properties, will then de-negativize you and your house.

The whole thing made me wonder why you couldn't achieve the same effect with, say, a jar of pickles.

Anyhow, a couple of days ago, a good friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link with the note, "Hey!  Here's something else you can do with vinegar!  I thought you'd want to know."

So I clicked the link, and was brought to the site Delishist, specifically to an article called "Soak Your Feet in Vinegar Once a Week, and You Will See How All of Your Diseases Disappear."

I am not, for the record, making the name of this article up.

My first thought, of course, was, "All your diseases?  Like, if you have a brain tumor and Parkinson's disease and narcolepsy simultaneously, you can get rid of all of them by soaking your feet in vinegar?  That can't possibly be what they mean."

But yes, that is in fact what they mean.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Sander van der Wel from Netherlands, (391-365) Relaxing in bath (6427571119), CC BY-SA 2.0]

It will at this point be unsurprising to any of you that the whole thing revolves around "toxins."  What these specific toxins are, we're never told.  Maybe it's elemental mercury.  Maybe it's DDT.  Maybe it's battery acid.  Maybe it's all three at once.  In any case, we're led to believe that whatever they are, they're bad, and not only can't your body get rid of them by itself, there's no way to take them out except through your feet.

Which seems to me a little odd.  Why the feet?  Could I, if I wanted to, soak my ass in vinegar?  (Let me state for the record that I don't want to.  But my question stands.)  I mean, the human ass is much more directly connected to the process of getting rid of stuff we don't want in our body, although to be fair, the gluteus maximus muscle that makes up most of it has very little to do with it.

So I'm baffled as to why the feet are what we should be soaking.  Maybe it's because the feet are generally below the head, and toxins are heavy, or something.

In any case, here's how the authors explains the process:

You can also use ionic foot bath to detoxify your body from toxins.  This bath is based on electrolysis, which is a method that uses electrical current to make a chemical reaction.  You should use warm water to open your pores and salt is used as an anti-inflammatory astringent. Ions are absorbed through the feet and your body is getting a detox.  If the salt water becomes dark, that means you are eliminating toxins from your body.

Okay, so the basic principle is ions = good, and toxins = bad.  Got it.

But what about ions that are toxic?  Like the cyanide ion, for example?  I don't care what Delishist says, I'm not soaking my feet in cyanide.

And they're right about the definition of electrolysis, but the problem is, combining it with a vinegar foot bath would be a seriously bad idea.  Another thing I'm not going to do is stand in a tub of vinegar and then run an electric current through it and/or me.  Yes, it'd generate some serious ionage.  The downside, however, is called "electrocution."

The website also suggests soaking in a bath to which you've added ginger and hydrogen peroxide.  This is yet another thing I'm not going to do.  First of all, wouldn't that bleach your pubic hair?  I mean, it's fine if that's the look you're after, but I thought I'd mention it.  Another, and more serious, problem is that hydrogen peroxide works as an antiseptic because it kills nearly everything it touches, and given long enough, that would include your skin.  I know a guy who used peroxide on a cut, but it stayed open, and he decided it was infected, so he kept applying more and more peroxide.  Within a week he'd turned a minor cut into a gaping wound -- not from infection, but because he was putting something on it that was killing his own tissue.  So applying peroxide to my entire body, including my sensitive bits, sounds to me like a seriously bad idea.

So thanks anyhow, but I'll pass on soaking my feet in vinegar.  I find that washing them periodically keeps them relatively clean, and as for "getting rid of toxins," my liver and kidneys are perfectly capable of that.  My advice is to go back to using vinegar for making pickles, because a lot of the other stuff it's supposed to be good for is USDA Grade-A horseshit.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is a classic, and especially for you pet owners: Konrad Lorenz's Man Meets Dog.  In this short book, the famous Austrian behavioral scientist looks at how domestic dogs interact, both with each other and with their human owners.  Some of his conjectures about dog ancestry have been superseded by recent DNA studies, but his behavioral analyses are spot-on -- and will leaving you thinking more than once, "Wow.  I've seen Rex do that, and always wondered why."

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Black coffee

Thanks to a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia, I now have an even lower opinion of humanity than I did before.

It's not the first time this has happened, of course, and won't be the last.  It's kind of an occupational hazard when your daily task is to comb the interwebz for crazy woo-woo ideas.  But this one is kind of in a league of its own.

Or maybe I'm just fed up.

The claim I'm referring to is that now we're being told that if you want to be healthy, you need to drink a charcoal latté.

I'm not making this up.  A recipe I saw -- and there are apparently dozens -- includes coffee, cashew milk (can't use dairy products), date syrup (can't use sugar), and powdered activated charcoal, to make "the chicest drink on the market."  Myself, I have a hard time imagining how this wouldn't taste like licking a barbecue grill that had been drizzled with honey, but chacun à son goût.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Thus far, all we have is a weird new food craze, not inherently weirder than Fireball-flavored bagels and ice cream sundaes topped with chili-coated grasshoppers.  What makes the charcoal latté claim stand out is that the people pushing it are not only claiming it tastes good, but that it will "detox" you.

So we're adding a nice dollop of quack alternative medicine to our morning unusually black coffee.  As I've pointed out maybe 397 times before, if you are healthy, there is absolutely no need to "detox" because your kidneys and liver are "detoxing" you just fine as you sit there.  Plus, the whole thing is based on vague and poorly-understood science anyhow; I have never found a single person recommending "detox" who could name a specific toxin that the procedure eliminates, much less one that wasn't being eliminated naturally via your excretory system.

It gets worse, though, because here we're not talking about adding ground-up organic papaya seeds and Mongolian yak milk to your coffee; we're talking about activated charcoal, a substance with a legitimate medical purpose -- it is used in cases of poisoning to absorb toxic substances from a person's digestive tract.  Or an animal's, which I know because of our border collie Doolin, who ate a dozen exquisite and expensive chocolate truffles after swiping them from the kitchen counter, and had to have activated charcoal forced down her throat, following which she puked up charcoal and partially-digested chocolate all over the back seat of my wife's brand-new Mini Cooper.

It's moments like this that I question why anyone in their right mind would own a dog.

But I digress.

The reason the activated charcoal thing is a terrible idea is that it is absorptive -- not only of toxins you may have inadvertently swallowed, but of biologically-active substances of all sorts.  Such as any medications you may take.  So in an ill-advised attempt to flush unspecified and most likely nonexistent toxins from your body, you stand a good chance of binding and inactivating your medicines.

I.e., substances you're taking because they've been prescribed by someone who actually understands organic chemistry and human physiology.

So my recommendation: have at it with the chili-coated grasshoppers, but avoid the charcoal lattés.  I feel ridiculous even having to say this, but apparently it's become a "thing," and once someone is a "thing," you know that all the trend geeks are just going to have to try it.  Which, I suppose, is just another example of natural selection in action.