stop detoxifying

a taxonomy of the worst health fads

Who among us has never thought, I should probably start eating healthier?

An admirable and understandable sentiment though it may be, this line of thinking has an uncanny capacity to spiral into conspiracy, fanaticism, and even the very health challenges that proponents seek to avoid. It starts with more broccoli, and high-fives all around if that’s where it stops; but for many, energized and encouraged by “the algorithm”, they start getting into raw milk and fruitarianism and three-day cleanses and blanket chemophobia.

Suddenly the ability of your mouth to form the right shape to pronounce a long scientific name of an ingredient on the first try is the first critical fortification against the evil companies trying to make you sick and docile. No more brassica oleracea var. italica in the diet, I suppose.

Psyche. That’s the scientific name for broccoli.

Let’s start with the undisputable facts: we as a society are more health conscious than ever, thanks in large part to the free exchange of information over the internet, and the subsequent free exchange of photos of all of us that probably make everyone more self-conscious. Gen Z is widely known to drink less alcohol than prior generations; a variety of factors are thought to explain this, but the most commonly accepted reasons include consideration for personal health and wellness, along with financial constraints (looking at you, twenty-five-dollar basic cocktails) and increased visibility of sober lifestyles. Post-pandemic, as we would expect, people are more aware of their personal health and report healthfulness as a factor when making choices, perhaps unsurprising given the virus both put those with existing health challenges at risk and triggered lockdowns that reinforced already bleak trends in physical fitness and social isolation. On the other hand, cigarettes are apparently cool again, independent of the switch to vaping (somehow). Maybe the real obsession is contrarianism — just about the only thing that smoking and taking weird supplements have in common is that your doctor doesn’t recommend it.

Whatever the reason behind the Western world’s current health and wellness obsession, you’ve probably already seen its most widespread form in your neighborhood — namely, an explosion of trendy shops selling dietary supplements. The supplement industry has boomed in recent years, with government surveys finding that a significant majority of Americans now take at least one regularly, with particularly high increases among millennials and Gen Z. Supplement makers have been accused of taking advantage of their weak regulatory environment (unlike prescription or over-the-counter medication, supplements are not subject to FDA approval for safety or effectiveness) to make fanciful claims about their products’ effectiveness against ills as varied as fatigue, high blood pressure, baldness, and erectile dysfunction. Unfortunately, vanishingly few of these products’ claims are substantiated by reputable scientific research, with the rest acting at best as expensive placebos - in many cases, recommended supplement doses are so high that only a tiny proportion of the allegedly beneficial substance is even absorbed by the body, while the rest is passed with no effect — hopefully. Unluckier users have suffered side effects ranging from stomach issues to liver damage, and studies regularly find concerning levels of heavy metals in products sold as Ayurvedic supplements.

Juice cleanses are another case of going too far, and the name itself is a clear signifier of the bullshit in the phenomenon: there is no “cleanse” occurring whatsoever. Sticking to a liquid diet for the typical length of time promoted by fad diet companies can cause rapid weight loss (but mostly of water weight), muscle loss, slowing of metabolism, the loss of beneficial bacteria and an increase in bacteria linked to inflammation and digestive issues, and it can generally interfere with normal bodily functions that already have evolved to conduct any necessary detoxification we may need. While periods of acute or chronic illness may impair these organs, fruit-and-vegetable-water does nothing to enhance it — and the concurrent loss of carbs, proteins, fats, fiber, and some vitamins certainly doesn’t help.

For the love of god, at least skip the draining of solids and make it a smoothie instead of a juice.

Then we get into the demonization of processed and ultra-processed foods. We all know the balanced take: in general, try to focus your diet on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, etc. and consume foods with high levels of added salt, sugar, sweeteners, preservatives, oils, and fats in moderation. But what counts as processed?

Technically, fruits and veggies are “processed” by peeling, slicing, sterilizing, pasteurizing, fermenting, pickling, drying, freezing, canning, milling, and fortifying. Few of these steps change the general nutritional profile of the foods they affect, and yet we somehow have created a universe where many think pasteurized milk poses similar health risks to a diet of Doritos. A combination of canned veggies and frozen fruits and milk that has been processed [insert aghastness here] into yogurt or cheese is better than a non-diverse palette of only fresh foods that are so unprocessed that they spoil quickly.

The same is true of the disparagement of seed oils, which contain a polyunsaturated fat called omega-6 (no doubt you’ve heard praise of its more famous cousin, omega-3, the latter of which prompts the unquestioned advice to eat more fish with little mention of its fishy husband mercury). Omega-6 fatty acids help the body reduce bad cholesterol, just not as well as omega-3 — not a good enough critique to cook a stir fry in olive oil.

Unless someone is doing a seed oil cleanse and downing sunflower oil like a tiny bottle of whiskey on a delayed flight from San Diego to North Dakota in the middle of winter, we’re all gonna be okay.

The current presidential administration is also claiming that over-the-counter medicines pose terrible health risks, especially for the group of constituents that is most valuable to them: pregnant women fetuses. While these drugs definitely can be abused, their side effects are well known and extensively studied. After the thalidomide scandal in the mid-20th century, drugs are given especially strict scrutiny before being approved for use by those who are, might be, or are planning to become pregnant (hence the pee test you have to take before the doctor deigns to do anything to you).

Now that we’ve covered the forms of health obsession that people ingest, we must regrettably take a step over into the wacky world of injectables. IV rejuvenation, a co-opting of medical intravenous therapy, has become popular as a vague “wellness” treatment offered by so-called boutiques that promote its effectiveness as a hangover cure, an anti-aging routine, and a technique to improve general health for anyone from athletes to nightclub survivors to warm bodies that can afford to throw money away when they’re feeling a little off. It’s ridiculous to stoop to such lengths when a Gatorade and a little self-control will do; and when the party is too good (self-control be damned), a little suffering the next day is just part of the human experience.

But don’t confuse injectables with injections — we’ve reached the anti-vaxxers. Not so long ago, in the naïve and hopeful era known as “pre-COVID”, you’d be forgiven for believing this was an issue of the past, a vague memory of early 2000s crunchy granola moms refusing to vaccinate their Waldorf-schooled children because of a retracted article claiming an association between the MMR vaccine and autism. Unfortunately, the pandemic and the ensuing wave of social media disinformation has brought anti-vaccination sentiment back to the forefront. This time their arguments are as varied as they are nonsensical, everything from the vaccines making you infertile to changing your DNA to containing microchips that track you with 5G. And incredibly, they’re doing better than ever this time - longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr was appointed as American Health Secretary in 2024, giving the conspiracy nuts a significant say in American healthcare policy. Meanwhile, the share of US kindergarteners vaccinated against polio and whooping cough peaked in 2019 and has been declining since, while Canada recently lost its measles-free status due to outbreaks among unvaccinated children.

All of this seems to stem partly from a longing for the good old days of drinking from backyard hoses and walking uphill both ways to get an education, but the iron lung is a relic that needs to remain in the past — we seem to have forgotten about that in the midst of such madness.

The topicals are our next destination. The conspiratorial side of the internet, which is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from the internet at large, is embracing 47-step skincare routines even as it grows skeptical of the best thing to come out of skincare-mania: increased use of sunscreen. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that sunscreens on the market are tested for safety, that vitamin D levels are hardly affected by sunscreen use (if at all), and most importantly, that skin cancer is obviously goddamn worse for people than taking a supplement for vitamin D or switching to fortified milk or cereal.

And in case it needs to be stated, the skin can only absorb so many gels, serums, oils, moisturizers, toners, and creams after being sapped of its natural state of being by masks, cleansers, and exfoliators before it’s basically like dipping a sponge into soapy water without wringing out the dirty water first.

It’s critical to understand and fascinating to behold how these health concerns manifest by gender. On the feminine side, weight loss and aesthetic appearance has always been on the forefront, with infertility as an accompanying specter especially as the average maternal age has increased (partly due to a clearly commendable decrease in teen pregnancy rates) and medical intervention in childbearing has risen. On the masculine side, focus has been placed on two sides with significant overlap: productivity culture is the provenance of the biohacking side of wellness culture, with optimization as the goal, while hypermasculinity is the source of fads like the raw meat diet and of a general suspicion of scientific developments writ large.

For both sides, the modern limelight is centered on purity, and from here things start to go awry: E. coli is pure and poison ivy is natural and sliced apples are processed — which one keeps the doctor away again?

This article isn’t trying to scare you out of caring about your health. Pretty much everyone in the Western world could do with more exercise, and god knows the Standard American Diet is a disaster. But doing better really isn’t all that complicated: eat mostly plants in reasonable amounts, maintain an active hobby or two, don’t drink too much, and keep your vaccinations up to date. The boring advice your doctor has been giving you all your life will go way further than whatever last came out of the weirdest corners of the Internet; and not stressing about this ever-changing rolodex of advice is probably better for your health anyhow.