I see your point on cleanses, but still feel they may be overkill for most people’s systems and will personally stay away from them. But as with all things, everyone should decide for themselves what they feel is the best way to good health.

The now common colon cleanse can be thought of more like a roto-router for your guts, literally blasting out the old to make room for the new. Often it sloths off your intestinal lining but, for many people who don’t eat right, that is necessary because they have a condition known as intestinal permeability, giving pathogens easy access to the body.

Liver cleanses, also now popular, are more aimed at restoring function of the organ that riding them of pathogens. Hardened bile salts – essentially rock-toxins your liver creates as you age – usually are the target of this cleanse, not any pathogens.

In an ideal world you are right – no one should need cleansing. But we live in a very toxic world – the very air you breath is laced with 4X more mercury than it was 100 years ago. You have to do things to deal with this reality.

The now common colon cleanse can be thought of more like a roto-router for your guts, literally blasting out the old to make room for the new. Often it sloths off your intestinal lining but, for many people who don’t eat right, that is necessary because they have a condition known as intestinal permeability, giving pathogens easy access to the body.

Liver cleanses, also now popular, are more aimed at restoring function of the organ that riding them of pathogens. Hardened bile salts – essentially rock-toxins your liver creates as you age – usually are the target of this cleanse, not any pathogens.

In an ideal world you are right – no one should need cleansing. But we live in a very toxic world – the very air you breath is laced with 4X more mercury than it was 100 years ago. You have to do things to deal with this reality.

So I would want to know how cleanses, which I personally don’t think are good, help us. If eradicating normal parasites in our digestive systems with harsh “cleanses” remove possibly helpful parasites, what’s the argument for them? They just seem like more Western culture-think that all “dirty things” are bad. Your article suggests otherwise.