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The Ultimate Heavy Metal Detox

Doctors Mercola and Yu bring us the Niacin Detox Protocol.  It’s a proven, effective way to detox the chemicals from your body, which on average holds more than 400 toxic chemicals.  But I advice caution.  Beware the “detox effect”.  Watch Yu and Mercola below.

Note: This is article 3, part 2 to my FREE four-part series about how to build a strong and youthful body. For more on heavy metal detox and where it fits in an overall cleanse, read Why You Need a Three Phase Detoxification Plan.

REGULAR READERS of this blog know well that I’m a big proponent of heavy metal detox cleansing.  It’s simply unavoidable that a person in modern society can reach adulthood without accumulating unnatural and unhealthy toxins in his/her body.

But you don’t even have to wait till adulthood to be so encumbered.  Nor need you wait to be born to start counting the toxins in your body.  According to an Environmental Working Group report, toxic chemicals first get introduced into a person’s body while still in the womb.

The report said this:

“Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood… harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.”

“Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied.”

I don’t believe we all start out life as sinners, but it’s clear that we start out toxic.

So, from the start of life, our organs of detoxification, such as the kidneys and liver, are quickly tasked with working hard to keep us functioning.  However, as we grow up and drive our cars, drink our booze, smoke our cigs, and eat our manufactured food, we double down on our chemical “inheritance”.

Of course, our industrialized world contributes more than its fair share, making the most abstemious among us a toxic dump.  In North America alone there are over 77,000 chemicals being produced; 3,000 of them have been added to our food supply and our bodies cannot metabolize 20,000 of them properly.

What happens to them? Between 400 and 800 of these sweet chemical residues get stored in our fat cells where they set up camp and thrive. We’re talking PCBs, dioxins, xylene and dichlorobenzene, among the hundreds of others.

Being overweight is becoming dangerous.

In addition to the diabestity and heart disease epidemic sweeping the country, we can now include toxic overload. That’s because toxins inhabit fat at 100 times the rate as is found in blood. Given that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, most of us are walking, talking chemical repositories.

Now, for those of you who haven’t clicked away in disgust or depression, know that there’s a little known protocol for extracting the toxins quickly, effectively and –maybe — safely.

Before I learned today about this protocol by Dr. George Yu, clinical professor of urological surgery at the George Washington Medical Center and Dr. Mercola, of health web site Mercola.com fame, my best advice for detoxing was to choose one of several cleansing rituals that’s aimed at detoxifying the liver, kidneys and gastrointestinal tract.  And I’d say, “be sure you include frequent detox baths”.

[Read It’s Detox Time and Cleanse the Bloat Away – 5 Recommendations.]

Certainly, I still advocate these, as they’re effective and complementary to the Dr. Yu Protocol I learned today.  But now, we have an extra detox weapon in our arsenal, and one that has clear scientific evidence to support its effectiveness.

 

The Niacin Detox Protocol

Yes, this what I’m referring to as the Dr Yu Niacin Detox Cleanse, and it’s based on niacin, which is vitamin B3.

This heavy metal detox protocol is very similar to what’s used to treat drug addicts, and other sufferers of chemical/heavy metal toxins, such as the 911 responders, those exposed to Agent Orange, and the like.  This niacin cleanse has been extensively tested and works to quickly and effectively purging the body of toxic chemicals.

The niacin simply drives the toxins out of the cells.  Yes, the niacin does its job, but yours is to do the specific routine that helps ensure your safety and the effectiveness of the protocol.

Here’s what to do each day for 30 days:

1. Niacin. Start with 250 milligrams of the type of niacin that creates the body “flush”, not the popular non-flush brand.  When high doses of niacin are in the bloodstream, you will experience splotchy redness on the skin, itchiness, irritation, and if there’s too much niacin, light-headedness.  So you need to start at 250 milligrams or less if less than 140 pounds.  Ingest the niacin and then…
2. Exercise. You have to elevate your heart rate and start sweating. Do not wait more than 15 minutes after taking the niacin or you may be dealing with some of the unpleasant flush effects. Any aerobic exercise that elevates your pulse and causes sweating will do.  Using a rebounder will increase the detox effectiveness because it helps cleans the lymph nodes.  Other exercise choices could be jumping rope, jogging, walking up a hill, stationary or regular bike, elliptical machine, etc. Do it for at least 20 minutes.
3. Sauna. After exercising, cool down a bit, take a cool shower and then a 40-minute sauna.  Forty minutes are too long for anyone not practiced at it, so you must do it in intervals.  If you can only stand 15 minutes at a time, do it three times, with cool showers intermixed.  An infrared sauna is best, but any will do.
4. Evacuate. After the sauna, ingest activated charcoal or bentonite (a type of liquid clay).  Either of these quickly binds and absorbs anything in your gastrointestinal track and evacuates it from the body.  (These are great to have on hand for those rare times you may overindulge on sugar or alcohol.)
5. Drink Water. Drink as much purified water as you can over the next several hours.

 

Niacin Cleanse Precautions

As with anything new that affects your health, you need to be smart about this! Friends of mine have done the detox bath and overloaded on the niacin and had a couple of hours of a very unhappy time.  The same could happen here.

1. Don’t overdose on the niacin! (See # 1 above.)
2. If you don’t have a sauna, substitute it with a detox bath. (Instructions are at the end of this post, Detoxifying Your Way to Nirvana… skip the niacin part since you’ll have already consumed it.)
3. 30 Days is a long time. Frankly, although this is the time-tested protocol used for detoxing some high at-risk people, I think it’s too long for the average person.  Take baby steps… maybe try every other day for a week and see how you’re feeling.
4. Overweight? Dr. Yu cautions that doing this niacin cleanse if overweight, particularly if obese, may release more toxins from fat into the bloodstream than can be handled without causing a detox effect. (Read my post, The Reboot Diet and the Detox Effect.)  If this describes you, lose some pounds first.  (Yeah, I know…easier said than done.  Get some points on this by reading, Diet 101.)
5. Liver Problems.  High does of niacin can affect the liver of some people.  Hepatotoxicity may occur after months of daily doses of 500 to 750 mg/day, along with side effects such as higher liver enzymes, jaundice and hepatitis. So, I say again that medical supervision is recommended before you do this niacin protocol.

My last comment on this topic is that I intend to try this Niacin Detox Protocol myself, but to be clear about how it would work for me I first need to get a blood test to identify my body’s chemical load. Then retest. Another item on my “to do” list.  You may want to wait for me to be the guinea pig before you try it, or do it under the consultation of your doctor.

And now to the videos about the Niacin Detox Protocol from doctors Yu and Mercola:

Note that Dr. Mercola spoke about telomeres, the DNA in our chromosomes that is a marker for lifespan. Here are some posts on the topic that you’ll want to know about:

Three Months to Longer Life
How Exercise Slows the Aging Process
How to Live to 100. Watch.

So, that’s it on the Ultimate Heavy Metal Detox for now. Is this something that you would consider doing? Let us know in the Comments section below.

Over and out.

UPDATE: If you want a deeper dive on detoxification, you will get a lot out of these articles (and video):

 

If you liked this article and want to read the rest of the series, go here!

Last Updated on February 28, 2022 by Joe Garma