There's Something About Mary: Mary Rambin is the Dr. Phil of Blogging

‘Detoxes’ and ‘Cleanses’: Bullshit

Gawker

Listen up, Mary Rambin and all other poor suckers who believe that magical herbal detoxes, fasts, or colonics will somehow “cleanse” your system of “toxins”: they don’t, okay. So stop buying them. Jesus. Nonsociety VP of fameballism Rambin told us, of her penchant for videoblogging her own colonics: ” The procedure is certainly not ‘unnecessary’… Our bodies store so many toxins from food (pesticides, chemicals, preservatives) and our bodies were not made to process and flush them out. We need help.” Yes, you need help.(She’s actually shilling Blueprint Cleanse still, today). In a flabbergasting development, the Times Style section has actually published a useful article today, gently debunking this entire fraudulent industry: “It is the opinion of mainstream and state-of-the-art medicine and physiology that these claims are not only ludicrous but tantamount to fraud,” said Dr. Peter Pressman, an internist with the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., and a critic of detoxification. “The contents of what ends up being consumed during a ‘detox’ are essentially stimulants, laxatives and diuretics.” Would you like another quote from this highly qualified physician, who may, in contrast to purveyors of ‘Cleanses,’ know about science and stuff? “There is absolutely no scientific basis for the assertion that the regimens popularly defined as ‘detox’ will augment the body’s own capacity for identifying and eliminating your own metabolic wastes or doing the same for environmental toxins,” Dr. Pressman said. “I advise patients that these detox programs amount to a large quantity of excrement, both literally and figuratively.” But hey, what about your cousin who lost 15 pounds doing the Master Cleanse and drinking nothing but lemonade and cayenne pepper for ten days?!?!?! Well, if you go on a diet consisting solely of a few glasses of juice per day—any juice—you too will lose weight. Magic. [NYT]