What are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanse or detox diet?

Question

Leslie Bonci, RD, CSSD · Answer

Well, what are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanser detox? So, I think it's really more about the risk. The word cleanse and detox are not positive words. Our body does a really, really good job of taking care of what it needs to. It doesn't need to be cleaned out. It doesn't need to be detoxed. Certainly, sometimes restock, meaning that we put more fruits and vegetables into our diet, so including some juice can be a way of doing that, but not to replace other things that are absolutely necessary for our body. And so, if we're using juice as a beverage that we choose to do, if we are actually eating the fruits and vegetables themselves, that's a wonderful thing to do. If we prefer to have some of those in a pureed form or blended form, that's okay too. But realize that fruit is not going to provide protein, nor is it going to provide fat. So it is incomplete, and we don't want to do that for an extended period of time because that gets us away from balance. So incorporating in some fruit, yes, do that in a salad, in a stir fry, just eating it as it is, as a snack or in a smoothie is fine. But nothing more than that. It doesn't clean, it doesn't detox. Indeed, it can help to restock to optimize our intake overall.

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD · Answer

You know, I get this question a lot and I thought I'm going to answer this one in my kitchen because the kitchen is the place where we are eating real food, where we are giving our liver, which by the way is our detoxification organ. We really just need to treat that liver a little better. And I know I'm biased because my books are all liver focused, but we need to treat that organ a little bit better if we want to expect it to do the detoxification for us. If we're treating it well, if it's working, we really don't need a juice cleanse. We really don't need a detox diet. Those are things that, you know, if we could make that investment, but yes, we could also make the investment in fresh produce. So that would just be one example. Now I will say that when people are doing a cleanse or detox diet, and let me just say on the spectrum, these are like defined in many different ways and we don't have time to really go over the details of that one now, but sometimes it can be a great reset for people. So if they are on some sort of diet, let's call it that because that's what the question was where individuals are actually taking a certain dietary component, maybe sugar and taking it out. That can be great for health. That can be a great way for us to start lessening our reliance on things like sugar or refined grains, but you also could get some detox diets or some cleanses that can really screw up your electrolyte imbalance. And then you might be in just a worsening place in terms of overall health. So I want us to kind of look at this more high level and think about what is the investment we want to make? Do we have an investment in health and what does that investment in health look like? Can we take our dollars and either put them towards some sort of cleanse, whatever that means and the definition is vast, or could we take that and go over to the farmer's market and get some nice fresh produce and get some whole grains and things like that. So let's just look at it from that perspective. Are we making the investment and what's the overall benefit to our health?

Dr. Emily Werner, PhD, RD, CSSD · Answer

What are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanse or detox diet? Let's start with the benefits because there really aren't any. Maybe it might kind of clear your system out and by that I mean most likely give you diarrhea, which might make you feel better, but that's placebo effect. So the risks of a juice cleanser detox diet. So first of all, let me just say the idea of a detox diet, there's not, there's not a support behind it. Not evidentiary. Most practitioners that I know don't support. If you have a liver, you are detoxing what you need to detox. The juice cleanse idea too, it's the same kind of concept. You're not cleansing your blood. You're not, you're just drinking a lot of juice. So the downsides of doing that, number one, you're probably spending a lot of money to do it. So I would recommend you spend that money elsewhere. Secondly, you are missing a lot of nutrients that you actually need in those days that you are relying on juices for your energy levels, for fiber, protein, like you're drinking juice. You're really not getting much or any protein at all for those days. So it's really not meeting your nutritional needs. And like I said, it might kind of make you feel like you've cleared your system out, but in actuality, you've probably just set your body back. And so it'd be better to work on more sustainable habits with a qualified professional.

Lauren Harris-Pincus, MS, RDN · Answer

What are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanse or detox diet? If you guys know me and if you watch any of my stuff you will know that I am NOT a fan of cleanses or detoxes because they're just unnecessary, overly restrictive, and can lead to problems with very little benefit. So bottom line, if you have a functioning liver and kidneys and if you breathe, sweat, pee, and poop, you have all the mechanisms you need to rid your body of the things that shouldn't be in there. And that's just the bottom line. So a very restrictive juice cleanse is going to give you basically only sugar, you're not going to have any protein or healthy fats, you can end up with some disordered eating behaviors, and the truth is you're gonna lose lean body mass if you do lose weight, and then when you regain the weight, which you will, you're gonna gain back fat weight and you may end up with less lean body mass than you had before. So just eat sensibly, balance, moderation, eat the things you like, and you know just take care of your body and your soul. Don't worry about detoxing.

Elizabeth McNear,MS,RD,CSSD · Answer

What are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanser detox diet? Really, the benefits are so minimal. I don't see much of a benefit to these at all. The risk is that you're gonna be deficient in calories, macronutrients, micronutrients. If you're someone who doesn't eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, sure, you'll be increasing your antioxidant and your fruit and vegetable intake on a cleanse, but you're also gonna be reducing your total caloric intake. You're probably gonna feel like crap. You're gonna be crapping a lot. That happens to people. They're usually very expensive. So you're gonna be low energy, feeling terrible, being on the toilet most of the day. And I think all those things are ultimately gonna be in the risk category, not the benefit category. I don't know about you guys, but I don't feel great if I'm low energy and pooping all day. So really big thumbs down on both juice cleanses and detox diets. You have a liver, it detoxes your body for you. There's no reason to cleanse. There's no reason to detox. There are much better ways to lose weight or improve health if that's what the end goal is. So if that's something that you're trying to do, I would work on finding more sustainable habits that you can change long-term to help with meeting your goals.

Lisa Spencer, EdD, FNTP · Answer

What are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanse or detox diet? Oh, advocates and proponents will be able to go on promoting either side of these diets. I will share my top thoughts on both sides. First, my primary concern for both juice cleanses and detox diets are they are generally very low calorie diets and therefore we put the dieter at risk of low energy availability which has major consequences for endocrine system which is your whole hormone system. So maybe even just for three or four days of being in a low energy system we can have negative impact on the endocrine system which impacts all of your other systems in your body but mainly it's counterintuitive to what the dieter wants because low energy availability will start to slow one's metabolism which means when this diet is over we have a slower metabolic rate and the person goes back to eating what they were eating before. The other concern of course for me is dependency so the dieter will eat their normal diet, they will do this cleanse or detox for three to five days and go back to their other diet relying on being healthy because they've done this diet where we're not really looking at a full change of general intake. Flip side of that, one benefit could be a reset where somebody does use this juice cleanse or detox diet to sort of reset their general expectations and desires for intake so I see that as a huge benefit as well as maybe some gut health.

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"What are the potential risks and benefits of following a juice cleanse or detox diet?"