Criticism
Body cleansing and detoxification have been referred to as an elaborate hoax used by con artists to cure nonexistent illnesses. Some doctors contend that the "toxins" in question do not even exist. Alternative medicine proponents frequently cite heavy metals or pesticides as the source of toxification; however, no evidence exists that detoxification approaches have a measurable effect on these or any other chemical levels. Medical experts state that body cleansing is unnecessary as the human body is naturally capable of maintaining itself, with several organs dedicated to cleansing the blood and gut. Professor Alan Boobis OBE, Toxicologist, Division of Medicine, Imperial College London states that
The body’s own detoxification systems are remarkably sophisticated and versatile. They have to be, as the natural environment that we evolved in is hostile. It is remarkable that people are prepared to risk seriously disrupting these systems with unproven ‘detox’ diets, which could well do more harm than good.
The apparently satisfied testimonial and anecdotal accounts by customers can often be explained by disguised employees companies or individuals creating false anecdotes, legitimate customers who are experiencing the placebo effect after using the products, natural recovery from an actual illness that would have occurred without the use of the product, psychological improvements on illnesses that are psychosomatic or the result of neurosis, or the lack of a larger number of dissatisfied customers not posting equally applicable anecdotes about their poorer experiences.
Read more about this topic: Detoxification (alternative Medicine)
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)