Welcome to episode 74.
This week I am going to give you a simple primer on the phases of detoxification in your body. This is important to know so you know how the food you eat actually might be affecting how you feel and the process of disease. When the body is out of balance due to your detoxification systems not working well or at all, you will feel sick and it will affect your thyroid. We are made of many systems and they all work together. Our current medical system has developed specialties for each of our systems. Maybe you see an endocrinologist for your thyroid- they deal with the endocrine system. We have gastroenterologists who specialize in our GI tract. We have cardiologists who specialize in our heart health and so on. The missing piece here is that all of these systems work together and when one is out of balance, it is likely that others are also out of balance and that can create systemic dis-ease.
When your detoxification system- and interestingly, there is no conventional medical specialty for this system. The only way this system gets attention is from scientists who are developing pharmaceutical drugs because all drugs get processed through this system and that is kind of what I am going to talk about today. It is important stuff because when things go wrong here you can end up with cancer, heart disease, liver problems and more.
Okay. Let’s get started. I mentioned a bit last week that there are three phases of detoxification. Phase I, Phase II and Phase II. We will go through each of these and I will try to make this as simple as possible to understand. The basics of this system is we take in a toxin- and most toxins are what we call fat soluble meaning they like to hang out in our fat tissue. Toxins can come from the outside- from our environment, from the air we breath, from our food, from our clothes- pretty much anywhere. It is unavoidable.
Those toxins come in and some will be eliminated through our stool or sweat without going through phase I but if they are not eliminated they go to the liver and through phase I detoxification. The liver will process them and then they get eliminated through our urine or our stool. Now, many people with hypothyroidism and mismanaged medication have constipation so these toxins are not being eliminated right away through the stool. They are getting reabsorbed in to the body. Not good. We want to get those out.
In the liver, in phase I- it is called biotransformation- this means the substance is transformed or changed into something else so it can be prepared for elimination. We have enzymes in our liver that break down these foreign things called xenobiotics. This process creates free radicals which are molecules that are unstable due to missing and electron and create oxidative stress. They damage tissue in the body if they are not neutralized. We do that with antioxidants.
You have likely heard that things like blueberries are a good source of antioxidants. There are special components of blueberries and other fruits and veggies that help neutralize these free radicals that our body has created. Also - before they create damage in the body they are supposed to go through phase II where they are further changed by other molecules in the body joining with them (molecules which are created through our consumption and breakdown of protein) and creating these harmless water soluble substance that will be sent to the kidney for elimination through urine or through the GI tract for elimination through stool. The elimination part is phase III.
In order for this to happen we need to provide our body with nutrients. For phase I we specifically need B vitamins, especially riboflavin, niacin, B6, folate, B12, flavonoids (these come from the colors in our veggies), you need some good healthy fats to build healthy cell structures and you need glutathione which is the body’s master antioxidant.
Before these broken down and more harmful products from phase I can move on to phase II they need the antioxidants and those require the use of things like vitamin A, vitamin C, selenium, copper, zinc, CoQ10, things called thiols which are found in garlic, onions and cruciferous veggies like broccoli, bioflavonoids (found mostly in citrus fruits, black currents- if you have bleeding gums you could be missing bioflavonoids in your diet).
Next they move on to phase II where the biggest nutrient needed here is protein. Protein, when broken down provides all the amino acids needed for this second phase to work really well and this is important because if this phase is not working up to the speed of phase I, you have all these really harmful compounds that will be moving throughout the body, damaging tissues and wreaking havoc on the body.
This means you need to be not only eating quality proteins but you also need to be breaking them down and assimilating them. Now quality proteins in the scientific literature means that you are getting all the amino acids needed for the body to operate- typically the essential amino acids and there are about 20-22 essential amino acids meaning our body cannot produce them and we need to get them from our diet. We can get them from plants or animals but easiest is from animals.
Once these compounds are changed again in phase II they get set for elimination and in order for that to happen well you need a few things to be working really well there too. The transformed compounds, and those that didn’t get transformed are sent to the river of bile that flows through our digestive tract which will then be eliminated through our stool. This means that you need to be producing healthy bile from your liver. Past episodes will talk more in depth about that but basically you need to be consuming healthy fats- not canola oil or vegetable oil or trans fats. You have to minimize fried foods and consume olive oil, some coconut oil and eat avocados. These help build healthy bile which will help keep your gallbladder healthy so you can excrete all these toxins in your stool. You also will excrete through urine but first the toxic byproducts are shuttled to the blood, then they are filtered through the kidneys and then excreted through urine. This means you need to be drinking enough water so you are peeing this stuff out.
How do we support these phases with food? Phase I foods include things like mushrooms, eggs, asparagus, almonds, turkey, chicken, salmon, lamb, beef, sardines, brown rice, sweet potato, beans, broccoli, leafy greens, fish, undenatured whey protein, turmeric, avocado, garlic, foods high in vitamin C and selenium, all the plant foods, sunflower seeds.
Phase II foods are all about protein and digesting and assimilating that protein. So you must have good digestion and you probably should heal your gut if you have intestinal permeability or leaky gut. That would be important. How do you know if you have good digestion? What are your stools like? Are they well formed, sort of sausage shaped? Do you have much on the toilet paper when you wipe? If you do have a mess on your toilet paper and they are not well formed you likely need to work on your digestion. You might need a stomach acid supplement, you might need a gut healing program, you might need more fiber. Is your gallbladder doing its job? If not, that needs to be taken care of too. Do you have gut dysbiosis like an issue with candida or an issue with an imbalance in your microbiome?
If you have any genetic mutations such as MTHFR or COMT you will need extra help feeding the proper nutrients to your body so the detoxification system can do its job. If you have issues with these SNPs- they are related to methylation which is part of the detoxification process and you might have higher homocysteine levels on a blood test, you might have low B12, low folate status and low methionine (an essential amino acid). The short answer for this issue is to make sure you are consuming a lot of leafy greens, a mediterranean type diet can be really helpful and you want to be sure you are getting all the b vitamins but you don’t want to take them in too high amounts. You want to not smoke or drink too much coffee and avoiding alcohol is beneficial. Some medications can affect your folate status, particularly methotrexate.
I talked a little bit about glutathione being your body’s master antioxidant. It is pretty important and there are some things that go in in the body that can cause it to be depleted so you want to make sure you provide the raw materials to keep your glutathione status healthy. Protein, brassica veggies, turmeric, fruits and veggies (cruciferous especially at 5-10 servings a day), green tea, N-acetycysteine, omega 3 fatty acids, salmon, resveratrol, allium veggies (chives, leeks, garlic, onion), vitamin C and E and whey protein.
This is your very simple and quick primer on the phases of detoxification. I do not recommend doing a detoxification plan without first healing your gut and doing an elimination diet. You can’t start a detox while you are feeling really bad because it can just make you worse. You should always work with a practitioner who can help you navigate this.
That is it for today. I want to thank you for being here and for listening. I do appreciate it. If you could leave me a review on apple podcasts it helps me reach more people. If you need some help with your health or you know someone who does, I am taking new clients and would love to chat with you. You can set up a discovery call on my website and click on the appointment tab where you can select a free 15 minute call to see if we are a good fit for each other.
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Here’s to you until next week.