QI just heard about ionic detox foot baths and wondered if you had any comments regarding them.
AIonic detoxification foot baths are being widely promoted on the Internet and elsewhere as a means of removing toxins from the body and balancing cellular energy. They make use of an electrically powered device that is said to produce positive and negative ions. Supposedly, the ions stimulate cells in the body. As a result, promoters claim that toxins are excreted from the body via the pores in your feet. During the foot bath, the water changes color, going from clear to reddish brown to black — this is billed as "proof" that toxins are being removed.
Promoters claim that ionic detox foot bath can relieve all manner of physical complaints — from arthritis and joint pain to headaches, fatigue, skin problems, poor digestion, and liver and kidney disorders.
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This is all complete nonsense. The Guardian Unlimited, an online British newspaper, sent a doctor to have an ionic detox foot bath. He took water samples before and after, and he sent them to a lab for analysis. Neither sample contained any toxins. And when a Guardian Unlimited reporter suspected that the discolored water might be due to rust, he tried an experiment: He rigged up a bowl of saltwater with two metal nails attached to a car battery (to simulate the metal electrodes used in the ionic detox foot bath). That water turned brown with some sludge on top — the same type seen on the foot bath. The change in color was due to iron from the nails. Analysis of the "after" sample of water from the detox foot bath showed that the change in water color was a result of its iron content.
A foot bath, ionic or not, can't detox your body or rebalance cellular energy. If you buy one of the devices (which cost in the neighborhood of $1,200), the only rebalancing you're likely to notice will be in your bank account.
Do microbes play a role in obesity?
Q What's this I hear about obesity being related to bacteria in the digestive tract? Is that true?
AMaybe. A study published in December 2006 does raise the interesting possibility that microbes in the intestinal tract play a key role in obesity. Here's the story: Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that obese humans and obese mice have different percentages of certain bacteria in their guts than do normal-size people and mice. Specifically, they had fewer of a type of bacteria called Bacteroidetes and more of a kind called Firmicutes. What researchers don't know yet is whether you grow more Firmicutes because you gain weight, or if the little bugs contribute in some way to weight gain.
Normal gut bacteria allow humans to digest food that they can't completely break down by themselves. One of the theories presented by the researchers is that people with certain communities of gut bacteria may be extracting more calories from digestion and absorption of their food than people with different gut flora, a novel and fascinating idea.
When the researchers transplanted Firmicutes into the guts of lean mice, the animals got fat and took in more calories from their food than did normal-size mice that ate the same stuff in the same amounts. As one researcher noted, that would be like one person getting more calories from the same bowl of Cheerios than another.
Losing weight seems to shift the bacterial balance in your favor. The investigators found that when they tested a dozen people who were about to go on a diet, they found that about 3 percent of the bacteria in the guts of the overweight folks were Bacteroidetes. After slimming down, the study subjects had higher levels of Bacteroidetes, close to 15 percent.
If these findings hold up after further research, they may lead the way to a new scientific understanding of obesity and new ways of treating it. But this could be far from simple. In 2005, a researcher at Stanford University published a paper showing that each of us harbors some 550 different species of gut microbes, with numbers and types varying dramatically from person to person. So if the microbe theory of obesity pans out, we will have to learn to customize treatment to shift each individual's balance of bugs in the right direction. Research isn't far enough along yet to suggest a specific benefit from probiotics, although taking ones that have more of the potentially beneficial Bacteroidetes species may be a place to start.
