Do you need to do a detox? | Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Put down the cayenne-lemon water, and step away from the "diet" teas, says Dr. Jen Gunter. She's joined by a hepatologist who explains why these cleanses and "natural" detoxes can do more harm to your body (and bank account) than good, and shares what you can do to keep your body's natural detox system running smoothly. Thanks to Dr. Kaveh Hoda and Dr. Alan Levinovitz for sharing their insights on this episode. (Audio only)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's TED Talks Daily. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Today, something a little different. Here's an episode of Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter. It's another podcast from the TED Audio Collective. If you like what you hear, and we hope you do, you can find and follow more episodes wherever you're listening to this.
0:37.6	George Washington spent December 12th, 1799, overseeing his farms.
0:41.3	It was an ugly day.
0:45.2	Wind, rain, hail, and snow.
0:49.6	He came home wet, with snow hanging upon his hair.
0:53.5	About a day later, he started feeling sick.
0:58.5	His wife Martha observed that he could barely speak and had trouble breathing.
1:04.5	He developed horrible throat pain and a fever, so a assistant sent for doctors.
1:10.5	Three doctors arrived and recommended a medical treatment that was common at the time. Bloodletting. That's the process of
1:14.6	cutting open a vein to drain blood. At the time, they thought fever was related to a buildup of blood.
1:22.0	If you have too much blood, you drain it to get back into balance. George Washington went through four rounds of bloodletting that day.
1:31.2	During one of them, a quart of blood, that's a standard milk carton, not the skinny one,
1:36.8	was removed from his body.
1:39.3	Washington got worse and worse and worse.
1:47.0	He died that night.
1:54.5	Even at the time, his doctors got some criticism for all the bloodletting, and Martha Washington objected to it.
1:56.1	But this was an accepted treatment.
1:58.8	In fact, for thousands of years, medicine focused on getting the bad
2:03.6	out by bleeding or recommending medications that might make you vomit or sweat. As we learned more,
2:12.5	we realized bodies don't need to be cleansed like this. So this idea of getting the bad out has been abandoned by medicine.
2:24.0	But it lives on elsewhere in the world of wellness through cleanses and detoxes.
2:34.6	Cleenses and detoxes are like bloodletting 2.0.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.