Black Magic, aka, Charcoal for Detoxification

Have you ever heard of or used activated charcoal for detoxification?

Let’s affectionately let the nickname black magic stick because the use of this powerful substance dates all the way back to 1500 BC.

Its reign of power continues today.

Activated charcoal is used in air and water purifiers to pull out impurities, but also in many different types of nutritional cleanses targeted at cleaning up gastrointestinal health.

It’s widely used medicinally as a detoxifier and also as an antidote to the ingestion of poisons.

My friend Katie – The Wellness Mama wrote a blog about charcoal a while back and told the story of a professor from the French academy of medicine who in 1831 drank a lethal dose of strychnine mixed with activated charcoal and lived to tell about it.

This solidified charcoal’s claim to fame and pushed into emergency rooms as a primary tool to work with all kinds of contaminants that threaten the gastrointestinal track.

Having worked with charcoal in private practice for a decade, I can clinically back up the amazing results one gets from a steady month taking charcoal at night to clean up the system.

Us health nuts also carry it out to the bar with us and take it after a few cocktails to “soak up the toxins” from drinking. That’s an udder the radar nutrition technique – note I’m not encouraging excessive drinking with that tip!

Cool Facts about Activated Charcoal

(from wellnessmama.com)

• Reduces absorption of poisonous substances up to 60%.

• It works by absorbing chemicals, thus reducing their toxicity (poisonous nature), through the entire length of the stomach and small and large intestines (GI tract).

• Activated charcoal itself is a fine, black powder that is odorless, tasteless, and nontoxic.

• Activated charcoal is often given after the stomach is pumped (gastric lavage). Gastric lavage is only effective immediately after swallowing a toxic substance (within about one-half hour) and does not have effects that reach beyond the stomach as activated charcoal does.”

Ways to Use Charcoal:

Pills or Powder

In pill or powder form taken at night before bed away from medications to bind to intestinal toxins and accumulated heavy metals and pull them out.

You don’t want to stay on it on a regular basis but rather only use it during a cleanse or in an acute situation when you’ve been exposed to something (toxins or food poisoning).

If you take it for an acute situation, consider following it up a salt flush mixed with apple cider vinegar to mobilize the charcoal out of your system faster.

Note – it’s role is to bind to things so do not take it at the same time as medication or vitamins because absorption of those things will be decreased.

Good quality charcoal products are BIND by Systemic, which is hard to find online and Bulletproof Charcoal.

Salt

According to Livestrong, black salt from Kauai contains activated charcoal, which is used as a detoxification agent and an antidote to poisons. Although Hawaiian salt does not contain a large enough quantity of activated charcoal for it to have strong detoxification properties, this mineral may contribute to the salt's reputation as a health supplement.

If you use it in lieu of regular salt on a routine basis, however, you will certainly reap some of it’s detoxifying benefits.

Soap

Charcoal Soap shows noticeable improvement on skin and acne when caused by clogged pores. It helps remove dirt and debris and absorbs pollutants you may have picked up from the environment during the day.