HOW WELL ARE YOUR DETOX SYSTEMS WORKING?

The following tests can help to judge the overall efficiency of your body chemistry and its ability to handle waste.

Test your body’s ability to rid itself of four representative “toxins”: Caffeine (as found in coffee or over the counter stay awake pills such as No-Doz); acetaminophen (such as found in pain medicines), aspirin, and sodium benzoate, a common food preservative. The test, a take home kit, involves taking all substances with a glass of water and then collecting your urine for the following six hours. The lab will analyse phase one and two of the detox process, examining such aspects as your levels of sulphur.Stool tests. The intestine, which is both the passageway and the source of important toxins, also plays an important role in detoxification. A wealth of information can be extracted from stool if it is submitted to careful biochemical, microscopic and microbiological examination.

Ideally, biochemical assessment of the stool would reveal how well fat has been digested; gut nutrition how well nourished the intestinal cells are; ph (a healthy stool should be close to the neutral ph of 7 or a little below); microbiology, which measures the bacteria and other germs in the digestive tract; mycology and parasitology, which tests for parasites such as giardia lamblia, blastocystis hominus and fungi; and gut immunity, which tests the presence of secretory IgA. Secretory IgA levels are elevated in the presence of infection or overgrowth of unwelcome germs and are depressed if the infection or overgrowth is excessive.

Other allergy tests

Either blood tests or allergy elimination diets will reveal whether any foods are stopping your detox systems from working properly.

Intestinal permeability and stomach acid tests determine how well you are digesting your food and whether you have a leaky gut.

Gut fermentation tests determine whether your body is producing alcohol in the intestine from excessive yeast in the bowel.

Oxidative Stress. Blood tests for rancid fatty acids (or lipid peroxides) are the best direct measure of oxidative damage in the body.

For tests such as these, contact the Great Smokies Laboratory (828-253-0621 in the US-01582 794094 in the UK) or Biolab in London (0171-636 5959).