Are slimming tea products unethical?

 

It seems strange asking and answering this question; all of this was sorted out and overdone years ago, and has went quiet since.  A new producer brings it all up again.

I'll start with the short answer, or at least my take:  yes, slimming tea products are unethical.  

At least in the most common form they occur in.  Exceptions are possible; that's a lot of what I'm discussing here.

The main theme is using "real tea," or just other herbal ingredients, to serve as a laxative and diuretic, to cause people to lose water weight and speed up bowel movement processing.  Both will cause a temporary weight loss effect, but neither is "slimming" in the sense of helping someone lose body fat, the main intended meaning.  Both are relatively unhealthy, since maintaining normal digestion and appropriate hydration level is more optimum, and adjusting and disrupting these is less healthy.

What about a stimulant effect; couldn't that help with weight loss?  Yes, to a limited extent.  Caffeine already is a stimulant, present in every kind of "real tea," camellia sinensis based versions, and adding more of that, or that plus some other stimulant, is probably not a good idea.  It doesn't really work to speed up metabolism to lose weight anyway; it's far superior to adjust diet inputs, to ingest less calories.

I can easily enough explain why that is.  I run a good bit, 10 km / 6.4 miles per outing, three times a week (typically), for a total of 20 miles or 30 km per week.  According to a tracking app that burns about 600 calories per outing, towards 2000 per week; that's a good start.  But it's not hard at all to eat an extra 600 calories per day, and certainly not 300, working back to a weekly average.  Revving up metabolism an equivalent amount through stimulants lands on the same result, that it's not helpful unless daily dietary intake and expenditure balance.  

If medium-high exercise for three hours a week "only" burns up an additional 2000 calories, or about that, stacking an extra stimulant on top of ingesting caffeine would need to make a significant difference--and have potentially significant negative side effects--to achieve the same outcome.  Then eating or otherwise consuming an extra 300 calories per day would be easy; it's not that much.  Two cans of Coke is close to that (278); you could just drink that input daily.

So as I see it people creating, marketing, and selling "slimming tea" versions are more or less selling snake oil.  At best the products wouldn't do much, and at worst laxative and diuretic effect or stimulant input would be quite negative.  

Caffeine is already a diuretic too, beyond being a stimulant, so ordinary tea already covers that.  People's experience of side effects vary, so not everyone would agree with that, and it requires a significant daily dose to cause that effect (water loss), but a daily recommended limit of 400 mg of caffeine will cause water loss for most people.  Taking even more diuretic is not a good idea; temporarily losing water weight isn't helpful.

Some people might feel that they retain too much water, and feel bloated, so it would be good for them.  An easy way to offset this is to limit intake of compounds that cause increased water retention, particularly salt (sodium).  Or drinking more tea could help, and adding a bit more caffeine, which is a bit counter-intuitive, since that's ingesting more water as well.  Tea is said to contain between 25 and 40 mg of caffeine per a standard 8 ounce cup (250 ml, more or less), so brewed a bit strong it might take 10 cups to ingest that standard daily limit of 400 mg, the same as in four cups of coffee (on average).  80 ounces of tea is well over 2 quarts / liters; depending on the diuretic effect experienced someone might not need to add more water to compensate, but given how it can speed up water loss some people would.

I'm not claiming that maxing out caffeine intake is definitely a good idea, to speed up metabolism and get diuretic effect to really kick in.  I typically drink about 8 grams worth of tea a day, intentionally keeping that moderate, which I expect might amount to around 240 mg total (maybe less), down to 220 or less since extraction rate isn't 100%.  Long term effects are impossible to predict, so to me practicing moderation makes sense, related to essentially everything we consume.

Back to the specific starting point, the ethics issue.

A new slimming tea product

It's this product, last discussed by the developers in this tea group post:

Oddly that post is about discussing potential product names, and they've already set up the vending page with the product name and some marketing content, so that seems odd, and perhaps not completely genuine.

What is it they're discussing, or selling?  That's not clear yet.  They've implied it's based on pu'er tea, but there are no product details out yet.  Maybe that plus a diuretic and laxative, the most conventional earlier form.  Maybe something else.  It seems unlikely that they might incorporate a formerly unknown herbal input that really helps with weight loss, but I suppose it's not inconceivable.

  

About that, I wrote not so long ago about how brewing ground up papaya seeds extracts a compound that suppresses fat digestion.  That's not so far off the theme of an earlier supplement that did the same, which was embraced and then universally rejected for changing the consistency of the subject's stool in a negative way, making it loose and oily.  That's covered in the Mayo Clinic's summary of Orlistat functions, benefits, and side effects.  This problem stands out:

These side effects include:

Stomach pain or upset stomach

Oily discharge from the anus...

Yeah, no.  

For sure other compounds and herbs out there support weight loss, but there is no magic fix, or it would already be on the market.  Interfering with digestion is an interesting twist, seemingly more promising than stimulant effect, if an input version didn't have such problematic side effects.  Hunger suppression, the effect underpinning the latest Ozempic / Semaglutide craze, is also promising.

Since we can't evaluate or critique the weight loss effect or mechanism of their product, which may or may not exist in a final form yet, let's at least consider something seemingly similar, a pu'er based weight loss support product that adds herbs to support that function, Purasana Pu'er Tea Fat Burner.

Ingredients:  Pu-erh tea (Camellia sinensis), peppermint (Mentha piperata), hibiscus flower (Hibiscus sabdariffa), goldenrod (Solidago virgaurea), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

They claim that goldenrod and rosemary are the "effective ingredients," in that sales page content, or sort of just imply that.  If rosemary made a lot of difference for weight loss people would already be making tea from that.  I have before, many times; it's pleasant.  I didn't lose weight drinking it.

According to this reference goldenrod, which can refer to differing plant types, is a set of flowering plants used as an herb tea / tisane in early US colonial times.  Wikipedia mentions this background and these uses:

Traditional medicine

Solidago virgaurea is used in a traditional kidney tonic by practitioners of herbal medicine to counter inflammation and irritation caused by bacterial infections or kidney stones.[43][44] Goldenrod is also used in some formulas for cleansing of the kidney or bladder during a healing fast, in conjunction with potassium broth and specific juices.[44] Some Native American cultures traditionally chew the leaves to relieve sore throats, and the roots to relieve toothaches.[28]

Medicinal exploration

In various assessments by the European Medicines Agency with respect to Solidago virgaurea, non-clinical data shows diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, analgesic and spasmolytic, antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer and immunomodulatory activity...

So it could be quite helpful in different uses, but is probably being utilized here as a diuretic.  Note that weight loss is not included in this substantial list of potential benefits.  Maybe another reference can add to that, like this Mount Sinai hospital database record:

Medicinal Uses and Indications

Goldenrod may act as a diuretic, meaning it flushes water from the body by increasing urine output. It may also reduce inflammation. However, it has not really been studied in humans.

Goldenrod is sometimes suggested for the following conditions:

Arthritis and gout

Allergies

Colds and flu

Inflammation of the bladder or urinary tract

Kidney stones

Eczema (applied to the skin)

Minor wounds (applied to the skin)

In that first Wikipedia citation they stated that "non-clinical data shows diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant..." (properties / benefits), aligning these two inputs.  It's probably good for you, but that second source warns against taking it with any other compounds that have a diuretic effect, since it has such a strong related effect itself.

Diuretics (water pills): Goldenrod may make diuretics stronger, raising the risk of dehydration.

...Other drugs: Due to its diuretic action, goldenrod may interact with any medication that is processed through the kidneys and urine.

So Purasana Puerh Tea Fat Burner seems unlikely to actually help with burning fat, since pu'er and those other common herbs don't support that (most likely, to a significant degree), but it will cause water weight loss.

But first let's back up a bit; maybe rosemary really can support weight loss, and I'm just unaware of that.  I had just set that aside as clearly absurd, but let's check, here:  Therapeutic effects of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) and its active constituents on nervous system disorders

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) is an evergreen bushy shrub which grows along the Mediterranean Sea, and sub-Himalayan areas. In folk medicine, it has been used as an antispasmodic, mild analgesic, to cure intercostal neuralgia, headaches, migraine, insomnia emotional upset, and depression. Different investigations have highlighted rosemary neuropharmacological properties as their main topics. 

Rosemary has significant antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-apoptotic, anti-tumorigenic, antinociceptive, and neuroprotective properties. Furthermore, it shows important clinical effects on mood, learning, memory, pain, anxiety, and sleep. The aim of the current work is to review the potential neuropharmacological effects of different rosemary extracts and its active constituents on nervous system disorders, their relevant mechanisms and its preclinical application to recall the therapeutic potential of this herb and more directions of future research projects...

The focus of the following research review isn't on all potential health benefits, but this summary and the following outline of context doesn't list weight loss as any traditionally observed potential benefit:

Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis L. (Labiatae) has been used in folk medicine to alleviate several diseases including headache, dysmenorrhea, stomachache, epilepsy, rheumatic pain, spasms, nervous agitation, improvement of memory, hysteria, depression, as well as physical and mental fatigue (5, 6)... . 

Recently, noticeable scientific interest is focused on the beneficial therapeutic properties of different kinds of rosemary extracts and its main constituents, such as carnosic acid, carnosol, rosmarinic acid, etc. A large number of studies either on animal models or cultured cells indicate the wide range medicinal properties of rosemary and its compounds such as anti-inflammatory (8, 9), anti-oxidant (10), antinociceptive (11), neuroprotective (12), antidepressant, anti-hysteric, ameliorative of memory and mental fatigue (13-15) (Figure 1)...

Why was it added to a weight loss support product then?  Who knows, but it sounds positive enough, related to so many other effects.  Maybe it helps prevent the pu'er from wrecking your stomach.  That only makes sense if it's sheng pu'er, since shou is the least impactful type of tea, and one other point that comes up in a later source indicates shou might be a better match for this kind of product.

That's a dozen or so very positive effects, from these two herbs.  Would you really recognize all these benefits?  Probably not, based on minute dosage inputs of these and pu'er along with two other herbs.  If the diuretic effect of goldenrod is strong enough that plus caffeine may have an impact.

Back to ethics

Is it really unethical to sell these products based on health claims that seem dubious at best?  I think so, but it's a judgement call.

Drinking only pu'er, without any herbs, could support weight loss, if someone was replacing drinking soda, but that's not part of any "slimming tea" product claims.  Water works for that.

What if there was more to it?  What if they, the two younger American-Chinese business founders, were in on some sort of specialized knowledge?  That is part of the claim, outlined in this earlier link:

Hey Pu'er Tea Club members,

I’m Erik, and together with my sister Angela, we’re embarking on a fascinating journey inspired by our family's deep-rooted connection to tea.

Growing up, our family's move from China to the U.S. greatly influenced our perspective on tea. It became more than a beverage; it was a bridge between cultures and eras. Our dad has spent years researching the health aspects of tea, particularly focusing on a compound in Pu'er tea known as theabrownin. His findings even made their way into the Nature Journal, an awesome achievement!

This sparked in us a desire to explore how we could blend our love for traditional Pu'er tea with modern health concepts. While we're in the early stages of conceptualizing a venture around this idea, our primary goal is to learn and grow within this space...

So could they be identifying a health benefit from a known compound, theabrownin, present in high levels in some pu'er (mostly shou, it seems), and then creating a product around that?  Maybe, but probably not, since if that's all that is happening someone could just drink the pu'er, any similar range version.  

As a related aside, it's not uncommon for research in some countries to be sponsored by commercial interests, for paid support to lead directly to health claims findings that can be used for marketing.  Even if that hadn't been the starting point context anyone can drink pu'er, and for sure this will end up being another tea and herbs blend, with either laxative or diuretic properties, or both.  Or it would be nice if that's not the case.

Let's consider what theabrownin is all about anyway.  Google search brings up this study as the first result:   Theabrownin modulates the gut microbiome and serum metabolome in aging mice induced by D-galactose

Theabrownin (TB) is a complex oxidized polyphenol formed during the microbial fermentation of Pu-erh tea. It offers some health benefits such as weight loss, blood glucose reduction, and oxidation resistance; however, the anti-aging effect and the related mechanism have not yet been explored. In this study, symptoms of aging were induced in mice using D-galactose. Morris water maze test, hematoxylin-eosin staining, 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing, and UHPLC-QE-MS metabolomics were used to reveal the anti-aging effects and potential mechanism of TB...

So they just throw it out there that of course it supports weight loss, but they're on to reviewing anti-aging potential in that work.  Maybe that's why I look so young (but I drink young sheng the most?).  The background is clear on what they're looking into, but the part about it relating to ripe or shou pu'er isn't promising to me though, as a sheng drinker:

Pu-erh tea is a traditional, historically famous tea from Yunnan, China, made from sun-dried green tea of large-leaf tea trees (Camellia sinensis var. assamica) by microbial solid-state fermentation (Liang et al., 2005, Zhao et al., 2010). It has a unique flavor, full-bodied aroma, outstanding aging aroma, and is a bright red soup with a mellow taste. TB is one of the essential active ingredients of Pu-erh tea. The content of TB in Pu-erh ripe tea can reach 16.86%, which is the primary color substance of Pu-erh ripe tea and plays a decisive role in its quality and function (Qin et al., 2009)...

[in later conclusions]...Drinking Pu-erh ripe tea can produce a variety of metabolic changes in the human body that are linked to the intestinal flora. Therefore, it is suggested that drinking pu-erh tea may change and adjust the structure of intestinal flora (Qasim, Aziz, Rasheed, Gul, & Khan, 2016)...

The linked claims here seem clear enough:  shou pu'er supports healthy digestion function, which carries over to a range of benefits, all the way to supporting longevity and mental health in later life.  How this ties to weight loss isn't clear in this paper; maybe that's a completely unrelated additional positive effect.  Maybe well-aged sheng could mirror this compound inclusion and final effect; that would all be the subject of another study.  

One more aside, they were using Dayi shou for the tests; nice.  Some aged CNNP / Zhong Cha would also be pleasant, but it's good that it worked using a newer version "(label No.7262, batch No.1801, produced on July 5, 2018)."  With that published in February 2022 it had probably had a few years to lose that early funky character, which I can't imagine changes the weight loss or anti-aging effects.

It's not inconceivable that some mix of shou pu'er and herbs could provide some new set of inputs and effects, even though I've been skeptical of that being remotely possible in this discussion.  It would really only be possible to question or dismiss any specific set of claims based on product information and review of related effects from ingredient inputs.

If those entrepreneurs turned up some supposedly traditional Chinese tea and herb blend recipe said to cause weight loss I would still be skeptical, but that couldn't be automatically dismissed.  The Indian Ayurvedic tradition seems to draw on those themes in a parallel way, on a mix of herb inputs or foods accomplishing what any one alone does not cause.  That does seem to be what Traditional Chinese Medicine was always about, combining a range of supporting inputs, not this one-to-one cause and effect sort of sequence that we focus on more in "the West," in terms of supplements, medicine, and other health inputs.

The only claim and background communicated so far relates to modern, relatively Western-style research study, and from the little I've reviewed, or that they have mentioned.  It only relates to drinking fermented / shou pu'er, somewhat explicitly, but even that is indirect.  Even if shou does happen to cause weight loss drinking Dayi already covers that, or any standard source brand.  If this new product is just shou pu'er with extra herbs to function as a diuretic and laxative it will follow the prior pattern, and won't be worth much consideration.

I hope that it's not that, that they create something novel, interesting, and useful.

Water fasting for 3 1/2 days

 

This week's theme is fasting, about not eating.  I'll write the first part of this in the middle of the third day, after two full days of ingesting nothing but a bit of salt water and three vitamin tablets (which it turns out was not really an appropriate electrolyte supplement protocol, at far too low dosage, well below RDA amounts).  Today on-site at work I also brewed a dried orange slice and four chrysanthemum flowers, checking if that wasn't enough to trigger a renewed higher level of hunger (and it was fine, no issues).

There are a few moving parts to this:  why I'm doing it at all, what the side-effects and expected benefits are, how being hungry goes, and how energy level and mental clarity work out.  I'll say a little about all of it, then add what seemed to come of it later on.

Why?  I fasted once in awhile when I was younger, but that was only juice fasts, skipping eating food for however long, but drinking juice during that time.  It was to experiment with how that kind of thing went, with a sub-culture theme about it being good for you.  That was a bit before the more recent widespread emphasis on "detoxing," but I guess it overlapped with that.  

To broaden that, while ordained as a monk for over two months we could only eat at 7 AM and 11 AM, before 12, so I guess that was intermittent fasting, before most people had heard that term (starting 15 years ago this month).  I didn't think much of it, or notice any effects.  There I could drink a soy milk in the afternoon, since the restrictions only applied to food, not drinks, so I guess the narrower sense I wasn't really intermittent fasting.

At about 10 years old I had the idea I would try water fasting, and at the very end of the first day the hunger got to me, and I ate some cake.  My parents were pretty understanding about those quirks, in retrospect, since they had essentially never heard much about fasting.  I don't remember where I got the idea.  I only remember being hungry from that, I suppose worse than I experienced this time.

I recently met a guy at a Thai temple in Hawaii who discussed Buddhism and Christianity, and he said that he practiced fasting, and that he saw it as spiritual training.  Cool, right, if possibly a little iffy?  In my past that was kind of an intended theme, for those juice fasts, not just purifying my body of whatever a break from food would result in, but some sort of other indirect and indescribable positive effect.  It's hard to say for sure that it ever worked.  My impression is that it did, but interpretation bias could come into play in that.

he had some really interesting ideas about the overlap between Christianity and Buddhism too

The main goal is to see what the experience is like, which works regardless of any other benefit, in spite of positive or negative indirect effects.

Side-effects, hunger:  I was really hungry for the first two days, but today, the third day, is better.  Of course if I smell food eating that sounds good.  I'm hazy today, and over the last two; my normal energy level is disrupted.  That's about it.  I'm not really having any stomach problems.  I read in a Reddit fasting sub-forum that you should ingest some electrolytes, salt, potassium, and magnesium, and that makes sense.  I didn't prepare ahead but drank salt water and took a couple of vitamin tablets last night.  Apparently taking too much of those electrolytes at one time gives you diarrhea, which wasn't so awful, just a few extra trips to the bathroom.

that first evening I went with Eye to a local market, which wasn't as bad as it sounds

About being hazy I took what looked to be an IQ test for a job application today (back on day three when I wrote this initial draft), a time-based version of one, combining IQ testing and GRE exam scopes.  I probably did much worse than I would have otherwise, probably not related to incorrect answers but as far as how much I completed of it.  Otherwise I can still work, and have enough energy to water to garden and such, or sweep the leaves in the driveway.

Expected benefits:  oddly I'm not clear on that part.  I have to set spiritual training benefits aside, but maybe a lot could be about that.  I don't think I will "detox," dropping out some sort of internal impurities, or lose significant weight.  So I'm mostly only curious if there is a benefit that I'll notice.  I've been eating a much lower quality diet over the past two months, while living in the US, but I could've switched back to a very moderate and healthy diet without skipping eating.  Maybe my cholesterol did spike a bit, and this will correct for that.  But if so I'll never know.

It's interesting considering that I must have entered ketosis, the internal energy production from only consuming fat, that from my own body, versus a ketogenic diet practitioner eating it.  Or maybe I'm losing a bit of muscle tissue too.

Concerns over electrolytes:  reading in that Reddit sub brought up the subject of adding electrolytes, and I initially added some salt to water, and ate a couple of multivitamins, and thought that would be good enough.  My wife expressed some concerns about that, muscle and heart issues, and I woke up in the middle of the night after the third day and felt like my heartrate was fast.  I checked it and it wasn't; around 65 beats per minute, normal for me related to running lowering it to that rate, when it had always been 70 or just over.  Then I was concerned that it might be palpitations, so I read up a bit more on recommended doses, sorting out that I had taken nowhere near that much, and started checking the electrolyte products Eye has at the house.  They contain some sugar, so I didn't want to use them, but ingesting 45 calories started to sound ok.  It turned out that magnesium isn't in either version she had, and that and potassium are at pretty low dosages in the multivitamins I took, 15 to 17% of RDA.  

In the middle of the night I started reading up on electrolytes more, and searched the house for what might include them, joint health supplements and such (which did; I ended up taking those).  Some laxatives or stomach medicines are based on magnesium compounds, but I found no examples in the house.  I downed another vitamin tablet, the joint health pills (a few small ones), and that electrolyte mix, so in a limited sense breaking the fast (45 calories worth).  I wasn't worried so much about bragging rights; it seemed like ingesting even a little sugar could trigger hunger again.  It didn't, so I felt better soon and slept.

Maybe it was all in my head.  I was getting electrolytes intake wrong, for sure, so maybe there was some health risk, and that potentially could've been significant.  I don't have heart condition issues, but I did when I was younger, an irregular beat issue that kids generally grow out of, so it might've been that nutrient imbalance was triggering something.

Ending the fast:  in the morning I didn't even feel hungry, starting day 4, but I was still concerned about that nutrient and heart issue.  It was hard to tell if it was fully resolved, since focusing on your heart beating would automatically bring up an unusual degree of awareness of it.  I was going to either go further with dosing myself with electrolytes or else let the fast go, and I decided that was enough.  I had oatmeal with raisins for breakfast, with OJ with protein powder, then went out to the nearby 7/11 and bought whatever was on the list for magnesium source foods, pumpkin seeds, cashews, almonds, and yogurt.  And I had another electrolyte drink, vitamin tablet, and a few more small joint health tablets (they didn't list the dosage, but as a secondary ingredient it probably wasn't much).

I wasn't so sad about stopping a day short of my goal, either 4 or 5 days, at 3 1/2 days in.  It was a shame to let the experience go right at the point that hunger had finally dropped out, but I had been feeling that plus mental haze, low energy level, and mild headaches for 3 days.  It was a bit much, even though not as bad as I thought.  I felt mentally better that fourth day too, and had more energy, maybe related to restoring more of a normal mineral balance, but concern over real risk tipped the judgement.  

I suppose it's worth noting that caffeine withdrawal was probably part of the impact over the first two days.  I skipped caffeine, except for one cup of tea, for about 2 1/2 days traveling back from Hawaii two weeks ago, but I had been back to one very full gaiwan's worth for over a week since.

Lessons learned:  I'm not sure how to peg the "gains" in terms of digestion system health, since I never had any problems with that, or related to weight loss, or spiritual gains.  I didn't weigh myself once; I suppose I must have lost a little, but probably not much.  I don't think there is a scale in our house.  At least it was an interesting experience.

Related to how to fast exactly what they suggest in that Reddit sub would probably work better, starting at a day in duration, then adding a second day a second time, then maybe bumping to 4, then a week.  Getting electrolytes on hand that you can mix into a water based solution and ingest gradually through the day would be easiest and best (salt, potassium, and magnesium).  Both would add confidence that the process was on track.  At a guess I wasn't really ever at significant risk, and bumping electrolyte intake that third day, and sticking with that, probably would've enabled completing a 5 day fast.  Maybe if I had a better supplement source of magnesium in the house I would've did that; the joint health pills weren't clear on dose included, so it all seemed a bit uncertain.  

Maybe referencing other input could at least expand on the range of what is out there for hearsay, since I'm not really feeling much different 8 hours into resuming eating.

Hearsay input:  I'll cite a Quora answer that covers a lot of the standard list of understood benefits.  To be clear I don't think that a lot of people repeating the same ideas necessarily implies that those are true.  Once a set of ideas gains traction online they tend to take on a life of their own, and it's easy to find countless cases of where people are taking nonsense as gospel truth by being swept along through confirmation bias, seeing what they are looking for.  That the earth if flat is a good example; over time sources making this absurd claim would congregate around a short list of agreed-upon evidence that "proves" this.

interesting that under 1000 people follow "water fasting" while 169k are into intermittent fasting

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-health-benefits-of-fasting

A Quora answer to that question, but as partial framing the author's credential is "Best-Selling Author, Content Creator, Coach, Biohacker."  I take those last two to be warning flags instead of supporting roles or attributes.  Even the best-selling author part is suspicious; maybe that's true, or maybe not.

...But here’s a list of the benefits.

Cellular repair via autophagy. - Your body will self-digest itself, leading to the recycling of old waste proteins and through detoxification.

Increased fat oxidation. - Better use of your own body fat for fuel.

Hastened metabolism. - Your metabolism actually speeds up by 3–14%.

Improved biomarkers. - Reduced cholesterol, lower blood sugar, better insulin sensitivity and no insulin resistance.

Boosted Growth Hormone. - The Holy Grail of longevity and muscle building. It maintain lean muscle mass and burns fat.

Increased life-span. - Fasting increases free radicals that trigger protective pathways.

Protection against cancer and tumors. - Autophagy purges precancerous cells and lowers risk of tumor growth.

Bolstered brain power. - Protection against neurodegenerative disease thanks to increased BDNF.

I really don't know about any of that, and I'm not of a mind to go and read a half dozen research papers to try to sort that out.  Then it would help a lot to try to find another half dozen papers expressing the alternate conclusions to help place those, or discussions or input by people who are solid references, who aren't trying to accept this same conclusion.

I suspect that some of this is accurate, I just have no idea which parts, and that's based on nothing at all, a random guess.  Other input (Quora answers) suggest that your body organs will be able to reset and self-repair while you take a break from non-stop eating, sort of along similar lines of the detox theme, but who knows about that too.  I'll skip guessing more about this list, or referencing other answers there, because I just don't have much to say about any of it.  Hopefully parts are accurate, or even it all.

Fasting mimicking diet:  of course intermittent fasting is the fad that people took up in significant numbers, which I also won't say more about, but I ran across an interesting alternative that's not that in looking around, a fasting mimicking diet.  The idea is to eat only very low calorie input foods for a number of days, just vegetables, and to not stop eating, but to cease taking in much for calories from that.  It's brilliant.  

This section runs a bit long, on some unique ideas, methodology, and findings from a Youtuber bodybuilder source.  That's not exactly the same theme as the prior first-hand experience account, and even different from the hearsay understanding. 

I've been trying to think through why that might not be as effective as water fasting, about why not completely shutting down digestion would be a concern.  I never got far with that.  I heard about this in a Youtuber's channel, one of those bodybuilder / fitness / steroid advocate guys, "Vigorous Steve:"

Steve's EXTREME Fat Loss 5 Day Fasting-Mimicking Diet

He seemed to accept some of the main health benefits others were claiming as a premise, that it somehow improves a lot of body function, but he was mainly focused on the goal of losing weight.  There's an old well-proven finding--that's actually real--that research animals who are on various forms of calorie restricted diets do live longer, which is hard to place in relation to humans, or even causes for them experiencing that.  I think he might've only implied an accepted link to that.  In watching some he claimed that he did bloodwork (testing of blood compounds) and could literally prove he experienced improvement in that five days; that's different, but the context of taking lots of drugs throws off easy judgment about what that means.

That evidence is here:

5 Days Of Salads & Fat Loss Pharmacology | Before & After Results | 6 Weeks Back On Cycle Update

He even claims in that first video that results are much different than just taking a week off to rest, that the fasting mimicking diet helps his body repair minor injuries.

It's kind of a tangent, but look what he says he is now on, for performance enhancing drug use:

The first two are anabolic steroids, both essentially versions of testosterone, I think, but I have no idea what the rest is.  He said the Ezetimibe is a healing peptide, I think it was, so that might offset the claim that the fasting helped with healing, if another compound was intended to support that.  

Then he was on three different appetite suppressant drugs; why not?  And he's on multiple drugs that support burning fat:

This is a free-for-all human trial science experiment at this point.  It's helpful that he's checking his bloodwork (main compounds and warning markers, eg. liver enzymes), but for taking a couple of handfuls of drugs a day he might eventually just drop dead, from getting some parts wrong.

It makes it hard to take seriously that whatever he claims blood results show really refers back to fasting, not a side effect of some, or many, of those many drugs.  He lost 5 pounds in a week, starting at 217 pounds / 98 kg; there's that.  

I've never done any PED's, except unless someone considers caffeine from drinking a coffee that, even though I did lift weights for a few years when I was younger, but to be clear I don't intend this as judging him.  I find the subject of PED's fascinating, because every change that someone initiates by taking any of these drugs relies on normal body functions to work, mimicking or expanding on natural internal compound effects.  My judgement doesn't mean much, or isn't so well informed, but this guy Steve and Derek of More Plates More Dates seem to be among the most conscientious, cautious, and reliable steroid proponents out there.

Conclusions

It might seem strange that I never referred back to what that fasting Reddit sub claimed the point of fasting was, since there is a developed reference wiki there.  There is a bit on that:

• 4. What does fasting do to my body?
• 4.2. Reduced insulin resistance
• 4.3. Muscles
• 4.4. Heart health
• 4.5. Autophagy / other cell regeneration goodies
• 4.6. TL; DR
• 4.7. Diabetes type 2

That section is 600 words long, so a quick read.  Maybe that's a much easier to access summary of hearsay / known benefits than any of those Quora answers.  Vigorous Steve's input, the next "results" video, must be interesting, but since he was on a dozen different drugs, many related to healing support and fat loss, it's hard to know what role fasting actually played.

I kind of want to try it again.  With proper electrolyte intake and my body knowing what's coming the negative effects might be greatly reduced.  I still doubt that I would know what clear benefits occurred if I really made it to 5 days, although I could weigh myself before and after.  I do feel great today, maybe as recovered from running training impact as I've been in years, which I'll check tomorrow.  Or I could just feel great in comparison to suffering from not eating.  I didn't mention the vivid dreams, or how in spite of being hazy as could be I've been as productive as I ever am.  I'll check back here later if I give it another go.

Attending a detox seminar; what's it all about?

I just attended a Bangkok Expat Healthified group detox theme event.  Of course I was a little skeptical; people use that concept in a lot of different ways, many that make no sense.  Your liver and kidneys remove toxins from your body, not special teas, vinegar, alkaline foods, or whatever else.  Bear with me; it all makes plenty of sense, and the parts that don't work are also interesting.  I went in with an open mind, a very practical approach, with this review covering what people said in three separate presentations.

not about those products or marketing (photo credit)

As tea goes detox tea tends to be a strong laxative or diuretic product, both of which will help a person temporarily "cut weight" but with no health benefit; the opposite instead.  Those contain things like senna.


Fair warning:  this really isn't about detox tea or slimming tea, or any tea at all, so for the most part outside the scope of this main blog theme (although I do mention how it connects at the end).  I just watched a Tea Fix podcast on detox issues related to tea but they were focused more on rejecting the standard claims and those herbal products, and to some extent tea as a miracle health product in general.


Since none of the problematic herb tea themed detox ideas came up, in this or any talks, what was "detoxing," to them?  Really three different things in the three talks, which overlapped quite a bit.


I will be critical of parts of what they said and supportive of other parts.  The idea isn't to condemn any particular approach or to completely endorse one either.  The ideas were interesting to me.  A later section here interprets how something more complicated than people passing on good, helpful information mixed with some flaws in background context or conclusions is going on.

Olga Vita on detox

Details about an event coming up on the 26th, with Olga Vita presenting more along the same lines, might work to specify this theme better, or serve as a resource.

the next related longer talk; more details here

Her talk was interesting, and it made some really good points.  Not all of it worked for me.  One has to be careful with both the bias towards accepting things you want to be true and rejecting those you expect to be false.  Maybe no one in that room had issues with the latter, but both throw off clearly considering ideas that you encounter.  That's essentially a summary of confirmation bias, a common flaw in reasoning.  It really should already be familiar, but here's a good definition just in case:

Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning.


Back to the central theme, the first talk of the three was more a short introduction to a larger set of ideas that weren't covered in detail, but there were some clear themes and distinct ideas.


Detox was presented as a general term for eliminating anything harmful, not even limited to toxins as negative compounds in the body.  Processed food or sugar based diets were presented as unhealthy, or use of artificial flavors or scents.  That's sort of cheating, narrowing toxins down to known, common sense problems.  Using a definition that broad working in an unpleasant work environment could be considered toxic.  It definitely is unhealthy.


Olga presented drinking water from a plastic bottle as unhealthy.  That could be, and it's not that controversial, since that's been covered in legitimate news for awhile, that traces of that plastic gets in the water.  And she raised cell phone EMF output as a risk, which also might be right, or might not be so bad.  It would seem odd if no negative health effects are ever connected with all the types of signals that pass through us.  It's not natural.

(photo credit)

Contact with nature was presented as positive (for a sketchy reason; toxins are positively charged but the Earth is negative), but the point still works.  Walking barefoot in Bangkok might put you in contact with parasites too, but there would certainly be a psychological benefit. Wearing shoes or even flip flops all your life is unnatural.


You don't need ancient Chinese medicine and that one crazy footpad nerve-energy pattern model to sort out that walking barefoot is very refreshing; you can just walk around and draw your own conclusions.  The same applies to being around plants instead of inside shopping malls or walking on concrete.


She recommended skipping breakfast, the intermittent fasting idea, that eating for 14 hours a day is overdoing it.  Again, maybe. How to judge that?  Surely different cycles would work best for different people, based on all sorts of inputs. It's pretty far off the track of colon cleansing, a topic that didn't come up until the next presentation.


A recommendation to only use fasting to the extent you are not making too big a shift made good sense.  It was easy to miss that this was one of the more practical, positive themes she brought up:  you start from where you are.  Someone really into a poor diet, processed junk foods and sodas, would shift off that first. Next someone could move on to a temporary raw diet, then later up to juice fast, and after acclimation onto water fasting (not one after the other, as an longer term staged program).

I experimented with periodic juice fasting when I was younger and that seemed fine, not difficult or shocking. I'm not sure if it actually helped but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I still believe that it's unnatural and even harmful to never let your body get a break from the digestion cycle.  I can't justify or explain that; it's just my impression, based on limited personal experience.


A bit on structured water started to go off the rails, per conventional wisdom.  Finally, something to criticize.

The idea is that water remembers a form it took in the past, a shape, so specific forms of stirring rearranges it, or certain mineral concentrations set up structural patterns. The basic premise is nonsense but all the same some of the steps taken to "structure" water may still be positive and useful, even if based on theory that's dead wrong.  An example:  she recommended to drink natural spring water versus treated water, and to select water based on mineral content, or treat it with minerals.  All that might work.  It's quite possible that water is healthiest if you drink it with certain minerals included, and in general we don't keep track of which are in different versions of water, or at what levels.

yeah, no (credit)

Someone might wonder, how can I be so sure that "structured water" isn't a real thing, that there couldn't be anything to it?  It violates the basics of what water or any fluid even is.  Anyone who took basic college chem classes would know better; fluids don't have molecular pattern shapes, Brownian motion or movement causes molecules in any liquid to move around quite a bit.  Not in the same sense as heat representing a level of carried energy and motion in a solid; all the molecules move in relation to position to each other.  It's not simple to look up what any one person is referring to related to that subject, which could vary, but I have ran through background review on this topic before.

Again there might be more going on than the description being wrong; in some rare cases useful conclusions could be masked by completely wrong explanations.  It seems like in most cases dissolved levels of gasses in water could be adjusted by physical manipulation that's described as giving the water structure.  In this case it's unlikely that would be helpful though, since we have another organ that's much better at taking in and removing gasses than our digestive system, in the form of our lungs.  Drinking water that's not contaminated by traces of unhealthy substances seems a much more important concern than all the rest.

I'll say more about a general impression at the end, but I liked the content, in general.  And Olga seemed genuine and nice enough, which helps.

Second speaker:  Rasayana retreat (a spa, really)

This speaker also seemed nice enough (I lost track of her name, and it's not in notices and such), and for the most part the content was clear and grounded.  Again it seems odd to specify that eating a lot of raw foods or drinking juices, or just drinking plenty of water, is really "detoxing."  You sort of expect more from the theme.  It's as if someone was going to pass on a special method to have more energy and then told you to get enough consistent sleep at night.  That would help, by the way.

The second speaker stuck mostly to some plain common sense ideas, with that bit about colonics mixed in but played down (about getting enemas).  She offered retreat services, endorsing outings based on eating healthy foods, including a lot of raw foods and juices, and getting massages, etc.

I'd skip all of it myself, given the colonics tie-in, but who knows, some people are into that.  Two of my good friends were back in the 90s, but it's my impression that the trend either came and went or never really did resonate with many.

I'm mostly cutting out a detailed account of the rest she talked about because Olga went a little further with interesting ideas.  The theme of doing a spa retreat, getting massages, eating healthy foods, and probably getting some advise about lifestyle revisions seems sound enough.  As for colonics, maybe not.  I'd rather drink that senna infusion, a powerful laxative, which I also wouldn't do; just eating more fiber and drinking more water would be fine.

Their Facebook page talks a lot more about raw foods workshops and events, really downplaying the standard spa theme (massage, etc.).  It's good they branch out and explore different directions.  My wife loves massages so we're always doing that on vacation, less so related to the Thai version where they bend you around and use pressure points, more the typical oil type.  She trained to do Thai massage--she's crazy; she learns all sorts of things she doesn't need to know, like studying Mandarin--so once in awhile she will do my forearms and hands, or touch up a "monkey fist" in my back.

about 100 photos down their FB section standard spa themes come up (credit)

Digital Detox Asia

The last section was on digital detox, putting your electronic devices away for set periods. Again that's cheating, isn't it, shifting detox to mean something so practical and common sense related as putting the phone down once in awhile?  It wasn't quite that simple.

Again an upcoming event notice (for a yoga retreat Sept. 28-30) might help lead to more on who this is and what they're about.

yoga; that's pretty the theme (different version of their next event notice)

They were selling something (they all were, really), in their case yoga retreats.  That probably would be nice, but you don't need to go on a yoga retreat to turn your phone off for a weekend.  Someone mentioned that you can still buy a "feature phone," Nokias and such.  Apparently that's going to be a new thing now, "digital detox" and buying a non-smart phone.  After that maybe getting land lines will make a comeback, or it will become fashionable to talk to people face to face, or use paper again.  Nah.

Of course the main point works.  We all intuitively know that everyone walking around like zombies staring at small screens is horrible, but it hooks you.  One of the guys recommended not checking messages until lunch. He definitely doesn't work in IT, or any corporate job.


This is where some of the ideas break down; the personal rules and standard practices should be different for a yoga instructor versus a desk bound employee.  The same applies to someone running a spa, or charging what a Bangkok English teacher might earn in a week for a two hour alternative practices health consultation.  Some of all that would relate to healthier, more natural living, to practices people should consider and adapt, and some might just relate to those people not experiencing typical daily demands.

Everyone would live a more natural, balanced life without working a 9 hour work-day with 3 hours of commuting tacked on (the standard Bangkok work-day; unfortunately not a worst case).  Add a couple showers and meals to that and you can either experience normal sleep or time to spend on whatever work-life balance you might achieve, as long as you bang that out.

Initial conclusions

On the way home I couldn't help but consider, what did I learn?  Stop eating sugar and processed food, eat raw fruits and vegetables, drink plenty of water, pay attention to the source of water, take breaks from smart phones, spend some time in nature, do yoga, and skip breakfast.  I do eat a really light breakfast, fruit and just enough starch to allow fruit and tea to digest better, and on the weekends eat breakfast later because that cycle feels more natural.  I was already ok with very limited forms of fasting.  I used to do yoga; it was good for centering for snowboarding.

I suppose it was better than I expected.  Very little actually conflicted with common sense and next to none seemed wrong.  At the short talk summary level all the next level of detail was hard to evaluate.  I suppose longer versions may have offered more details, some probably helpful and useful, and maybe some a bit out there.

They were all selling things, so the next concern might be if those things were really of good value, or if alternatives would provide better options.  Spas and yoga retreats are around.  I'm kind of skeptical of personal counseling about "progressive" health issues and approaches.  For someone on that page, why not.

It would seem easy for people with strong biases on either side to come to the other two opposing conclusions, that beyond the familiar ideas it was all nonsense best avoided, or all clearly useful, practical input that should be embraced.  Without either bias half just seemed like common sense, some interesting ideas came up, and there were only a few gaps.

Thinking it through a little more, about subculture

After giving it more thought it's probably not the right question "which parts of the subject of "detox" are real and useful?"  It's almost not about that.  That's what people are looking for in going to an event like that, on the surface, but underlying that something entirely different seems to be going on.  A story is going to help explain what I mean.


A friend in Thailand is into some of that New Age scope, but selectively so.  He's into yoga, travelling in India, "metaphysics," or at least parts of what people would consider that, and is open to all sorts of ideas that some would consider marginal (aliens are in continual contact with us; that sort of thing).  And running; that kind of fits but kind of doesn't.  I''m not sure he looks the part; his short hair could fit in anywhere, and he doesn't wear clothes that look Indian, as far as I know.  And he's not a vegan.

What difference, one might wonder, if he doesn't make the choice to not eat meat, dairy, or eggs?  According to him that's seen as a critical component of that general lifestyle in the circles he might otherwise be a part of.  To some extent he is completely excluded for that.


The deeper question beyond if detox works or not, the parts of related ideas, is what kind of social sub-group people are really trying to be a part of, and what kinds of buy-in are required for that to happen.

yoga retreats are not an uncommon theme in Thailand (photo credit)

As far as that group goes the most superficial level one could sort through just by looking around.  A lot of people's clothes did look a bit Indian, but most wouldn't stand out anywhere.  Some had evident tattoos (in that picture above a tribal tattoo would seem to work as in-group marker).  Some guys had beards, and wearing sandals fit the general look.  Most could've passed for any working Thai professional.  Doing yoga really would be central, but you can't necessarily see that in an external image.

these cultures would not overlap (credit Little Bangkok meditation group)

I'm approaching all that from a completely different perspective, considering whether I really would want to be any part of all that, not sorting out a form of participation that would be agreeable.  Given how constrained my lifestyle is for the most part it's just not an option; I spend time on kids, not other things.  Tea works as a hobby interest because I can narrow it into where it fits, or drop it for a week, beyond having the beverage with meals.

It makes me think back to what I embraced or didn't embrace when I was in my 20s, and how that played out.  I wasn't joining any groups, or following any teachers; none of it.  Then again I was a stoner into outdoor sports, doing some yoga and being a vegetarian.  Doing the occasional juice fast wasn't a lifestyle choice relating to joining any subculture; back in the 90s people just did all that.


Tea isn't part of what I was doing then (although I was into tisanes, herb teas).  I suppose some people in that event would drink tea, but it seemed to clearly not be a central theme.  Do they tend to drink vegetable juice, as we did back then?  Probably, or maybe not.

This leads to considering how much would be central as adopted practices, to joining social groups related to yoga, natural lifestyle, vegetarian diet, and so on.  What would be mandatory, and what optional?  That must vary.  One branch probably makes it mostly about religion, with others not even touching on that.  The clothing makes for an interesting consideration and marker, and tattoos.

taken far enough any subculture can seem like a caricature (credit)

All of this isn't heading towards any tidy conclusion.  As an expat (foreigner) I tend to explicitly consider how cultures and subcultures work.  Really simple themes tend not to emerge; lots of broad patterns play out in different ways.  It's interesting living in a relatively international version of a large city to have access to a higher count of those subcultures, but still I'm too busy for much exploration, and certainly for joining in.


Back to the detox idea, what it's basically about, the strength and weakness in the implied definition is that it's about anything that's bad for you.  Even something good for you, like drinking plenty of water, or getting exercise, would be bad for you in the wrong amount.  McDonald's food and potato chips make for the low hanging fruit; of course heavily processed, chemical laden foods aren't generally positive.


Back to the subject of tea (finally), millions of people in Bangkok are drinking RTD (bottled) or powdered, artificially flavored teas every day, not that far off the problematic practice of eating meals out of a 7/11.  Brewing whole-leaf teas with nothing added to them doesn't cost more; quite a bit less instead.  Those are likely to be lower in contaminants, with a potential long list of real health benefits resulting from consuming them.  That short summary raises a lot of issues that are impossible to confirm (the risks and benefits parts), but it's clearly a case of swapping out chemicals for natural food versions.

I don't talk a lot about health issues in this blog because there isn't much to say.  Tea is probably healthy, but mapping that out in detail is problematic.  Even research study evidence tends to vary, and there's a risk of biases initiated by funding for studies affecting the outcomes.  It was interesting to consider some health issues related to the event, and the detox theme, and to think through how it applies to social themes, even though I won't be changing much about my life based on that input.

focusing on that one long term project these days, raising kids