Poisoning due to improper detoxification

Polluted environment, unsafe food, indiscriminate use of drugs without doctor's prescription... cause people to unintentionally or intentionally cause many effects on health, even poisoning the body.

Associate Professor, Dr. Trinh Thi Ngoc - Former Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases, Bach Mai Hospital said that each person and each case of poisoning has a suitable and scientific way of handling it.

Improper detoxification has unpredictable consequences

Associate Professor, Dr. Trinh Thi Ngoc said that humans can be poisoned by many factors from the environment, air, food, or the use of drugs to treat diseases that are also toxic to the body. Besides, there is another cause which is the endogenous cause, when too much poison enters the body and accumulates in the liver, causing the liver to not be able to detoxify and also secrete substances that are toxic to the body.

There are many types of poisoning such as drug, alcohol, poisonous mushrooms or chemicals poisoning, which are often acute and severe poisoning that will cause multiple organ failure. To save the patient's life, doctors often have to perform many emergency measures such as intestinal lavage, blood filtration... Compared to acute poisoning, chronic poisoning is more difficult to detect because the symptoms of the disease are very silent, such as the patient only feels tired, has no appetite, has a stomachache, has insomnia...

Currently on the internet and social networking forums, there is a lot of advertising and propaganda about body detoxification such as fasting, drinking fruit juice… which is extremely dangerous and unscientific.

MSc. Le Thi Hai, former Director of the National Nutrition Center, explains that fasting can cause dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and the body's compensation mechanism, depleting nutrients and affecting many functions of the body. Or when we only drink lemon juice or fruit juice to purify the body and detoxify, if we drink it when hungry and for a long time, there is a risk of stomach ulcers...

Therefore, incorrect and unscientific detoxification methods not only fail to eliminate toxins but also bring unpredictable consequences to health.

Recently, many websites have also promoted ways to detoxify to prevent cancer. Associate Professor Ngoc said that there is no absolute way to detoxify to prevent all types of cancer, because cancer has many causes, and many different organs are at risk of cancer. Regarding the liver alone, hepatitis B and C viruses are the leading causes of liver cancer.

To prevent cancer, we must rely on the cause of cancer. Currently, there are some detoxifying drugs to prevent the cancer from progressing faster. For liver diseases, there are liver detoxifying drugs, but they need a doctor's prescription.

How to deal with poisoning

Associate Professor Trinh Thi Ngoc believes that there are many ways to detoxify patients, depending on the case of acute or chronic poisoning to have appropriate treatment. With acute poisoning as mentioned above, the patient is poisoned by eating contaminated food, or by drinking alcohol, which can cause vomiting. If the case is severe, the patient must be taken to the emergency room at a medical facility. At medical facilities, doctors can perform emergency measures such as gastric lavage, intravenous fluids, blood filtration, etc.

At home, when someone is poisoned, the simplest measures that can be taken to give first aid to the patient are to induce vomiting, drink water or lemon and ginger water for those who are drunk, which can lead to alcohol poisoning. Drinking water or fruit juice is also a way to help eliminate toxins from the body, protecting the liver from the effects of alcohol. In the body, there are many organs that have the function of eliminating toxins from the body such as the skin, kidneys, lungs, liver... in which the liver is the most important organ, it is considered a "chemical factory" that eliminates toxic substances from the body. Therefore, protecting the liver is protecting the organ that processes toxic substances entering the body.

In addition to protecting the liver, scientists have also discovered a substance called glutathione - a very good antioxidant for cells. Glutathione is known as the body's strongest antioxidant, but from the age of 25 onwards, glutathione in our body decreases, making people susceptible to disease. At that time, we need to supplement glutathione for the body.

Associate Professor Ngoc said that there are many detoxification methods depending on the condition of the disease and the body of each person. The important thing is to eliminate the causes of poisoning, or if unfortunately poisoned, it is necessary to determine the cause to have appropriate treatment. Mild cases can be treated at home, severe cases require the patient to see a doctor for timely emergency treatment.

The best, simplest and most effective way to detoxify is to eat well, practice good hygiene, exercise, maybe do yoga, and apply dual detoxification measures for the liver and cell detoxification, Associate Professor Ngoc advised.

According to Infonet