Holiday season is here, more triumphantly than last year, but still more timidly than usual. Regardless, even though I won’t go to 5 parties in a row and show off my fashionably hideous festive jumper, I will still loosen my health protocols, drink more negronis than I should, eat more Melomakarona that I should (Greek sweet pastries – I don’t do mince pies) and give up my plant-based diet for a crispy turkey to avoid irrelevant debates with my mum. In other words, more toxins in my body. Like all other macro-wellness things, I started digging into detoxification protocols that are proactive and preventative. I came across zeolites, geochemical materials occurring in nature, with therapeutic properties everyone should know of.
Zeolites are porous minerals with high absorbency and ion-exchange capacity. In plain English, minerals that have the ability to absorb and filter substances. For the curious ones, they come from volcanic rocks with the right conditions of temperature and pressure. Mother nature in full force! Most of the clinical studies have focused on the naturally occurring zeolite clinoptilolite (ZC). ZC is a safe (not all zeolites are safe) and excellent detoxifying, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. Triple skills (or triple threat as they say in the world of musical theatre, but I guess ‘threat’ is not an appropriate word in this context):
- Detoxifying: it binds to toxic substances such as ammonia (release in the our bodies when eating too much protein, like most West diets) or heavy metals facilitating filtering of those through of system
- Antioxidant: it co-activates antioxidant enzymes, modulating the oxidation-reduction status of our bodies,which is an important regulator of many functions in our bodies
- Anti-inflammatory: it modulates correct inflammatory responses through our gut and mucus
This exceptional therapeutic performance is enhanced by ‘micronization’, a process that breaks down the ZC into small parts accentuating its detoxifying characteristics. So, when shopping around for supplements look for the technology of TMAZ or PMA-ZC (basically the initials from the specific process). It is thought that the general state of well-being generated by ZC, and in particular by TMAZ and PMA-ZC, is due to its detoxifying, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant action in the gut. Science-enhanced gut health!
Bring on the festive toxins!
CAVEAT: this article is informative in nature and should not replace medical advice. You should always consult with your medical doctor before taking supplements.
Meta-studies:
Macro-Wellness 