Toxins and Oil Pulling

[kybearfuzz]

On my car ride to work and to home, I tend to listen to podcasts than the radio. One of the ones I listen to regularly is "What's the Tee" with RuPaul and Michelle Visage. Usually, I find myself very entertained by their antics and their guests, but during one of the shows, I find that Michelle is all about "organic" foods and dealing with "toxins." She chastises RuPaul for drinking tap water because it contains antibiotics, fluoride, etc.

Normally, I find her to be a very motherly person who preaches advice from her good and bad experiences in the entertainment industry, but when she starts on these rants, I can't help but think she's an idiot.

She's not alone. There are a lot of people who fall into this line of thinking when it comes to holistic health approaches. The word "organic" annoys me as food by definition is organic in nature. However, this "organic" refers to their growth without antibiotics, pesticides, etc. And "toxins" has grown to become this spooky catch-all for all things that make you feel bad. I have found that "toxins" are never adequately defined anywhere when someone tells you to do this procedure or eat this ground paste of flax-seed, organic olive oil, garlic, and dried salt from the Dead Sea processed by a virgin Indian woman while under a full moon.

In the episode where she gigs RuPaul for drinking tap water (which is tested regularly I might add), Visage describes her "oil pulling" regimen. This is her morning ritual. She puts a tablespoon of organic, unrefined coconut oil in her mouth, lets it melt, then swishes it through her teeth and gums for 20 minutes. She then spits it out into the garbage. She claims this removes toxins from her body by capturing them through her gums while she swishes it around.

Personally, I would love to see a study to determine what toxins this pulled oil removed from a person. My guess is that it would contain coconut oil, digested by-products of coconut oil, and whatever enzymatic elements are typically found in human saliva. It might actually help remove plaque by its physical action, but that's probably it.

I think people would feel better if they just ate healthy and worked out regularly. And you can save 20 minutes every morning by not having to pull oil through your teeth.

Comments

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Worse even than the abuse of "organic" and "toxin" is the notion that "chemicals" are dangerous and unnatural. As opposed to being, y'know, MATTER.

But! On the oil-pulling front, seeing the phrase reminded me that I actually have seen a peer-reviewed study about it in the scientific literature. I have no idea how or where I ran across it in the first place, but Google Scholar came to my rescue. Behold!

http://www.ijdr.in/article.asp?aulast=Asokan&epage=51&issn=0970-9290&issue=1&spage=47&volume=20&year=2009

Oil-pulling doesn't pull toxins out of your blood (and the paper even says that's impossible), but apparently it works as well as chlorhexidine mouthwash for fighting plaque and gingivitis. So I guess it's not total woo.

Although, come to think of it, they use sesame oil in the study, and speculate that the unknown mechanism of action may involve the unsaponifiable lignans sesamin and sesamolin, so Visage may be undermining the technique by using coconut oil...

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the effect for fighting plaque and gingivitis isn't just the physical action of the pulling. The "pulling" is done for 10-20 minutes per the study, which is a lot of agitation that could be removing bacteria and particulates through the act of flushing.

And why wouldn't you just use the chlorhexidine mouthwash, I wonder? You only have to swish it around for a minute to get the same effect.

And coconut oil was just Visage's preference as she likes the taste.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, that it probably is mostly the mechanical agitation, and it's just that sesame oil has good properties for standing up to 20 minutes of agitation in the mouth environment. I think they said it could be preferable for reasons of cost, taste, and if you're allergic. (And cultural reasons, obvs.) So I think they just wanted to establish whether it's a viable alternative.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

For one thing, some people can't tolerate chlorhexidine; I was prescribed Peridex once, and it gave me hives all over the inside of my mouth... not pleasant. (And it wasn't likely another component, because later I forgot and used Hibiclens on an abrasion and wound up with - you guessed it - hives all over that area.)

[mort-83.livejournal.com]

I like the taste of coconut oil, but sweet honey mustard, I'd hurl if I had to swish it around for 20 minutes. Not to mention be bored out of my freaking mind.

I recall reading about the whole oil-pulling thing--and coconut oil for general oral hygiene. I think one hypothesis is that coconut oil has a lot of short-chain fatty acids that are toxic to some species of oral bacteria, and in particular, the one that is chiefly responsible for caries. Other than that....not sure you'll dislodge much by way of plaque there.

I had to listen to a guy at a pool party this past summer go on about his Rieki healing business and his long-distance "channeling" therapy that he does for clients. Apparently, woo can work over long distances. I could take it it anymore and had to distance myself from the guy. My brain was about to explode.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

"Long-distance 'channeling' therapy"???

Wow, I feel bad for the idiots for fall for that $#!+...

[mort-83.livejournal.com]

Apparently there are a lot of idiots, as he told me that he's got enough clients to keep himself busy. I had to think how much he's fleecing them, but he's not a con, he really believes that crap.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Ugh. In a way, that's even worse. That means he puts real enthusiasm into selling it. If he believes, they believe.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, you can answer this for me ... I had never heard of Michelle Visage prior to "RuPaul's Drag Race". What is she supposed to have done in the entertainment industry?

[mat-t.livejournal.com]

Aside from being Ru's friend, she was part of a girl group in the 80's that had a hit song or two.

[ricksf.livejournal.com]

After a career in the water industry with water quality being a specialty, I get a laugh out of self proclaimed experts who embrace half truths and an impressive lack of knowledge which supports their decision to follow one crackpot idea or another.

The reality is that pure water is toxic... if you were to drink too much. Beer is more toxic, but I don't see beer sales dropping anytime soon. Every unsullied mountain stream has something in it. Should we not drink from it? Bah!

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

My BA is in biochemistry, so this kind of utter nonsense drives me batty. The hysterical crap about "chemicals" is where the "dihydrogen monoxide" gag came from - and I've seen people ignorant enough to fall for it.

We eat "toxins" all the time - plants evolved them as ways to resist disease and insects; that's what various features of our digestion and the fact we have a liver are for.

The thing is, there are kernels of reasonability here and there - over-use of antibiotics is a huge problem and there is research that shows the gut biome is even more important to health than we'd previously realized ... but there aren't any antibiotics in tap water. IMO, the routine feeding of antibiotics to animals raised for meat should be completely banned - not because of any residues in the meat, but because it RUINS antibiotics for treating illnesses - both human and veterinary! When Cipro was first introduced, it was a silver bullet for salmonella - a virtually sure cure. Then they started feeding it to farm animals and what do you know - shortly thereafter, Cipro-resistant salmonella was discovered. [headdesk]

[guywithmonsters.livejournal.com]

I rolled my eyes with the oil pulling too. The podcast is entertaining that totally triggered my "show me the science" reflex.