The Most Popular Types of Detoxes and Cleanses and What to Know Before Trying Them

The begin­ning of a new year seems like the ide­al time to hit reset on a lot of things in your life, espe­cial­ly — after all that hol­i­day indulging — your diet. And pro­grams that claim to help you do just that through a “detox” or “cleans­ing” reg­i­men remain pop­u­lar, despite a marked lack of evi­dence that they actu­al­ly work.

“The term ‘detox’ is chicer than ‘diet’ right now,” says Brigitte Zeitlin, RD, own­er of BZ Nutri­tion in New York City. “It kind of implies a short­er-term solu­tion, and quick results.”

Most plans are ground­ed in the idea that flush­ing tox­ins out of your sys­tem, often through a liq­uid-only diet with plen­ty of water, and giv­ing your diges­tive sys­tem a break from its reg­u­lar role, can bring about mirac­u­lous results, from weight loss to more ener­gy to glow­ing skin. The only prob­lem, experts say: There is zero evi­dence to sup­port any of that.

What Are Detoxes and Cleanses, and How Did They Get So Popular?

The mod­ern detox move­ment grew out of large­ly natur­o­path­ic ori­gins. After all, until the last decade or so, detox­ing was med­ical jar­gon for treat­ing seri­ous con­di­tions, such as alco­hol poi­son­ing or kid­ney fail­ure. But in home­o­path­ic cir­cles, the idea of puri­fy­ing the body and flush­ing out tox­ins took root and grew along­side the move­ment to “eat clean.”

Most cleans­es claim that unspec­i­fied tox­ins — from nonor­gan­ic foods, envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion, and oth­er chem­i­cal con­t­a­m­i­nants — are wreak­ing hav­oc on our bod­ies, tax­ing our diges­tive sys­tems, and lead­ing to weight gain and seri­ous ail­ments. They promise to cure these ills by a des­ig­nat­ed peri­od of fast­ing or restrict­ing sol­id foods or cer­tain kinds of foods (alco­hol, sug­ar, gluten, or dairy), often sup­ple­ment­ing juices or oth­er drinks as a source of vit­a­mins and min­i­mal calo­ries. Drink­ing lots of water is also a key com­po­nent in many pop­u­lar cleans­es and detoxes.

The terms “detox” and “cleanse” are most­ly used inter­change­ably, and most plans fall into one of three major cat­e­gories: those that replace sol­id food with liq­uid sus­te­nance (juices, smooth­ies, or soups, some­times with herbal sup­ple­ments thrown in); those that claim to sup­port your body’s nat­ur­al detox­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tems by sup­ply­ing nutri­ents that boost liv­er and kid­ney func­tion; and those that focus on cleans­ing your diges­tive sys­tem from the oppo­site end, the colon.