Why Malta Might Need To Chill With All The Detox Diets
Much like the rest of the world, most of our resolutions centre around health and fitness. We all want to be a slightly better version of ourselves if possible, and with the ushering of the new year, those grand ideas of self-improvement are very likely to go on overdrive. After all, Christmas and New Year’s Lunch are pretty darn heavy.
Enter the radical new year detox.
But just because it sounds like a great start to a newer, better you, doesn’t mean it’s the most healthy way to go. BBC News kicked the year off by reporting a warning issued through British Medical Journal Case Reports against focusing too much on herbal remedies and drinking too much water.
Quoting a case of a woman who ended up critically ill and needing intensive hospital care after embarking on a strict regiment of alternative remedies, the BMJ have used this opportunity to remind everyone of the potential danger of drastic detoxing.
Put simply – the commonest byproduct of a diet consisting mainly of herbal remedies and herbal cocktails is a worryingly low level of salt (sodium) in your body. In a country like Malta where the sun shines bright and the cold hits hard, finding yourself in this situation can be devastating.
And with the current resurgence in “complementary medicine” and a desperate attempt to live a healthier lifestyle at all costs, getting too caught up in what you may think is a healthy revolution can horribly backfire.
According to these latest reports, even drinking lots of water can end up being quite harmful. As a British Dietetic Association puts it, “there are no pills or specific drinks, patches or lotions that can do a magic job. The body has numerous organs that continually ‘detoxify’ the body from head to toe.”
In other words, like everything in the world, employ a strong sense of sensibility. A balanced diet with regular physical activity is more than enough, and with all the different and fun ways to work out in 2017, we really have no excuses!
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