If you watch infomercials, then chances are you have seen the commercial which talk about detox foot pads.  The claim is that if you apply a patch to your foot, then it will draw out the toxins, including the heavy metals from your body.  The proof that it works is the messy looking junk on the pad after you wear it a couple hours.  But does it work?  Are detox foot patches all that they claim to be?  And if they aren't, where is the dirt coming from?  In this hub, I am going to investigate why detox foot pads may not be all that what it claims.  And I am going to use biology 101 to try to make my point.

The idea of detoxifying via the feet has been around for years....possibly decades. It gets its origin from reflexology and the foot pads are made to appeal to the mysteries of ancient oriental and eastern medicine. The ingrediants for most of these pads all enhance the mystique with bamboo and wood vinegar and an ingredient called Tourmaline, which is a precious metal that does absolutely nothing from a scientific view.

So what happens when you combine the two vinegars and the Tourmaline stone?  Does it become a magnet for toxins?  Here is how they claim the foot pad will work....

• The Tourmaline stone supposedly releases negative ions.
• The Wood Vinegar is supposed to draw the toxins out of the body and onto the detox foot patch.
• The Bamboo Vinegar is also supposed to aid the wood vinegar in pulling the toxins out of your body.

According to theads, simply applying the foot patches will release all sorts of toxins from your body and it will draw these out onto the foot pads. And according to the makers of these patches, the proof is in the pudding. After all, once you pull the pad off, you will see all sorts of dark muck that was absorbed from your skin, right?

So, you take a gullible American and make them believe that without one of these foot patches, you won't be able to properly detox and combine it with the mysteriousness of eastern medicine and you have a product that many will buy and believe in.

The reality is that there is not one reputable doctor OR biologist that will agree with the claims that these detox patches make.  In fact, biology can't support it all.....

So, can you release toxins from your feet?  And if so, why couldn't you just place a detox patch anywhere on your body?  What is so special about the feet?  Well, according to eastern medicine and reflexology, the foot is the portal to all the organs in the body.  The thinking behind this is that if you have toxins in say your liver, then if you believe in reflexology, it is normal to think that you could manipulate or improve liver function simply by using methods on your foot.  Using this a backdrop, it is only a step away to rationalizing that if that is the case, the toxins could come out of your body in your feet.

But is it possible for toxins to exit through the skin cells?  The reality is that we do emit certain things from our skin (if it didn't, our sweat wouldn't be salty)  But understand our skin isn't porous enough to emit toxic substances such as heavy metals.  The reality is our systems are designed to handle toxins and to filter them from the blood and expel them via urine.

So saying all of this, you may be wondering why a foot pad left on overnight would show any color at all.  Remember, the stuff you are seeing on the foot patch are supposed to be harmful toxins, right?

Well, there may be an explanation to this that has nothing at all to do with releasing toxins.  One of the ingredients..the wood vinegar is actually brown in its liquid state.  But on the detox foot patch, it is dried and ground up.  When you place the foot pad on your foot and leave it on overnight, your feet should sweat a little.  What this will do is liquify the wood vinegar and return it to its dull brown state...which in turn will give the pad its ugly brown color that would make people think that they are indeed detoxing....

So now you now....

Now that we have debunked the myth (hopefully) about the detox foot pads, what are your other options? The good news is that there are plenty but they involve more work than simply slapping a patch on your foot.  There are plenty of detox solutions that include 3 day juice fasts, or a master cleanser among other things.  Most of these other ways are effective because you are basically giving your body a break and since you aren't eating (which digestion uses up a lot of resources), you body can focus cleaning your system out.