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Comment by baccheion | Hacker News Reader

The most shocking thing (when I fasted for 5 days) occurred when I broke the fast. I broke it with 4 ounces of liquid (50% watermelon (straight from the fruit) + 50% water), only to have it come right back out 15-30 minutes later-- just as red as it was when it went it. It was mind boggling. I suppose I had gone my entire life thinking what comes out was always supposed to be brown, but when I looked in the toilet, all I saw was red. I couldn't believe it.

Also, I'm not dead. And lucky enough for me, I wasn't very toxic, so I easily went 5 days on nothing but water.

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You weren't very toxic?

I didn't have a lot of toxins stored in my fat cells, as I was reasonably healthy prior to the fast. Some people have a lot of "bad stuff" which will enter their bloodstream when their body breaks down adipose for fuel. They tend to be better served by starting with a juice fast, then building up to a full on water fast. It's easy to tell if you're among them, as you'll have severe "detox" symptoms a day or two into the fast. The proper reaction to such an experience is to wind the fast down, or transition to a juice fast (all things you should read about and be aware of before you begin).

> Some people have a lot of "bad stuff" which will enter their bloodstream when their body breaks down adipose for fuel. [...] you'll have severe "detox" symptoms a day or two into the fast.

Your body doesn't work that way. "Detoxing diets" are pure superstition – which toxins are those supposed to be anyway?

From [1]: "The 'toxins' usually remain undefined, with little to no evidence of toxic accumulation in the patient." This fits your claims perfectly...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detoxification_(alternative_me...

"Toxicological Function of Adipose Tissue: Focus on Persistent Organic Pollutants"

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/121/2/ehp.120548...

"The studies discussed here indicate that AT (Adipose tissue) plays a central role in POP (persistent organic pollutants) toxicology. This role is complex and may seem paradoxical. Indeed, there is evidence that AT is protective under conditions of acute or subacute exposure to POPs. Storage in the lipid droplets has a buffering effect and prevents the persistence of high blood levels of these POPs and also prevents high POP exposure of other more sensitive lipophilic tissues such as the brain."

It is very annoying when people dismiss anything sounding vaguely like "alternative therapy" out of fear of quackery. I remember reading a comment on Reddit where someone denied there the body ever contains any toxins... apparently they were not familiar that the liver and kidneys have a purpose.

Nobody (well, nearly nobody) denies that the body contains toxic substances. The disputed claim is that various fasting methods will remove those toxins, for which there is no evidence (in typical "alternative therapy" fashion). Of course, this doesn't mean that fasting can't have other health benefits.

Want to help your body shed toxins? Drink some water, and your kidneys will get rid of them. The view that fasting will flush them out of your system appears to be wrong, though.

Do you have any evidence that drinking more water alone without weight loss will remove the toxins from the adipose tissue that have accumulated over the years? I'm interested in learning how that works in more detail.

I didn't say anything about toxins in adipose tissue.

I didn't even go into this. When the body is in the fasted state, it begins burning up whatever it can find (in priority order-- oldest/crappiest tissues first) to fuel its processes. This includes adipose tissue. In the process of breaking down this fat, stored/trapped toxins may end up released into the bloodstream.

Is this something that can be spun around to the point that it can be claimed water fasting results in detox? I don't know, but I suppose there is all around healing and rejuvenation during this time.

It's also good to give the body a rest from constant digestion, so it can see to other things, and as cravings are reset during the fast, it's an easy transition (afterward) to whatever diet you actually want to follow.

There are many things that detox the body (liposomal vitamin C (liposomal mainly due to the high dosages needed), liposomal glutathione, ashitaba, chlorophyll, Centrophenoxine, magnesium oil spray or magnesium lotion, mercury chelators like spirulina (unless you have amalgam fillings), etc).

In our pharmaceutical-run health system, "no evidence" often equates to "since this thing is not patentable, no company has paid for expensive FDA-approved testing of it". That's not the same as no evidence.

POPs are an entirely different type of "toxins" than the ones homeopaths talk about.

You didn't consume anything but water for five consecutive days?

I also don't undertake what you mean by, "I wasn't very toxic."

Yea. It was fairly uneventful. The first day or two I was hungry, but it was mild. Perhaps it was easy, as my eating habits left me naturally in intermittent fasting mode (I'd eat lunch at 1pm, dinner at 8pm, then nothing else).

Do you find that you drink more water to try and "stifle" the hunger?

Huh? I've been hungry before, so it wasn't too overwhelming. I just layed around, surfed the web, etc. It was fairly straightforward, familiar, and easy to ignore. As the days went on, the hunger went away, and my desire to drink water went down as well. I had to remind myself to continue consuming water (but then not too much, as that would be bad as well).

> You didn't consume anything but water for five consecutive days?

Unpleasant at first but not dangerous to healthy individuals. As someone pointed out: if we wasn't capable of doing that we would likely have been extinct long ago.

TIL. I am not very knowledgable about the human limits of consumption, so this was pretty surprising to me.

I guess most of us will like to inform a close friend or significant other anyway :-)

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