Funky Feet: The colored detritus from a foot detox bath indicated the writer’s thin and fit friend had fat issues; science says the water turns murky even without feet.
Footbath of the Future
A skeptical novice tries out an ionic tootsie detox.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
I embark on my first foot detox with a friend visiting from New York. Her aunt, a Carmel Highlands local, swears she gets the best sleep of her life after ionic footbaths. We’re sold: As college students, we covet our sleep.
The Flowing Waters Wellness Center’s website describes the ionic (also called “ionized”) footbath as “a fast, effective and non-invasive way of stimulating and balancing bio-energetic fields of the body, facilitating better organ function and auto-detoxification.” In short, feet go in an ionic bath and bad stuff comes out the porous soles.
Lisa McCardle, owner of Flowing Waters Wellness Center, offers the baths in conjunction with treatments such as colon hydrotherapy and reflexology.
“I work with people who run the spectrum,” she says. “People who are looking to detoxify, get aligned with their health and well-being, to people working through extreme illness and choosing to do so in a holistic manner.”
The footbath area at Flowing Waters fits two, so my friend and I sit in adjacent chairs and put our feet in white plastic tubs lined with plastic bags and filled with tepid salt water. McCardle places a coil, hooked up to a machine with digital readouts, in each tub.
A second set of cords winds out from the machine and attaches to elastic bands that press pieces of metal to our wrists. “The wristband monitors the amperage of ions moving through the body,” McCardle explains. “It’s a precautionary system. When the amperage is too high, the equipment sets itself off.”
My band keeps making the machine beep, but the current is already on the lowest setting, so McCardle gives me a glass of water in hopes the additional hydration will dilute the concentration of ions in my body. The beeping stops, but I convince myself I can feel the current pulsing through me.
McCardle says the detoxification processes underway in our 30-minute session will continue for another 24 hours. She recommends spacing footbaths by at least two days to allow the body time to purge itself.
It’s an intense concept, but the process feels pretty relaxing. Throughout the session, the water changes color while, according to McCardle, the toxins are pulled from our feet through osmosis. She says the foreign matter is being removed from the kidney, bladder, liver, gallbladder, lymph nodes and digestive system. The extracted toxins appear as sediment.
At the end of the detox, my footbath water is a murky greenish-brown with bubbles and black flecks. According to the footbath-decoder chart, the dark green means the toxins came from my gallbladder, digestive system and inflammation. The bubbles indicate digestive system, immune system and lymphatic toxins, and the black flecks are from heavy metal and blood sugar.
I’m wavering between belief and skepticism: I have an ironclad immune system, but I do have slight hypoglycemia, and that’s related to blood sugar.
My friend’s foot broth leaves us similarly conflicted. The orange-brown color indicates joint and muscles toxins – she is always spraining her ankle – but the oily film, allegedly from fats and triglycerides, is suspect when applied to my long and lean friend.
A 2012 study published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health offers more reason for doubt. To test claims that ionic footbaths eliminate toxins from the body, scientists analyzed footbath water samples after 30-minute sessions both with and without feet. They also tested urine and hair samples from study participants.
They found the water turned gunky even when the machines ran with no feet in them. Science can explain that: The direct current and salt in the water corrode the stainless-steel machine parts, depositing metal elements in the water. Hair and urine samples backed up the idea that the footbath sessions didn’t reduce anyone’s bodily toxins.
The report cites a different study by the Center for Research Strategies that did find a reduction of arsenic and aluminum in the bloodstream after 12 ionic footbath sessions, though no changes in lead, mercury or cadmium levels. That study, however, was reportedly sponsored by IonCleanse, a footbath manufacturer, so there’s potential for bias.
Here’s what I can report with no ambiguity: After the session, my feet tingle and feel almost uncomfortably clean. And that night, I sleep like a baby.
Kera Abraham contributed to this report.
FLOWING WATERS WELLNESS CENTER offers ionic footbaths for $30 per 30-minute session and discounted multi-session packages at 1011 Cass St., Suite 203, Monterey. 333-0409, www.flowingwaterswellness.com
Comments
Despite what's implied in this and your other recent kook articles, it does matter whether the product you pay your hard-earned money for is safe and actually does what it's claimed to do.
It's unethical to take money while claiming to do something that you can't. It's unethical to sell something you haven't adequately researched to be sure what you say about it is true. It's unethical to continue to sell it once it's been clearly pointed out that your claims are false, especially when there is overwhelming scientific evidence against and none for your claims. It's unethical for journalists to put an innocuous happy face on unethical behavior.
Ionic foot baths do not do what their vendors claim. The writer here points to one or two studies, but there are many more; it's abundantly clear that the claims are nonsense. The concepts involved in bio-energy fields and body toxins are absurd, unproven, unmeasurable, and without rational or logical basis.
You could have asked so many questions that would have revealed the ignorance behind all this. What are the names of these toxins, specifically? What is their source? How are they detected or measured? HOw are the bio fields detected and measured? What's the rationale behind them manifesting as a particular color? Why are the colors different? How did you determine that a color relates to a particular organ? Where's the data? Where's the science? Who's done the testing, the measuring, the analysis?
The answer is, of course, no one. There is no data to back any of this up, but plenty that refutes it.
In the past life regression article, the writer asked at the end whether it really even mattered if it was true.
Of course it matters. So, each of you got a good night's sleep. Do you think there might be other ways to get a good night's sleep that is free, or less expensive, more effective, and doesn't involve idiotic nonsense or unethical behavior? Is it OK for someone to accept your cash under false pretenses? Is it OK to promote that kind of activity in your paper or to end these kook articles with the usual happy idiot final paragraph that basically says nothing beyond, "well gee it uh felt good or tasted special or was fun or didn't kill me so i guess it's uh kinda ok then but you make up your own mind duh yippee"
You have many interesting articles about fascinating local people. Why not do more of them? Why continue to waste time with this crap? Why not try something different from celebration of ignorance? Take a stand; support ethical journalism and ethical people that actually contribute something of demonstrable value to our community.
Support science and critical thinking over ancient, magical thinking. The future can be brighter than the past. You can be a force that quickens our progress, or a anchor slowing us down.
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