Juice cleanse, The Master Cleanse….  Although fasting and liquid diets are not new ideas, they seem to have surged in popularity in recent years.  Partly due to documentaries, such as Fat, Sick, And Nearly Dead as well as all the attention towards the obesity epidemic in America, has swung focus to major health overhauls, including cleanses.  However, the debate is ongoing as to if cleanses of these types help or hinder overall health, especially when it comes to your skin.

Let’s look at the pluses first.

Drinking juices can add a boost of nutrients to your diet.  Western diets especially often lack key vitamins and minerals that drinking juice could help supplement.  Extreme cases of obesity and general ill health might benefit from following a strict “juicing” plan both as a diet, as well as used in addition to a balanced diet and weight loss plan.  This added shot of vitamins can also improve your skin health as well.  You are what you eat and your skin looks more radiant the more essential nutrients it has to work with.

If you’re new to cleanses, then you might not have heard of “The Master Cleanse.”  It entails mixing water with pure maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.  MasterCleanseSecret.com recommends you do the cleanse for at least 10 days for it to be effective, although it states that you can do it for over 30 days.  In addition to weight loss, some people have found that although initially your skin may break out quite a bit, as the cleanse goes on, they also report that your skin improves greatly and develops a radiant “glow.”

Despite these positive results, there are also some down sides to cleanses.  First and foremost to understand is that although there is nutrition in both juicing and The Master Cleanse, it is not complete nutrition and not a permanent solution in lieu of proper sustenance.  Juice and the “lemonade” mixture of The Master Cleanse have no fiber, which is essential for many bodily functions, according to the Mayo Clinic, including normalizing body functions, maintaining bowel functions, keeping blood cholesterol levels low, controlling blood sugar levels, and possibly even helps reduce colorectal cancer.   Your skin benefits from fiber’s “flushing out” of your system by keeping your sugars in check and minimizing the effects of free radicals that might otherwise linger in your system.   These cleanses also don’t include protein, one of the building blocks for repairing skin tissue.  Skin cells are replaced every 24 days, so depriving yourself of the needed amino acids from protein for too long might have adverse consequences on healthy cell turnover.

The bottom line is there is no magic bullet to good skin health.  Cleanses may be good in the short term for skin, but could backfire if done for too long or incorrectly.  Consult with your physician before you start a cleanse and go over the pros and cons.  Make sure it doesn’t conflict with your own personal health needs.   Do your research, map out a plan with your doctor, and stick to it.

Have you tried a juice cleanse or The Master Cleanse before?  What were some of the benefits?  Did you see any ill affects as well?  Let us know in the comments section.

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