Detox Foot Patches

Many people have been curious about the benefits of detox foot patches and wondering if these seemingly easy to use patches can help them to pull toxins from the body for overall better health and enhanced well-being.

You’ve probably seen the television ads for these products.  You apply them to your feet at night, and in the morning the patch has drawn toxins from your body.  The color change in the pad is supposed to be evidence of the success of these patches.  But do detox foot patches really work?

Detox Foot Patches:  How They Work

The patches are based on the oriental belief in reflexology.  Simply put, reflexology principles hold that there are areas or zones in the feet that are linked in some way to the various organ systems of the human body.  The ingredients contained in the patch can therefore actually draw toxins from organs from within the body by drawing them from the corresponding zone in the foot.  Detox foot patches contain bamboo vinegar, wood vinegar, peppermint, eucalyptus, and Tourmaline — a Brazilian mineral that emits negative ions that work on specific acupressure points in the foot.  They’re supposed to help improve your immune system and your overall quality of sleep, in addition to removing unwanted toxins from the body.

If you enter “Detox Foot Patches” into your favorite Internet search engine you’ll find a lot of comments from actual users of the product that claim they have worked very well for them.  But from a purely logical point of view, it is difficult for the Western mind to imagine how something applied to the foot can suck out toxins from your liver.  So do they really work?

Detox Foot Patches:  the 4-1-1

The current emphasis on improving overall health is a good thing but like any need that opens up new markets for commercial products, many of these new health improvement products do not do what they claim to do.   Critics of detox foot patches feel the benefits derived by users may be a “placebo” effect.  If you believe strongly enough that something will help you – then it probably will.  Others point out that sweating is one of the body’s principal natural mechanisms for eliminating toxins and the foot patches do what they do by increasing the amount of perspiration that is released from the foot.  Further critics point out that the blackening of the patch after a night’s use is nothing more than the wood vinegar within the patch darkening through its contact with the sweaty foot.

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “patent” medicine, or the term “snake oil” salesman.  These refer to a time decades ago when bottled medicine was sold everywhere and with claims that it could cure anything.  In fact, these “patent” medicines contained laudanum, a pretty strong narcotic.  So what the medicine actually did was give you a bit of a buzz so you felt better.  You stop the medicine, the buzz goes away, and the discomfort comes back.  In the early 1900’s, it became illegal to use laudanum without a prescription.  Many feel that the snake oil salesmen of the nineteenth and early twentieth century are back with us today, capitalizing on the current health craze.  And yet, others do swear by the effectiveness of the detox foot patch.  Is there clinical evidence that points to the benefits of using a detox foot patch? Not yet – the “jury” is still out as to the exact effectiveness of these types of patches.

So are detox foot patches a twenty first century “patent” medicine?  Well, there is nothing in them that can hurt you and they have been used successfully in oriental cultures for a long time.  So there should be no harm whatsoever in giving them a try!