Undiluted detox bollocks in the Daily News

Today's Mercury (A Durban based daily rag) contains an article headed "A detox takes a lot of will-power, but it is definitely worth it" (page 8). The article rattles though a bunch of the usual bollocks, in breathlessly uncritical vein, with no evidence at all.

As scientifically minded blog readers will know, there's been a surge of recent criticism of the detox industry. Ben Goldacre has weighed in, as has David Colquhoun. This is well-deserved. The Mercury piece provoked my mate Dave to write in - here's his letter (I don't know yet whether they'll print it):

Dear Sir,

In your edition of 8 January you include an article headed "A detox takes a lot of will-power, but it is definitely worth it" (page 8). In the article you parrot a number of claims regularly made by the detox industry as though they are true. You give no evidence. In fact, you could give no evidence. No scientifically rigorous clinical trial has ever shown a measurable benefit of a "detox" regime, and the pseudoscientists who peddle them barely agree about what "detox" amounts to. Some of the purgative measures suggested are potentially dangerous. Vitamin supplementation gives either no benefit, or (again, according to clinical trials) in the case of high dosage anti-oxidant supplements can be positively harmful. Everyone should get a decent amount of exercise and eat healthily most of the time, perhaps especially after festive over-indulgence. That much is obvious. Your uncritical regurgitation of unsubstantiated pseudo-science passed of as journalism is shameful, and given that the topic is human health, dangerous.

If the letter is published and I notice, I'll post an update. It's hard to read the Mercury every day, so I might not notice. (The offending article, by the way, is cut and pasted from, according to the attribution, the Belfast Telegraph.)

*Note on the picture: As usual, I'm grabbing something that comes up high on a Google Images search for a keyword. This picture is from a gallery of frankly rather striking images at Dr Natura. Only the very strong of stomach should browse this gallery while consuming a chili dog.