What is true in that advice repeated ad nauseam, defended by various food “gurus” and influencers of healthy food, among others, who say that drinking warm water with lemon juice on an empty stomach detoxifies the body ? Is it that our body is not able to expel toxins on its own? We have asked two nutrition experts to answer this question. As soon as you step out of bed, do you drink your glass of warm water with lemon? Keep reading…
To begin with, we have to talk about toxins and how the body manages to eliminate them. On a daily basis we ingest them to a lesser or greater extent and our body also manufactures and eliminates them using different mechanisms. The kidneys are responsible for eliminating toxic substances present in the blood through the urine and the liver acts as a filter , metabolizing, for example, drugs, for their subsequent elimination. With sweat we expel toxins through the skin and thanks to the feces we get rid of waste that we do not need.
Luis Jiménez, chemist and science communicator, author of the blog What science says to lose weight is blunt: “ The concept of” detoxifying “the body by eating things has no scientific basis . This type of advice possibly comes from dubious remedies with laxative effects that seek to compensate for excesses and that have never been proven to be of any use. Our body is constantly eliminating wastes that are the consequence of countless biochemical processes and it does so through multiple mechanisms, such as the liver, kidneys or lungs. Drinking water with lemon does not modify these mechanisms ”.
Marian Alonso-Cortés is a dietician – nutritionist, food technologist and head of the technical department at Aizea, Consultoría en Nutrición y Salud. Rather, the expert recommends not getting excessively intoxicated (eating and drinking unhealthy foods and liquids) so that the body is able to eliminate toxins and believes that the detox phenomenon has no empirical basis. Lemon has antioxidant properties, helps in the absorption of iron, in the production of collagen … but from there to eliminate toxins there is a world. The specialist points more to water as an assistant to generate sweat and urine and thus convey toxins to the outside.
Alonso-Cortés makes an important point about lemon and it is that there are those who feel sick to the stomach due to the excessive acidity that causes them to take it on an empty stomach. If this is your case, the dietitian-nutritionist advises you to stop drinking this concoction but if you like to do it, because of the taste or as a way to hydrate yourself as soon as you get up, go ahead. Of course, forget about the “detox effect” because neither there is nor is expected.
And once you know the truth about the glass of lukewarm water with lemon … Are you going to continue drinking it or are you going to drink a glass of plain and ground water?
