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Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Heel thyself? Naturopaths aren't in agreement about the power of ionic foot detox baths, but there's no denying they soothe your sole

Tue Jan 15 2008

By Carolin Vesely

TEN minutes into my ionic foot detox bath, I stare down past my rolled-up pant legs into a tub of warm liquid that's starting to look like it came from a holding tank at one of Winnipeg's sewage treatment plants rather than from the water faucet at Natural Essentials holistic health centre. At the end of the 40-minute treatment, my crimson pedicure is no longer visible beneath the thickening foam.

As Free Press photographer Ken Gigliotti snaps away at the greenish-brown sludge swirling around my ankles, I'm suddenly reminded of a '90s country tune by Deana : Did I Shave My Legs for This?

The more pertinent question, of course, is: What's with all the goop? I mean, I may have overindulged a bit during the holidays, but this is rather embarrassing.

As I scrub off my scum anklets, Cath Szachury gives me a colour-coded breakdown on what the Bio-Cleanse System, one of River Essential's two ion detoxification machines, pulled out of my system -- through the soles of my feet, no less.

"Basically, you've tapped all the organs that were ready to release toxins," she explains. "The water is a medium green, which would indicate gall bladder, as does the oil slick that was near your right foot."

The darker green, almost black, residue on the sides of the plastic indicates detoxification deep into the liver, Szachury continues. Orange is related to tissue and joints. The white mucous-like bubbles that erupted around the machine's submerged module suggest too much yeast.

Then she shows me the sediment left on the bottom of the bucket I used to wash my feet.

"Those large black flakes are the heavy metals." (Note to self: Cut back on tuna and get amalgam fillings replaced.)

I leave the cosy Osborne Village clinic with the same mix of disgust and satisfaction I feel when I use a steam cleaner on my carpets.

And I wonder: are ionic foot baths just another health kick, or did I just awaken to the detoxification slacker's dream?

No diet of brown rice and steamed veggies, no gobbling handfuls of herbs and guzzling gallons of water, no dry brushing your skin raw. Just stick your feet in a tub of warm, sea-salted water, then sit back and let the machine do its job.

Here's the theory: The unit that goes into the tub, called an array, emits a mild electrical current (you'll feel a tingle) that triggers an ionic exchange between your feet and the water. The salt increases the water's conductivity. The ions enter your body through the 4,000 or so pores on the soles of your feet and attach themselves to heavy metals and other impurities. The ions stimulate your body's cells, the theory goes, so they release the toxins back into the water -- again, via your sweat glands.

Essentially, it's dialysis through your feet. Or, as the Bio-Cleanse website puts it, "sweating in water."

Proponents of the ionic foot bath credit it with relieving a plethora of physical conditions -- everything from puffy eyes and sinusitis to arthritis, headaches, fatigue and liver and kidney disorders.

lie Loeppke had her first foot detox bath at a wellness expo last May.

"The hand stiffness I'd been experiencing every morning eased up following that demo, so I decided to give it a try," says the former nurse following her 14th treatment at River Essentials.

It took about nine sessions until she noticed a marked change in the consistency of the water. (Her tub of goop was definitely paler in colour and less sludgy than mine.)

"Now I see it as a maintenance thing," Loeppke says of her monthly treatments. "It's like a car -- you can either drive it into the ground or have it checked and maintained."

Christy Kim, who runs four foot detox machines at her Face Up Salon on St. 's Road, says her clients have seen "tremendous results," particularly with lymphatic, sinus and joint problems.

"Men have lowered their PSA (prostate specific antigen) levels by two to three points," she says. "I've had clients who have amazed their doctors by lowering their cholesterol levels."

Others have their doubts.

'I've gone to medical conferences and I've seen doctors buying these things, but I haven't been convinced yet," says Conyette, a Winnipeg naturopath, acupuncturist and former clinical chemist who runs Canadian Biologics Naturopathic Medical Clinic, which also has a branch in .

"Not all toxins are going to be able to leave the body through the feet. The body is a much, much more complicated system than that.

"There are some toxins that can only escape the body as gases. Some have to escape through sweat, or, if they're water soluble, as urine. If they're not water soluble, they're going to be excreted through bowel movements."

Simply soaking my feet in a basin of hot water with Epsom salts and essential oils, then scrubbing them with a loofah sponge, Conyette says, would have achieved the same results as the ionic bath -- about half a teaspoon of dead skin cells.

But what about the cheesy foam and the scum and the way the water changed colours the longer I soaked?

"If that stuff was in your body to that degree, we would be doing an autopsy," Conyette tells me.

The discolouration, he says, was likely caused by a chemical reaction between the machine's plastic module, the water and my own body chemicals and salts.

(The water changes colour even without feet in it, a fact that distributors do point out on their websites. But they emphasize that the intensity and amount of debris increases two or three times when used with an actual person.)

"I've never seen any scientific report that has proven to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that any colouring in the water is strictly from toxins in the body," says Conyette, "so from a biomedical viewpoint, I cannot buy into that."

Dean Schrader, a naturopathic physician at the Centre for Natural Medicine, begs to differ.

"There's definitely something to it," says Schrader, who has been using the Platinum Energy Systems Detox Foot Spa at the Stafford Street clinic for the past three months. "It's doing what it purports to do."

Schrader says he was "extremely skeptical" when one of his patients said the swelling she'd had in her knee for more than a year disappeared after just one treatment.

It was Platinum Energy's technology -- a built-in microchip that regulates the amount of ions emitted and other safety features that other models lack -- and the company's lab tests that convinced him of its ability to reduce the amount of heavy metals in the body.

Platinum's Canadian distributor and a naturopath tested the heavy-metal levels of five patients in British Columbia before and after they received a series of ionic foot detox treatments. A control sample -- water without feet -- registered 1.7 units of lead, whereas the highest level among the test subjects, a commercial stained-glass artist, was 30 units.

"After 10 sessions, the patient had approximately 50 per cent reduction in heavy metals," says Schrader, who obtained a copy of the test results from the company.

"I wanted to see if we could replicate those results here and we did. I've certainly had patients who have done more than 10 treatments and the water starts to become more clear than it was in the beginning."

Schrader emphasizes that foot baths are just one piece of the detoxification puzzle.

"A complete detox would have to involve detoxifying the liver, the gastrointestinal tract and so on," he says. "It's way more comprehensive than this, but this certainly has a role to play.

"I'd like to have this discussion a year from now, because it's still pretty new."

Foot facts

* Ionic foot detox bath: A device that purports to emit negatively charged ions, which pass into the body and attach to positively charged toxic substances, which are then expelled through the 4,000 or so pores on the soles of the feet.

* Sessions are usually 30 minutes long and cost around $45.

* Proponents claim a variety of health benefits, most commonly increased energy, improved circulation and reduced joint pain and inflammation.

* Treatments are not recommended for people with pacemakers or epilepsy, anyone who has had an organ transplant or expectant or nursing mothers.

© 2008 Winnipeg Free Press. .