Do you do cleanses and detoxes with patients?
Yes and no — and the distinction matters.
I will absolutely work with you to lower your toxic burden. That might mean addressing diet, gut health, environmental exposures, or hormonal congestion. And I will absolutely support your detoxification pathways — the liver enzymes, lymphatic drainage, urinary clearance, all of it. But you won’t hear me call it a detox. Because “detox” implies that we are doing something to your body that it doesn’t already do on its own — and that’s simply not true. Detoxification is a continuous biological process. It doesn’t start when you open a kit. What I’m doing is supporting a system that’s already running, but running under too much pressure.
The same logic applies to parasite cleanses, since I get asked about this often. If you’re concerned about parasites, I take that seriously — they’re real, and if present, we absolutely want to address them. But a “two-week parasite cleanse” is not how that’s done properly. It requires accurate testing, the right treatment for the specific organism, gut restoration, and understanding why your terrain was hospitable to parasites in the first place. We can absolutely have that conversation. Just not in a box, and not in two weeks.
So: will I help you? Completely. Will I call it a detox or sell you a cleanse protocol? Never.
Does the liver really need help — and what does it actually process?
Your liver is extraordinary. It runs a sophisticated two-phase detoxification process around the clock without you thinking about it once. But here’s a useful way to understand what happens when it gets overwhelmed.
Think of your body’s detox system like a highway. Your skin, kidneys, lungs, and lymphatics are the on-ramps — constantly feeding waste into the system. The liver is the downtown core that everything has to pass through. It’s the interchange. The main event. Now imagine it’s rush hour. Your liver is simultaneously processing your morning coffee, last night’s wine, pesticide residue from your salad, synthetic fragrance from your laundry detergent, the stress hormones your body produced during a tense meeting, and the excess estrogen it’s trying to clear before it recirculates. That’s a lot of traffic. And just like a city at 5pm, when volume exceeds road capacity, things back up.
As for what it’s clearing: alcohol and medications, environmental chemicals like pesticides and BPA, heavy metals, metabolic waste your own body produces, excess hormones (which is why poor liver function often surfaces as PMS and hormonal imbalances), ammonia from protein metabolism, and a long list of microbial byproducts from your gut. Everything absorbed through your digestive tract passes through the liver first.
The goal isn’t to “detox your liver.” It’s to widen the road, reduce the incoming traffic, and make sure the enzymatic machinery has everything it needs to work efficiently. That’s a very different conversation than a juice cleanse.
What’s the difference between a detox and a cleanse — and are store-bought kits worth it?
A cleanse is typically a short-term dietary intervention — juice fasting, an elimination protocol, a packaged kit — that restricts what goes in. A detox, in the clinical sense, refers to what your body does internally to neutralize and eliminate harmful compounds. One is a product. The other is a function. They’re related, but they’re not the same thing.
As for store-bought kits: most are neither dangerous nor particularly effective. The majority are combinations of laxative herbs and fibre — they move things along, which can feel like progress, but they don’t address why your elimination pathways were struggling in the first place. Some kits contain high-dose herbs that can actually stress the liver if you have underlying conditions or take medications. My honest advice: save your money. Spend it on figuring out what your body specifically needs, rather than throwing a generic protocol at a problem you haven’t yet identified.
How long does this kind of support actually take?
It depends entirely on the person — which is exactly why a packaged timeline doesn’t make sense. Someone with mild, recent-onset symptoms and a solid foundation might feel meaningfully different within three to four weeks. Someone dealing with years of accumulation, chronic gut dysfunction, or significant environmental toxic burden may need three to six months of consistent, layered work. What I can tell you with certainty is that sustainable results don’t happen in ten days. If someone is promising otherwise, they’re selling you something.
Still Have Questions? Good.
It means you’re thinking critically — which is exactly the kind of patient I love working with.
If you’ve been sitting with symptoms that don’t have a clean explanation, or you’ve done the juice cleanses and the supplement kits and still don’t feel like yourself, it might be time to have a different kind of conversation. One that starts with you — your history, your patterns, your specific picture — not a protocol pulled off a shelf.
I won’t call it a detox. But I will get to the bottom of what’s going on.
[Book a Consultation →https://totalhealthnd.janeapp.com/]
Currently accepting new patients in London, Ontario — and virtually across Ontario.
Yours in Health,
Dr. Negin, ND
(Oct 13, 2026)