Healing Traditions
Purges, fasts, sweat, and "detox" traditions
3 practices. None rests on strong human evidence. Ordered with the best evidenced first.
The Cleansing Heat Humanity Built Everywhere
From the Mexican temazcal to the Finnish sauna, Indigenous sweat lodge, banya, and hammam, humanity built cleansing-heat rituals everywhere, and the sauna version now has real evidence for heart health.
From Ancient Sun Worship to Circadian Science
The universal intuition that sun and light heal, from ancient sun reverence to sanatorium heliotherapy to circadian science, validated in principle, bounded by skin-cancer risk.
An Ancient Instinct the Modern Version Oversells
The urge to purify is ancient and near-universal, but the commercial "detox" claim, that cleanses remove toxins your liver and kidneys cannot, is mostly marketing.