To Juice or Not to Juice

To Juice or Not to Juice.

Fasting has been around for centuries throughout different cultures and religions in the world, and home juicing has been in and out of trend for decades, but the recent trend of juice fasting, which typically on involves consuming nothing but cold-pressed juice for three to sixty days has led to the growth of juicing companies like BluePrintCleanse, Catalyst, Cooler Cleanse, Organic Avenue, and Joos to make and ship the fresh juices, saving customers the time, effort, and mess usually expended when juicing at home. These packaged juices are ordered online and, in most cases, delivered to the customer’s door. The juicing companies’ claim that the benefits of a juice cleanse include weight loss, elimination of toxins, mental clarity, an immune system boost, and improved skin and overall health. However, pure juices provide nutritional benefits, fasting on juice alone for a long period of time can be dangerous for your health.

Most of the advertisement on juice fasting doesn’t put an age limit to the program; however it’s not for everyone. Individuals with premorbid health conditions like diabetes patients that are on chemotherapy, children and pregnant women. In diabetic patients, drinking a high amount of fruit juice can increased their already high blood sugar level rapidly causing them to go into a stage called hyperglycemic. According to the Friedman Diabetes Institute, in diabetic patients, hyperglycemia is a result of when too much sugar builds up in the bloodstream that can damage the body’s organs, blood vessels, and nerves because their body doesn’t produce enough insulin or respond to insulin properly. In cancer patients, commercially juice products have to be pasteurized, if not all the germs from the juice can cause serious infections due to their weaker immune systems. Utilizing juice fasting as a treatment alone, and refusing or delaying further medical care treatment for cancer may have serous healthy consequences (American Cancer Society). Because of the low nutrient value, and potential dangers, juice fasting is not recommended for children and pregnant women (netplaces.com).

Secondly, juice fasting diet is unhealthy for you, and also creates more health issues than benefits in a long run. Juice fasting diet may have the nutrients in the juice absorb in your body faster because it eliminates the digesting process; however the nutrients in the fruit and vegetable juice alone is not enough, according to NEDA the juice is often missing on important nutrients like calcium, increasing risk for osteoporosis, stress fractures, and broken bones. Juice fasting for a long time can cause serious damage, Dr. Glenn D. Braustein, chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cedar-Sinai, says that longer fasts may cause electrolyte imbalances. If your body doesn’t get enough calories to keep your metabolism working, your body will use energy to break down muscle instead of fat. (Huffingpost.com) Long term consequences of juice fast often result in loss of muscle strength and endurance, decrease oxygen usage, thinning hair, loss of balance, dehydration, fainting, weakness, and slowed heart rates.

Juice fast is not an effective way to lose weight and keep it off. The amount of weight loss in juice fast is mostly water weight. The National Eating Disorder Association called juice fasting diet a “Yo-yo” dieting which is a cycle of repetitive losing, and regaining weight which shown increased risk of heart disease, long-lasting negative impacts on metabolism and many others. Juice fasting diet for a long time will put your body into “starvation mode” because that is your body’s natural response to slow down many of its normal functions to conserve energy such as your metabolism. Metabolism is the key factor to determine how fast an individuals body can burn fat. Juice fasting diet for a long time can in fact make you regain the amount of weight loss quickly once you resort back to your normal diet due to the impact of it on slowing your metabolism. Statistics showed that 95% of all dieters regain their lost weight and more within 1 to 5 years.

Juice fast consistent for a long period of time can lead to an eating disorder. Due to the popularity of juice fast industries claims of weight loss targeting the obesity population, many people can develop eating disorder from the program. According to NEDA, juice fast diets limit your calorie, your energy which can limit your brainpower which can lead to depression, low-self-esteem and increased stress. Many patients were diagnosed with eating disorder while on a juice fast diet. It may not be the cause of eating disorder, but the psychological obsession about body weight,