Foot Detox Baths

Lake Tahoe Acupuncture & Wellness

Wouldn't it be great if all we had to do to reduce heavy metals, pesticides, and other toxins in our body was soak our feet in a special water bath? Detoxification — or ionic — foot baths are said to do just that. You place your feet in a small tub of water with an electrode that emits ionic frequencies, and this is said to draw toxins out of your feet and into the water. If you've tried it, you know that after a few minutes the once-clear water turns brown and looks pretty nasty. Those, you're told, are the toxins coming out of your body. It looks impressive. But are they really?

As someone who has taught environmental health at the graduate level and researched the treatment of pesticide poisoning, I was very interested in the truth about foot-bath detoxing. The best place to look for science is PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's database published by the National Institutes of Health — over 15 million citations, original research articles, and reviews. If there is published research on detox foot baths, it would be there. It turns out there is.

The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine analyzed foot-detox water before and after use, as well as urine and hair samples from the subjects. The researchers did not find that the foot baths eliminated any toxins from the body. And the brown water? It turns brown because the electrodes that emit the ionic frequencies are actually oxidizing — the brown color is rust from the machine, not from the person.

Researchers tested the water before and after running the machine with no feet in it at all. Chromium went from about 4 parts per million before the machine was switched on to over 23,000 ppm after a few minutes — and this is hexavalent industrial chromium, a genotoxic carcinogen. Iron went from 32 ppm to 116,000 ppm. Copper increased 600%. Manganese went from undetectable to 1,500 ppm. All of this without anyone's feet in the water. Other studies have shown the same: the water turns brown on its own.

Some companies claim they have research backing the idea that foot baths remove toxins, but when you examine those studies they are uncontrolled and heavily biased — and some of the claims (such as fats and mucus being pulled out of the body) are simply not possible. One frequently cited study also gave participants a broad-spectrum nutritional powder loaded with antioxidants known for decades to help the body break down and eliminate toxins. That's confounding data: the supplement makes it impossible to attribute any result to the foot bath.

There's another consideration. The "metal water" created by the machine could itself be harmful — rather than removing metals from your body, you could be exposed to them. As the Canadian College scientists summarized: "Contrary to claims made for the machine, there does not appear to be any specific induction of toxic release through the feet when running the machine according to specifications."

Ionic foot baths are completely different from simply soaking your feet in warm water and enjoying it. There is good research on how pleasant and gently relaxing it is to warm your feet. So if that's what you're after, by all means enjoy a relaxing (but not detoxifying) foot soak — with epsom salts if you like — in your own bathtub.

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