Detox Foot Patch
Does It Work?

While I always advocate a healthy diet of natural whole foods - especially plenty of raw veggies, non sweet fruits and dark leafy greens as the best and most natural way to keep your body functioning well, allowing the liver to do its daily work of filtering out toxins, etc... I also like to have some backup plans to help the body perform at its best. Using natural methods to help the body rid itself of excess crud is a great idea!

So let's take a look at the detox foot patch.

Most of them are made with powdered tourmaline (a mineral) along with herbs and other plant materials, and something to absorb and retain sweat in the pad (sometimes made from chitosan, a shellfish product, while in other cases dextrin is used).

Tourmaline naturally warms the foot, inducing sweat, while the herbs and other plant materials are said to draw toxins from the body.

The foot patches are also said to work according to the principles of foot reflexology:

- the heels of the foot are sites of reflex points corresponding to points in the lower third of the body

- the arches are sites of reflex points corresponding to the main trunk organs of the body

- and the balls of the feet correspond to points in the neck, throat, and head.

You can place the pads in the area of the foot corresponding to the part of the body you hope to target.

Sometimes they're called Japanese Foot Patches or Kinoki Foot Patches, but they're all marketed with the same basic sales concept:

Place a detox foot patch on the sole of your foot overnight and the stuff in the pads will draw toxins out of your body and trap them in the pads.

We tried them once this past spring, on a whim, when we did a weekend getaway with another couple. Our friend had bought them at the health food store because she was fascinated with the idea of using a foot patch to detoxify the body, and surprised us with a little "gift" before bed time.

We thought, well, it can't hurt, so why not?

So we all stuck a patch on the sole of our foot, the arch to be exact, and went to our rooms for the night. In the morning we all did a comparison. All four of us had the same basic result - the patches had all developed a brownish coloration, and had a slight odor to them.

I have no guarantee that it was toxins which had been drawn out, but there was definitely a reaction between sweat and the contents of the pad.

The soles of the feet are a warm spot of the body, tourmaline naturally generates heat, the foot patches don't allow any breathability once you stick them on, and our body temps rise during sleep anyway, so it's pretty much guaranteed that there's going to be some foot sweat reacting with the pad.

Some companies offer a lab test to tell you what is in your detox foot patch after use. I've never sent one in for analysis, nor do I know what lab is doing the testing or how reliable it is.

What I do know is that a lot of people I've heard from do feel good when using foot detox patches. Whether it's a placebo effect or the actual effect of toxin removal, I say, if you've got the money to spend, and it makes you feel better, then why not?

Just don't use them as a crutch, or let them make you lazy. Take an active role in your health instead of relying solely on "quick fix" helpers like these foot patches. A healthy diet and healthy lifestyle is going to do wonders in creating and maintaining good health for a lifetime.