Detox Teas – Benefits, Side Effects And How It Works

Cleanses are quite popular at the moment, from celery juice on Instagram feeds of “wellness” influencers to detox teas. The ripple effect of influencers and celebrities who proudly display the results of using detox tea has a lot to do with its popularity. Well-designed detoxification helps you switch to a healthier lifestyle, consume natural ingredients, and enhance the detoxification process. Adding detox teas to your diet helps you reduce body weight and boost overall health conditions by eliminating dreadful toxins.

What Is Detoxing

Detoxing, popularly known as detox, is primarily a process of eradicating toxins from your body and boosts your body metabolism rate. This process helps you clear up accumulated toxins and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Does Detox Tea Work?

Detox teas are different from regular tea you’d buy because of health claims they mention on packaging. They’re considered supplements and vary in their health or weight-loss claims.

Some of the popular claims of detox teas are:

Most detox teas contain cassia, senna, and chamaecrista, which are also used as over-the-counter laxatives. Psyllium husk, a form of soluble fibre is also one of the key ingredients and is often used in stool softening.

Detox tea or ‘teatox’ cleanses your body and boosts your natural process of detoxification through regular practice. It flushes out dreadful toxins and works towards weight loss. Detox teas provide various health benefits thanks to highly active natural ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, dandelion, and more. All these ingredients alleviate the oxidative process of your liver and other body organs and promote cleansing.

Detox teas are instrumental in cleansing your intestines and aids in the process of weight loss. You can use this as a daytime drink as well as night-time according to your suitability.

Having detox tea along with diet and regular exercise will yield results but the real results are scant to be seen.

Simply sipping detox tea while skipping out on diet and exercise and eating what you want will not shrink your shape.

Expecting quick results by using detox teas for a few days will not work, as it needs to be consumed over a long period of time to be effective.

Benefits Of Detox Tea

Detox teas contain numerous herbs, which help in organ detoxification and is used as an effective medication for bloating and losing weight. Thanks to supportive and beneficial herbs, a detox tea eliminates toxins from your body and promotes the excretion of other chemicals.

Here are some of the benefits of consuming detox teas.

1. Eliminates Toxins From Your Body

Every day you come across frightful chemicals and contaminants that accumulate in your tissues and various cells and boost your body’s toxicity level. In such a scenario, detox tea is quite helpful because of its useful antioxidants. Moreover, owing to its active ingredients, you can maintain a healthy lifestyle and make your body toxin-free.

2. Encourages Weight Loss

Detox teas contain antioxidants like flavonoids, minerals, catechins, and numerous minerals, enhancing your energy level by boosting body metabolism rate, which ultimately makes you feel light. On the other hand, the hydrochloric acid controls your craving, which works in favor of weight loss.

3. Advances Your Digestion Process

The accumulation of chemicals and toxins in the body causes indigestion, bloating, nausea, and constipation in many cases. Keep in mind that all these factors are the cause of poor digestion, so when you make detox tea a practice, it improves your digestion process. It cleanses all the futile components from your body and gives you relief from flatulence—removing all the impurities and chemicals and also initiates the weight loss process.

4. Fortifies Your Body Immune System

Due to the presence of green tea and herbs in it, it is quite beneficial in fortifying your body’s immune system. Through a proper cleansing mechanism, it also safeguards your body to fight against any diseases. A thorough cleansing also enhances your cell functions and makes them active, leading to a healthier state and a strengthened body.

5. Enhances Liver Functions

A hectic lifestyle puts an adverse effect on your liver due to caffeinated drinks, alcohol, and fatty foods. For this reason, it is highly essential to detox your liver regularly. An effective detox tea filters out chemicals and guarantees accurate functioning through its healthy ingredients.

6. Improves Skin Condition

Detox teas contain lemon, raspberries, and grapefruit, and vitamin C is a key ingredient in these. It not only ends up purifying your skin cells and gives you a glowing skin, but also works wonders for those wrinkles and dryness as well.

Ingredients In Detox Tea

Sipping a cup of detox tea will help remove toxins and alleviate the body cleansing process through some effective health supplements. If you wonder about the causes of its effectiveness regarding weight loss and better metabolism rate, then let’s discuss the key ingredients of detox teas.

1. Green Tea

Green Tea is one of the crucial ingredients of a detox tea that contains caffeine and flavonoids, which enhances your body metabolism rate, insulin activity, and last but not the least fat oxidation. It is quite popular among tea drinkers and fitness freaks. It is also instrumental in fighting against fat accumulation and helps in weight loss. You can also expect a healthy body thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties as well as antioxidants. Green Tea is a crucial component in detox teas which boosts your energy level.

2. Oolong Tea Leaves

Oolong tea leaves are slightly different from black tea due to its lower oxidized nature, and the presence of catechins which boosts your metabolism rate and promotes weight loss. Oolong tea is also crucial for minimizing the process of fat absorption due to antioxidants like polyphenols.

3. Pu-Erh Tea

Pu-erh Tea is mainly a fermented black tea that offers a smooth taste and helps your body by activating beneficial enzymes in your body for minimizing fat cells. The tea houses catechins and gallic acid, which prevent fat accumulation and advances the weight loss process.

4. Yerba Mate

Yerba Mate contains a right combination of polyphenols and xanthines for an escalation of the thermogenesis process and metabolism rate. It also helps you boost your energy and weight loss due to calorie burning properties and caffeine.

5. Peppermint Tea

Peppermint tea in a teatox that comprises menthol which makes your tea delicious, but apart from giving a pleasant taste, it also suppresses your craving for food.

6. Parsley Tea

The presence of luteolin, apigenin, and flavonoids in Parsley tea helps in the toxin cleaning process and shed extra belly fats.

7. Dandelion Tea

Dandelion tea is a diuretic that minimizes bloating and due to the presence of apigenin and luteolin, it also relieves your troubled stomach. It is also instrumental in your liver cleansing as well as supports your irritated skin.

8. Milk Thistle

Milk Thistle in detox tea helps in liver functioning and silymarin in this Tea being an active ingredient acts as a natural detoxifier.

9. Senna Leaf

Senna leaf is a powerful laxative which promotes your bowel movement due to active ingredients like chrysophanol. This leaf features a strong laxative effect, so you need to consult with your doctor beforehand and use it in a limited quantity.

10. Ginger

Ginger offers a myriad of health benefits as it contains magnesium and Vitamin C. It rectifies your nausea and inflammation and enhances digestion and blood circulation. Ginger tea is also suitable for boosting your body immunity level as well as works as an excellent stress-reliever.

11. Hibiscus

Hibiscus is rich in various antioxidants as well as anthocyanins, which boost your metabolism rate.

12. Cardamom

If you think cardamom is solely for its luscious flavor, you need to check its health benefits. It supports your irritated stomach and enhances digestive functions as well.

13. Black Pepper

Although black pepper is popular in various cuisines, it is also instrumental in providing antioxidants and minimizing free radicals. Being a traditional herbal medicine, it supports the digestion process and maintains water balance in your body.

14. Licorice Root

Traditionally licorice root is naturally sweet; it soothes your upset stomach as well as throat. If you are quite passionate about better skin and the proper function of the liver, then licorice root is the best option for sure.

15. Chamomile

Chamomile is excellent in soothing your mind and helps you lose some extra pounds as well when had in detox tea. If you want to witness an incredible journey from fat to lean, then Chamomile is just for you. It also offers you a good night’s sleep and overall wellness.

16. Raspberries

Raspberries are another key ingredient in detox tea, it guards your weight gain process, and it is also beneficial for your skin due to the presence of Vitamin B and Vitamin C.

17. Lemon

Lemon is used in most detox teas as it helps you lose some extra pounds through its pectin fiber and minimizes your hunger. Its ascorbic acid also aids your digestion process.

18. Apple Cider Vinegar

Because of the acetic acid in apple cider vinegar, you can see a substantial boost in your body metabolism rate as well as an enhancement in your weight loss.

19. Mint

Mint is undeniably a super-natural herb that fixes your unbalanced stomach and accelerates the digestion process through enhanced bile flow.

Side Effects Of Detox Tea

Detoxing the chemicals from your body and losing weight is extremely important if you need to lead a healthy yet happy lifestyle as it may lead to health problems like diabetes, heart problems, kidney problems, cancer, and more.

Detox teas claim to help you with weight loss and are quite popular, but there are some potential side effects owing to the ingredients oin it like laxatives and other stimulants. The presence of caffeine, and illegal chemicals like ephedra, are also a concern.

Here are some side-effects of detox teas:

Diarrhea

Senna leaf should be used in moderation and as per your doctor’s recommendation as it contains laxatives, which cause severe diarrhea with continuous usage. It also dehydrates your body, and in the long run, it can also disrupt your digestion process. Laxatives also irritate your colon and stimulate your intestinal muscles. It also minimizes your body’s natural ability to function on its own due to its intense effects.

Nausea And Bloating

The caffeine and laxative ingredients in detox tea often lead to nausea, abdominal pain, cramps, and bloating. It also affects your digestive system by restricting its usual functions.

Electrolyte Imbalance

As discussed, the laxatives in detox tea are solely responsible for dehydrating your body more than often. It causes the loss of fluids in the body and may affect the electrolyte balance in your body. Maintaining the electrolyte balance is essential for proper functioning of your body system.

Mental Health

Consuming detox tea affects your health and affects your mental health due to high levels of caffeine. It instigates nervousness, irritation, headache, restlessness, unusual breathing rate, anxiety, and more.

Sleep Disruption

Most detox teas contain caffeine, a stimulant which may suppress appetite, trigger your digestive system to let go of waste, and help shed water weight.

Too much caffeine interferes with getting enough sleep–and helps undo the tea’s weight-loss effects.

Less sleep is shown to trigger excessive eating and weight gain and slows down the rate of metabolism, which can make it easier to gain weight even if you don’t eat extra calories.

Urine Production

The presence of diuretic properties in a detox tea increases urine production, stimulating the excretion of water and salts from your kidneys. Detox teas with ingredients like dandelion, parsley, burdock, and hibiscus causes excessive urine production.

Blood Thinning

Continuous usage of detox tea can also lead to blood thinning. If you are suffering from heart-related difficulties or even anemia, you should avoid some detox teas containing blood-thinning agents.

Drinking Detox Tea During Pregnancy

As a tea drinker, it is hard to resist drinking it despite knowing that caffeine should be limited during pregnancy.

Some detox teas you must avoid drinking during pregnancy are Green/matcha tea as it has high amounts of caffeine and reduces folate absorption.

Other detox teas to avoid are Lichee tea, Anise tea, Aloe vera tea, Barberry tea, Chamomile tea, Ginseng tea, Hibiscus tea, Kava tea and Lemongrass tea.

Studies show that having more than 200 mg of caffeine during pregnancy is linked with low birth weight. Caffeine is easily absorbed and crosses the placenta freely and ingesting more than 200 mg of caffeine reduces the blood flow in placenta by 25 per cent.

Caffeine lengthens the time of pregnancy by 5 hours per 100 mg. So, if you’re a coffee drinker, the length of pregnancy becomes longer.

You can drink a cup of ginger tea to bid farewell to morning sickness, it also alleviates your digestion process and offers you a happy stomach. Ginger is primarily a circulatory stimulant and a great source of zinc.

You can also drink Nettle leaf tea during the final trimester of your pregnancy to get magnesium and calcium intake in your body.

Raspberry leaf tea consumed during pregnancy benefits the uterus and is effectively known to control the pain during labor.

Consuming Detox Teas When You Have Lifestyle Diseases

If consumed in excess, detox tea is known to interfere with the medication you are taking, especially for thyroid and depression. Detox tea has laxative properties (increase bowel movement), which could stop the medication from working and can be quite dangerous.

Detox Tea For Diabetics?

According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, drinking green tea may help lower your risk of type-2 diabetes.

Study participants who consumed 6 cups of green tea per day had a 33 percent lower risk of type-2 diabetes than participants who drank one cup per day.

Reasons To Consume Green Tea If You Have Diabetes.

Green tea helps in weight loss and thus helps people with type-2 diabetes to get their blood sugar levels under control.
The catechins or antioxidants present in green tea helps in reduction of the effects of insulin resistance by decreasing the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates.
Green tea contains polyphenol that may have anti-inflammatory properties. Polyphenols come from plants and help protect our cells from damage.
It has a calming effect on the mind and body as it contains amino-acid L-theanine, which is said to reduce anxiety and stress.

Excess caffeine in green tea can however negatively impact your blood pressure and blood sugar. Always consult a doctor to know the exact amount of green tea you must drink a day if you have diabetes.

Effect Of Detox Tea On Skin Conditions

Nettle tea, which is derived from stinging nettle leaves, is an ingredient that causes much pain to the person who holds them. But surprisingly it is a remedy for a host of ailments like hay fever, urinary tract infections, muscle and joint sprains, skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis and acne.

Making detox tea containing nettle tea as a part of your daily cleanse routine can help you in many ways like, they help cleanse your body, blood, flushes out toxins and facilitate maintaining a clearer skin. They alleviate puffy eyes, and have anti-inflammatory properties. They are used in blood tonics with an aim to purify blood.

When To Drink Detox Teas

The best time to drink detox tea is in the morning, it is not like you can’t have a cup of detox tea later, but if you want to experience most of the benefits, then drinking it in the morning. It works on your digestive system by cleaning your colon and repairing your constipation issues. So enjoying a cup of detox tea is one of the best ways for a healthy and happy stomach.

When To Avoid Drinking Detox Teas

Always avoid detox teas that contain a high level of caffeine, especially during pregnancy, as it can affect the birth weight of your child. So if you are going to be a new mother, then strictly avoid green tea as it contains high amounts of caffeine and likely to minimize folate absorption.

Detox Tea Brands

There are numerous Detox tea brands available on the market, so scroll down to find the best one for yourself today.

Detox Tea Without Caffeine

If you need a detox tea which is a herbal and caffeine-free recipe for a healthier mind and body, then here are some of the most popular caffeine-free detox teas.

Detox teas are a widely sold product marketed aggressively to help your body expel toxins. They contain natural ingredients but also contain laxatives, high levels of caffeine, medications, illegal ingredients which may cause severe health problems.

The best way to stay healthy is to have a healthy diet, exercise, adequate water, and good sleep every night.

Using detox teas have unanswered questions and if you’re unsure, or are planning to start drinking them, talk to your doctor, nutritionist, or health care provider before you do so.