An ionic foot bath treatment is a detox system. Proponents say this treatment draws impurities out of your body through your feet, a process that supposedly can relieve chronic health problems and increase general well-being. No research confirms any claimed benefits of the ionic foot bath for specific health disorders, cautions physician Andrew Weil, director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Nevertheless, if you'd like to try the ionic foot bath treatment, the procedure is not associated with negative effects.
The Process
During an ionic foot bath treatment, you place your feet in a small tub of water while an attached device runs a low-level electrical current to create positive and negative ions in the water, explains Ionic Oasis. When the water has a negative charge, it purportedly draws out positive ions such as heavy metals and harmful chemicals from the body.
Potential Benefits
The ionic detox provides many benefits, according to Alaska Wellness. It stimulates and balances the body's energy meridians and increases cellular metabolism and production of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, a chemical involved in converting food to energy. Alaska Wellness says the ionic foot bath improves energy levels and sleep and alleviates aches and pains. The BBS Detox For Health website adds that an ionic foot detox helps depression, stress, headaches, chronic health conditions, yeast infections, bacterial infections and chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
Considerations
The water in the ionic foot bath changes color as toxins leave your body and enter the water, according to BBS Detox For Health. This is the main sign the foot bath is working. Skeptics note that the water can change color even when you do not have your feet in it. Ionic Oasis explains that a color change can occur due to impurities in the water and metals in the array, but that the colors are noticeably different when feet are in the tub.
Controversy
Conventional medicine views the ionic detox as a scam. For instance, medical doctor Stephen Barrett writing for Device Watch notes that toxins do not cause most of the conditions the ionic foot bath claims to treat. In addition, he says ions in the body cannot respond to the device as claimed and that real detoxification occurs in the liver, after which the kidneys excrete toxins through urine.
Weil discusses the online British newspaper called the "Guardian Unlimited," which sent a doctor to have an ionic foot bath. The doctor sent water samples taken before and after the treatment to a lab for analysis, but the neither of the samples contained toxins. Alaska Wellness provides the address and phone number of a laboratory that will test your water samples for heavy metals and other impurities.
Contraindications
People with pacemakers or other implanted electrical devices and individuals with organ transplants should not use the ionic foot bath treatment, cautions Alaska Wellness. The foot bath can draw medication from the body during detoxification, so you should not use the ionic foot bath if you take medication for a serious health condition. Alaska Wellness also advises pregnant and breastfeeding women not to use any detox methods because toxins stirred up in the body can cross the placenta and may also transfer into breast milk.
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