Expert Tips: Activated Charcoal Benefits With Dr. Paul Zickler

Hi I'm Paul Zickler and my professional roots started in the emergency room and in family practice. I became influenced by complementary medicine when my daughter was studying to become a naturopath and that started my keen interest in functional medicine. I married my traditional medicine roots with complementary medicine to focus more specifically on whole body wellness as opposed to treating symptoms exclusively. As a part of this professional growth, I helped create YesWellness.com to provide wellness education and to be a trusted source for supplements and nutraceuticals. Today as part of that program I want to tell you about activated charcoal.
Activated charcoal has been around for 10,000 years and it is used as medicine in many cultures. It is now available as a pill, powder or liquid form. What is used are finally coarsed or finely grained woods like coconut shells which are exposed to high heat and gases. It produces a substance is porous and has a large surface area to absorb and adsorb. To adsorb is to bind to things to get rid of like toxins, free radicals, poisons, pharmaceuticals, noxious gases, molds so thereby it has many different uses.
It is used for emergency detoxification for those that have ingested a poison. The Activated Charcoal will absorb those toxins and be excreted out, and less will be absorbed into your body. Have it in your first-aid kit. For an adult use 50 to 100 grams and for children 10 to 25 grams.It can be used to cleanse your body of noxious gases that causebloating. Ingest ¼ cup of water with fresh juice made from 2 lemons and 1 teaspoon of activated charcoal with a little honey. It will help if you ingest the mixture before or during
the time that you have been exposed to foods that produce gas.
It can be used to reduce your cholesterol and there have been many studies to show that intermittent regular use of Activated Charcoal will help reduce the amount of cholesterol. There are many topical uses for your skin, body, hair and teeth. If your child has been exposed to bee stings or mosquito bites make a paste with ¾ teaspoon of activated charcoal and 2 teaspoons of coconut oil. Put that paste on the bite or the source and leave that on for 20 minutes. Also, if you have acne you can make a paste with ¾ teaspoon of activated charcoal in 2 tablespoons of aloe vera and make a paste. You can put that on as a mask to apply over your whole face or on spot treatments. Activated charcoal binds with the toxins, bacteria and the oils of your face and is mildly exfoliative to really improve your skin. To create a healthy scalp you can make your own treatment and use that two or three times a week to improve the health of your scalp as well as making your hair have volume. You don't want to use those things on your skin or your hair if you’ve got really dry skin or hair hair because it's already drying and will really exacerbate that problem. For your oral hygiene,you can use it as a toothpaste. Just dip it in the powder and brush your teeth two to three times a week in this form for about two minutes. Rinse your mouth until what you are spitting out is perfectly clear without any hint of blackness. This is very staining so you don't want to get it all over your clothes, tiles or grout. Be sure to be cautious if you have porcelain onlays in your teeth or porcelain caps. In terms of your mouth hygiene, using the activated charcoal regularly helps to adsorb the bacteria and the toxins in your mouth to reduce the plaque and increase the wellness of your gingiva or your gums. Activated Charcoal is good for anti-aging as well because it adsorbs all those chemicals in your abdomen. It reduces the toxins, pesticides, environmental toxins, the air pollutant toxins and the free radicals to help reduce the exposure of those to your neurons or brain. It thereby improves the condition of your cognitive ability.Those are all the uses. Some warnings include the fact that Activated Charcoal can stain. Also because it is a drying agent you have to drink adequate amounts of water so 12 to 16 glasses of water if you are taking the activated charcoal internally, not externally. An easy rule is for every weight in pounds you have to take 1 fluid ounce of water. For example if you weigh 160 pounds you want to take 160 fluid ounces, which is about 4.5 liters. Because it is a drying agent it can also cause a lot of constipation so it's important to make sure that you take adequate amounts of fluids. Visit YesWellness.com to purchase the Organika activated charcoal powder or capsule as well as the bundle, as I've shown here.