The Hamptons Cleanse

Welcome back to 12 on Health. It is that time of year when we are suddenly faced with the prospect of wearing a bathing suit. Time to slim down. Which brings us to one option that some people swear by. The Hamptons cleanse. Naturopathic physician Dr. Donnie Wilson is here to help us understand what a cleanse actually does for the body and how to use it safely. Dr. Wilson has offices in Stamford, New York City and Long Island. You are all over the place.

I am. I am.

It seems that there's so much more acceptance of natural remedies.

Definitely.

And your own dad wasn't all that into it when you decided you were going to become a naturopathic doctor.

That's right. That's right. My dad is a pharmacist. And when he found out that I wanted to be a naturopathic doctor, it was quite a shock. But now it makes complete sense.

Yes, now it makes complete sense. He's even come around to realize the value of natural remedies.

Absolutely. And I talk to them on the phone probably every day about what they should be taking and how to stay healthy. And it makes, I mean, it makes actual sense to me because I feel like growing up in the home of a pharmacist, the focus was on how to stay healthy. And that's exactly what naturopathic medicine is. It's all about how to what you can do in your diet and in your lifestyle to stay healthy.

Now, the cleanse, a lot of people think of a cleanse as just taking three scoops of something and clearing out your insides. But the Hamptons Cleanse is quite different.

Absolutely. That's exactly right. Most cleanses are about cleaning out the digestive tract. The Hamptons Cleanse, and this has really been developed over the last 11 years while I've been in practice in this area is all about removing the foods that are toxic to our system, including pesticides and so on, on the food. And then so it's more about choosing the foods that are healthy for you and that way detoxifying your system by eliminating the toxic.

A lot of people ask, I know that certain fruits are and aren't on the list. And of course you want organic.

If it's organic, it very often costs more. If somebody can't afford to buy all organic, should they go ahead and buy the other fruit anyway or don't eat fruit?

That's a great question. You know it is. I look at the Hamptons Cleanse as a chance. Maybe it's a two or three week opportunity to buy organic foods. Maybe the person's not going to be able to do that ongoing, but at least it gives you an opportunity to try it out for a couple weeks, and then it's not so much of an expense. If it is even then an expense, and you're choosing between which foods, we can look up a list of the foods that are the produce and vegetables and fruits that are most important to get organic, and then I would choose those.

When you get somebody started on the Hamptons Cleanse, how quickly does their body respond?

Some people immediately. Some patients will tell me by the next day, oh, my gosh, my energy is bad, my belly's flatter, I slept better. Other people, it takes all the way for a couple weeks, and I look at it as the degree of inflammation in the body.

So in some ways, you're detoxing them.

You are. Because it's more than we realize. And especially the key components of the Hamptons Cleanse is to avoid gluten and dairy. Gluten and dairy for everyone, even if you're not intolerant to gluten and dairy are the most inflammatory foods, and they're the most common foods in our diet. Like, if you look at our, you know, most people, by the time you have a bagel for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and pasta for dinner, you've had gluten at every meal.

But the dairy is what throws me, because every time I turn around, I hear, have some yogurt in a given day. It will actually help you lose weight. It will help your nutrition. You're saying, stay away from yogurt.

Stay away from yogurt. Because. Well, the concept with yogurt oftentimes is they want you to get probiotics, which are the healthy bacteria. Which is a good point. But the problem is that it's in the dairy substance, which it's the dairy that's causing inflammation. So I would say it is important to get probiotics. That's another conversation. It's also important to get protein. Sometimes yogurt can get some protein into the body, but it's actually the dairy that can be causing a problem.

And is everybody's body inflamed by dairy? I thought that was just people who were lactose intolerant.

Another great question. Lactose is the sugar in dairy, and some people are not able to digest the sugar in dairy. That's the specific lactose. And so some people will then have lactate milk, for example. But that's not everyone. There's also the proteins in dairy called casein and whey. And if you have an immune system reaction to the proteins in the dairy, that's causing inflammation, too. So even if you're avoiding the lactose, you're still having a dairy issue.

So no matter what the dairy. Now, Stacy Mann, our director, has a question for you. And that is how do you know what are the signs of that inflammation?

Well, it's different for each person. I find for some people it is in the digestive tract where maybe there's bloating and that's that belly we're trying to lose for our bathing suit. So it could be digestive symptoms, but it could be anywhere in the body. For some people, it's a migraine headaches. Some people it's shortness of breath. Another person, it might be achy joints or fatigue. It could really land anywhere. And the way I look at it is how are you genetically prone to inflammation impacting your health?

Wow. We have so much more. You have so much more on your website. And people can get to your website through ours. Up next on 12 on Health, identifying autism early. A new study proves a simple screening test can reveal if an infant is on the autism spectrum. Ahead, we'll break down the findings for you.

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