Yang menjadi pertanyaan: Apakah kenyaatannya benar seperti yang mereka klaim?
Alat detoksifikasi ini dapat dibeli dengan harga sampai jutaan rupiah atau peserta dapat melakukan terapi pada tempat-tempat yang populer dengan nama ‘Foot Spa’ dengan harga antara 100-200 ribu rupiah per sesi. Harga yang tidak mahal –menurut para penjual– jika dibandingkan dengan manfaat yang didapat.Bahkan sekarang ini di pelosok - pelosok daerah harga untuk terapy seperti ini hanya berkisar antara Rp 6000 - Rp 10000 saja.
Sebelum anda terkecoh dengan terapy detox kaki ini, ada baiknya anda membaca beberapa ulasan para ahli kesehatan mengenai hal ini.
Ray Girvan pada tulisannya “Dodgy Detox” menyimpulkan bahwa semua ini hanyalah sebuah reaksi elektrolisis, suatu topik yang umum pada praktikum anak-anak SD/SMP. Warna merah kekuning-kuningan tersebut adalah besi yang telah teroksidasi yang berasal dari elektroda alat tersebut. Bukanlah suatu kebetulan jika elektroda alat ini perlu diganti dari waktu ke waktu.
"As to the brown colour, a number of critics, such as WicklowLass cited below, argue that foot detox machines are simply AC-DC transformers attached to ferrous electrodes that corrode to generate rust when used to electrolyse the saline water in the footbath.
This theory is backed up by some observers who have found by experiment that their feet didn’t need to be in the bath for the brown to appear."
Ben Goldcare dari The Guardian melakukan sebuah penelitian kecil untuk menganalisis kandungan zat air sebelum proses detox dan setelahnya. Kandungan besi setelah ‘terapi’ melonjak sangat tinggi jika dibandingkan sebelumnya. Selain itu, tidak ditemukan urea dan kreatinin pada sampel yang dianalisis, menandakan tidak ada racun yang keluar dari tubuh.
Alat ini pun masuk dalam DeviceWatch.org, sebuah situs yang khusus membahas alat-alat medis yang dipertanyakan kebenarannya. Dalam situs ini, Stephen Barrett, M.D. menyimpulkan bahwa alat-alat ini secara medis tidak berguna." Bravely I sent along my friend Dr Mark Atkins to have himself Aqua Detoxed. He took water samples from the bowl, which we sent off to the Medical Toxicology Unit at New Cross, south-east London. You can only imagine our excitement, especially as they charged us £200 for the analysis. And so - triumphant music - the water taken out before they switched their Aqua Detox machine on contained only 0.54mg per litre of iron (probably from the metal spoon); but afterwards it contained … 23.6mg/l. Our water, from our kitchen table setup, contained 97mg/l (and it was a bit browner).
But did it extract toxins? “Toxin” is classic pseudoscience terminology. Essentially, the Aqua Detox people are offering dialysis, through your feet. Urea and creatinine are probably the smallest molecules - call them “toxins” if you like - that your body gets rid of, in places like urine and sweat: if “toxins” were going to come out, anywhere, you’d expect those to come out, too. There was no urea or creatinine in the water before the Aqua Detox, and there was none in the water afterwards. Which means, I believe, that we win."
Talkabouthealthnetwork.com bahkan mengatakan bahwa terapi detox kaki juga memiliki resiko karena reaksi ini melepaskan gas Klorin yang beracun dan Hidrogen yang mudah terbakar. Berhati-hatilah jika menggunakan alat ini. Jangan gunakan alat detoks kaki pada ruangan tertutup karena gas berbahaya akan terkonsentrasi. Atau lebih baik lagi, jangan gunakan alat ini" The Guardian Unlimited article has had some impact on how the Aqua Detox and its imitators are marketed. Some marketers admit that the colors are due entirely to electrode conversion, and there is less emphasis on toxin removal and more emphasis on the “balancing” of “energy” that is not measurable with scientific instruments (and is therefore untestable.) But the bottom line is very simple. All such devices should be considered medically worthless."
"Hydrogen and chlorine gas is given off in this process. The oxygen atoms from the water combine in the liquid with the salt(added to water to improve conductivity) to form hydroxyl ions. The chlorine gas is from the chloride in the salt. The oxygen in the hydroxyl ions stay in the solution.
Given that chlorine gas is poisonous, this process can be potentially be dangerous to your health. And the explosive hazard posed by the hydrogen is another minus."
Mungkin karena Undang-undang perlindungan konsumen yang cukup baik di negara-negara maju, Ray Girvan dalam tulisannya “Bad Science and rusty footbath revisionism” mengatakan bahwa beberapa produsen ‘alat-alat’ tersebut merevisi klaim bahwa ‘racun’ berwarna merah kekuning-kuningan tersebut berasal dari dalam tubuh peserta terapi. Kini mereka mengatakan bahwa warna tersebut berasal dari elektroda pada alat tersebut. Walaupun demikian tentunya manfaat dari alat ini masih belum dapat dipertanggungjawabkan secara ilmiah.
" However did the press manage to arrive at such a misconception? Perhaps via the vendors’ own statements? Hydra Detox (www.hydradetox.com) now says that its machine merely rebalances the body: “This type of machine is described as a detox machine because the response of a rebalanced body is to excrete any excess toxins via the kidneys, liver, bowels and skin AFTER the treatment” (their capitals, not mine). But a Google search finds a repeated occurrence of an older marketing tagline “Hydra Detox Foot Spas, simply immerse your feet in water and watch in amazement as the toxins are released through the pores in your feet”. Similarly, a Google search also finds many sites for Aqua Detox and Bio Detox stating that you’ll “see the excreted toxins in the water”, in texts whose near-identical content suggests that the claim was in their manufacturers’ blurb."
Bagaimana di Indonesia? Saya lihat Indonesia belum memasuki ‘tahapan’ tersebut, mungkin karena perlindungan konsumen yang sangat lemah. Produsen alat-alat tersebut masih bebas mengklaim hal-hal yang jelas-jelas tidak benar.
