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"  Photo: Getty Images You see it plastered on juice bottles promising to cleanse your liver and jump-start weight loss, on posters for yoga retreats, and on at-home plans for decreasing your reliance on technology. But a lot of the buzz around &amp;quot;detoxing&amp;quot; is just that\u2014the science and studies aren&amp;#039;t there to back it up. &amp;quot;The urge to detox comes from a good place,&amp;quot; says Rick Smith, coauthor of Toxin Toxout. &amp;quot;So many of us sit at desks all day, live in congested cities, and want to focus on wellness. But a lot of what&amp;#039;s being done, while probably not harmful, isn&amp;#039;t worth the money or effort.&amp;quot; Yet behind all the hoopla, there are legitimate ways to decrease the amount of toxins you let enter your body. And now is good time to get started. &amp;quot;Over the past 50 years, we&amp;#039;ve made a lot of progress reducing the most obvious sources of industrial pollutants, but as their levels have decreased, we&amp;#039;ve been busy creating weird, synthetic chemicals and injecting them into the products we use every day,&amp;quot; says Smith. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s increasingly being linked to rising rates of breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, and autism.&amp;quot; Here&amp;#039;s how to start ridding yourself of some of what&amp;#039;s out there. 1. Use natural and organic beauty products There are only a handful of ways that chemicals can enter our bodies\u2014and through the skin is a primary one. &amp;quot;There is a whole new breed of products that doesn&amp;#039;t contain parabens, which have been linked to breast cancer, and phalates, which are associated with physical abnormalities in little boys,&amp;quot; says Smith. &amp;quot;When you use safer products, the level of chemicals in your body quickly falls.&amp;quot; Check the ingredient list in the drugstore aisle and consider any long, impossible-to-pronounce names as well as the words fragrance or parfum red flags. Or check out the Environmental Working Group&amp;#039;s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database to see how your picks measure up. 2. Eat organic Local, seasonal, and organic food doesn&amp;#039;t just taste better\u2014it also fuels your body. But choosing only wild, non-antibiotic-fed meat in addition to organic fruits and vegetables can be prohibitively expensive. &amp;quot;Every little bit helps,&amp;quot; says Smith. &amp;quot;The worst offenders are fruits and vegetables, and the price difference is lower than it is between organic and conventional meat or dairy, so it&amp;#039;s the best place to start.&amp;quot; Otherwise, you risk pesticide exposure, which has negative health effects like endocrine disruption and increased risk of non-Hodgkin&amp;#039;s lymphoma, obesity, diabetes, asthma, and infertility. 3. Drink lots of water And skip the plastic bottle, thank you very much. &amp;quot;In most of North America, tap water is much more rigorously tested for contaminants than bottled water is,&amp;quot; says Smith. &amp;quot;You often don&amp;#039;t know what you&amp;#039;re getting in bottled water, not to mention the environmental toxins it creates.&amp;quot; He encourages people to filter their drinking water if they like, but thinks that filtering showers and other water sources is probably unnecessary. 4. Equip your home &amp;quot;Most Americans spend well over 90 percent of their lives indoors, so the quality of air inside your home is arguably more important than that outside of it,&amp;quot; says Smith. You can decrease the number of chemicals you breathe by making small changes, like choosing low-VOC paints, vacuuming with a HELPA filter to capture ultra-fine particles, and buying furniture and fabrics made from natural fibers. 5. Cut back on meat Certified organic meat certainly has less chemicals in it, but research shows that limiting your intake of any animal products will reduce the levels of certain toxic chemicals in your body. That&amp;#039;s because these chemicals are sucked into animals&amp;#039; fat tissues, and when they enter our bodies, they latch on as well. We don&amp;#039;t advocate becoming a vegetarian, but exploring alternate non-soy protein sources\u2014think beans or seitan\u2014may be a good idea. 6. Sweat it out It&amp;#039;s one of the fastest and easiest ways to eliminate toxins, so for a double-whammy, consider following your workout with a session in the sauna or steam room. Exercise helps rid the body of lipophilic, or fat-loving, chemicals by breaking down fat cells, releasing the toxins stored in them, and finally exerting them. &amp;quot;We live a society where people don&amp;#039;t sweat as often as they should, but in doing so, we&amp;#039;re missing out on major health benefits,&amp;quot; says Smith. Related: The ELLE Guide to Detoxing Related: I Survived a 10-Day Detox From the editors of  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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