We have previous discussed assorted approaches to “detoxing”:

Detox: What’s Real, What’s Not, What’s Useful, What’s Dangerous?

Today we’re going to be looking at one we didn’t cover there, which is zeolite.

What is zeolite?

Zeolite is a mineral that occurs naturally and can also be synthesized, and it’s famous for absorbing other stuff from around it. Because of this property, it’s used in many things, including:

• Petrochemical catalysis
• Water treatment
• Nuclear waste reprocessing
• Cat litter
• Supplements (for detox purposes)

That’s, uh… An interesting list, isn’t it? So, we were curious as to whether this mineral that’s also used in fish tank filters is, in fact, overpriced gravel being sold to the gullible as a health supplement.

We had to do some digging on this one

Our journey didn’t start well, with this very dubious-looking paper being cited by a company selling zeolite supplements:

MasterPeace™ Zeolite Z™ Pilot Study Found to be Safe and Effective in Removing Nano and Micro Toxic Forever Chemicals, Heavy Metals, Micro Plastics and Graphene and Aluminum Found in the Human Body Cells and Fluids

This immediately prompted two questions:

1. Who is eating graphene?!* That stuff does not occur in nature (or at least; it hasn’t ever been found; the universe is a big place so it might exist elsewhere), has only relatively recently been synthesized, is very difficult to produce, is two-dimensional while being hard as diamonds, and exists only in truly tiny lab-made quantities worldwide. It would be orders of magnitude easier to find and eat uranium.
2. Is this a reputable journal? Which question was easier to answer than the former one, and the answer is “no”; we hadn’t heard of this journal (ACTA Scientific), and neither it seems had most of the Internet, but we did find it on a list of predatory journals, here.

*The citation given in the above paper should by rights answer the question of who is eating graphene, since by rights they must have demonstrated it somehow, but it just doesn’t. Instead, it links to what it claims is a paper titled “Oxygenated Zeolite (Clinoptilite) Efficiently Removes Aluminum & Graphene Oxide”, but is in reality just someone’s blog post with a screenshot of an actual paper entitled “Novel, oxygenated clinoptilolite material efficiently removes aluminium from aluminium chloride-intoxicated rats in vivo”). Looking up this real paper in its real journal, it does not mention graphene.

All this to say: sometimes, unscrupulous people will just plain lie to you, which is why peer review is important, as is sourcing data from reputable journals. Which is what we do for you so that you don’t have to 🙂

It does, actually, work though (for heavy metal detox)

Notwithstanding the aforementioned bunk, we found this from a more reputable publisher:

❝In this study, we have presented clinical evidence supporting the use of an activated clinoptilolite (zeolite) suspension to safely and effectively increase the urinary excretion of potentially toxic heavy metals in healthy volunteers without negatively impacting the electrolyte profiles of the participants.

Significant increases in the urinary excretion of aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel and tin were observed in the subjects participating in the two study groups as compared to placebo controls.❞

Source: Clinical evidence supporting the use of an activated clinoptilolite suspension as an agent to increase urinary excretion of toxic heavy metals

Also good for the gut and against inflammation

Specifically, it’s good for gut barrier integrity, i.e., against “leaky gut syndrome”:

❝Twelve weeks of zeolite supplementation exerted beneficial effects on intestinal wall integrity as indicated via decreased concentrations of the tight junction modulator zonulin.

This was accompanied by mild anti-inflammatory effects in this cohort of aerobically trained subjects.❞

Source: Effects of zeolite supplementation on parameters of intestinal barrier integrity, inflammation, redoxbiology and performance in aerobically trained subjects

May also be good against neurodegenerative diseases

If it is (which is plausible), it’ll probably because of removing heavy metals and improving gut barrier integrity—in other words, the things we just looked at in the two reputable peer-reviewed studies we examined above.

But the science is young for this one; here’s the current state of things:

Zeolite and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Is it safe?

Safety reviews have found it to be safe, for example:

Critical Review on Zeolite Clinoptilolite Safety and Medical Applications in vivo

However, if you are taking regular medications, we recommend checking with your pharmacist or doctor to ensure that zeolite will not also remove those medications from your system!

Want to try some?

We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

Enjoy!