I found this thorough explanation on why oil pulling does not work. Written by a doctor of naturopath, she evaluates many of the basic claims made by many sites on oil pulling (or oil swishing). Read on…

The Truth About Oil Pulling & Why Oil Pulling Can’t “Pull” Toxins

If you’ve not already heard of oil pulling, you will soon. Also known as oil swishing, oil pulling is supposed to detoxify your body with oil held in your mouth. Does oil pulling work? Let’s find out why oil pulling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Oil Pulling & Ayurveda? Maybe It’s Russian? Not That We Can Tell
No one is really sure of the origins of oil pulling. According to some pro-OP web sites, oil pulling began as a folk remedy in Ukraine; according to others, it’s an old Ayurveda remedy. The fact is, we couldn’t find any reference to oil pulling or oil swishing in any of our herbal reference books, monographs or natural medicine text books.
What About Oil Pulling Research?
Try as we may, we weren’t able to turn up even a single study on oil pulling in preparation for this article, which was published in February of 2007. None of the “research” mentioned on pro-OP web sites has been published on PubMed or in any peer-reviewed journal we could find. Not even in “natural” journals catering to complementary and alternative medicine. Nor could we find any information on the supposed “doctor” popularizing this amazing new technique.
How to Perform Oil Pulling
The website oilpulling.com instructs readers to take one tablespoon of fresh vegetable oil into their mouths and “sip, suck and pull through the teeth for fifteen or twenty minutes” before spitting the oil into the sink. According to the author of this site, swishing “activates the enzymes” allowing the enzymes to “draw toxins out of the blood”. But don’t swallow the oil! The oil has, in the words of the author, “become toxic”. After spitting the oil into the sink, you must wash the sink carefully because it now contains “harmful bacteria and toxic bodily waste”.
What Oil Pulling Is Supposed to Do for You
According to various oil pulling web sites, “healing research” has “attracted amazement” over the potential healing benefits of oil pulling. And they aren’t shy about making claims, either. Oil pulling is supposed to help with:

* Migraine Headache
* Leukemia
* Eczema
* Arthritis
* Heart & Kidney Disease
* Meningitis

Heard enough? There are also vague references to “women’s hormonal disorders” and claims of curing cancer, AIDS and chronic infections.

If this sounds a little too good to be true, take comfort in knowing you’re not alone in your skepticism. Here’s why oil pulling can’t possibly work as it’s proponents claim:

1. Oil pulling is supposed to “pull” toxins (no mention of what “toxins” means) out of your blood and bind them somehow to the oil. But your blood vessels don’t just leak toxins. If chemicals could just leak through the walls of your arteries and veins we’d have no need for oil pulling, would we?

2. Oil pulling is supposed to work by exposing the oil to the large veins under the tongue. But those blood vessels simply aren’t large enough to expose your entire blood supply to the oil in the 15-20 minutes allowed for the procedure. Even if you could expose your entire blood supply to the oil in your mouth and toxins could migrate through the walls of your blood vessels, oil pulling still wouldn’t work because of what would have to happen next.

3. For oil pulling to work, your blood has to bring the toxins, bacteria and other nasty stuff to the oil, right? But if these naughty chemicals can “cross over” and bind with the oil, what’s to stop the oil from entering the blood stream? Hmm. . . now you have toxin-laden oil entering the blood system and being carried away from the mouth by the pumping action of your heart. Instead of spitting out toxic oil, you’re now circulating that oil in the blood.
Another Reason Oil Pulling Can’t Work As Promised
We all know that “toxins” are real. No one is disputing that. But toxins that would be “attracted” to the oil used in oil swishing would be fat-soluble. And fat soluble toxins don’t just run around freely in your bloodstream. They’d be stored in your body’s fat cells, right? So ask yourself this one question: What makes oil swishing so special that it forces your cells to suddenly turn loose of all this stored toxic material? And what effect would this sudden dumping of toxins have on your body’s natural filtering systems–the liver and kidneys? At least some of this pollution would reach them first, wouldn’t it? And that would tax your liver and kidneys pretty noticably, wouldn’t it?

Finally, since the toxins that would be circulatng in your bloodsteam would be more likely to be water-soluble than fat-soluble, wouldn’t swishing ordinary mouthwash for 20 minutes actually do a better job than oil at removing toxins?
What About Reports of Tooth Repair?
As skeptical as we are about oil pulling’s ability to “detoxify the body”, there’s little doubt that oil swishing may help some people feel that their teeth were healthier after practicing oil pulling for a few days.

Remember, according to oilpulling.com, your “oral cavity must be thoroughly rinsed and mouth must be washed thoroughly” after oil swishing. Isn’t it possible that anyone thoroughly brushing and rinsing his or her teeth would see a marked improvement just as a result of increased attention to oral hygiene?

And let’s not forget that oil swishing is, after all, probably doing a pretty good job massaging the tissues of the mouth. Massage means better blood flow and better blood flow could quite possibly mean stronger teeth. And, perhaps, some of the oils (and the preservatives added to those oils during the manufacturing process) have at least some anti-microbial action.
Is Oil Pulling Dangerous?
I see no real way that oil pulling could be dangerous. After all, it’s just vegetable oil. Assuming you don’t choke on it, oil pulling is probably completely harmless.

Does all this mean that oil pulling is a scam? You decide. But you now have the tools to understand why oil swishing can’t “pull” toxins out of your blood and the information to make up your own mind about oil pulling.


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