4 Proven Benefits of Activated Charcoal

Charcoal has been known for a variety of purposes.  It can be used to keep the air fresh, make cut flowers last longer, imperfections on furniture, or simply to light up your barbecue.

But there’s this other type of charcoal that’s been making a buzz around the health and wellness community.  It’s called activated charcoal and studies have shown that it contains properties that make it a potent natural treatment. 

What is Activated Charcoal?

To understand how effective a treatment it is, it’s best to define what activated charcoal is before anything else.

Activated charcoal is usually made from bone char, coconut shells, coal, olive pits, peat, petroleum coke, or sawdust.

The charcoal is activated by subjecting it to extremely high temperatures which alter its internal structure, thereby reducing the size of its pores and increasing its surface area.

While both ordinary and activated charcoal can be made from the same substances, the difference lies in the process they go through where activated charcoal goes through high temperatures while a charcoal briquette doesn’t.

Benefits of Activated Charcoal:

Due to its ability to trap toxins and chemicals in the gut, activated charcoal comes with a few key benefits such as the following:

It may reduce cholesterol levels

One of the key benefits linked to activated charcoal is that it may help reduce cholesterol levels.  

This may come about because it can bind cholesterol and cholesterol-containing bile acids found in the gut, effectively keeping the body from absorbing them.

Several studies have shown that taking activated charcoal daily can help reduce total and bad LDL cholesterol to considerable amounts.

It may help improve kidney function

Activated charcoal is also thought to promote kidney function due to its ability to reduce the number of waste products the kidneys have to filter.

Such ability can be highly beneficial especially for people whose kidneys are no longer functioning at a hundred percent or people with chronic kidney disease.

This is crucial because the kidneys play a very important role in a person’s overall health.  With healthy kidneys, the body has everything it needs to filter blood properly and in the process, remove harmful toxins that can lead to a variety of illnesses.

It can help with water filtration

Heavy metals and fluoride usually make their way inside the body through the water we drink and when they do, they can lead to a host of negative health conditions.

Activated charcoal can keep this from happening because it can reduce heavy metal and fluoride content in water.

It can help reduce the symptoms of Fish Odor Syndrome

Trimethylaminuria (TMAU), also known as fish odor syndrome, is a genetic condition where a compound with a smell similar to that of rotting fish, accumulates inside the body.

As the compound continues to accumulate inside the body, it soon makes its way into one’s breath, sweat, and urine where the foul odor manifests itself.

Several studies have shown that the activated charcoal’s porous surface can help bind such compounds, thereby eliminating them from the body.

Final Thoughts

There’s no denying that activated charcoal can be beneficial to one’s health given the benefits mentioned.  If you want to keep your cholesterol levels at a minimum and keep your kidneys clean and healthy, taking an activated charcoal supplement daily will go a long way.