Heidi Klum, 'deworming' and the truth about the 'parasite cleanse'
Heidi Klum doesn't trust her gut. In fact, she says it's full of worms, parasites and metal that she wants to remove right away using plant-forward treatments.
The supermodel and "Project Runway" host, 52, told The Wall Street Journal that she was going on a "worm cleanse and parasite cleanse" to clear her body of infectious guests and metal. Her source? "Everything I'm getting on my Instagram feed." Paste BN has reached out to Klum for comment.
For an otherwise healthy person with access to good sanitation and clean water and no symptoms of parasitic infection, there's no evidence such a cleanse would make a difference, and especially using herbal remedies, according to Dr. Jeffrey Dvorin, an infectious diseases doctor at Boston Children's Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
"If you're concerned and have symptoms, you should speak with your health care provider," Dvorin said. "These things can be tested, and safe and effective therapies delivered in a direct manner."
'There is no magic potion'
A parasite is an organism that lives inside or on a host, harming its home as it feeds, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Parasites can include worms, which may or may not feed or hurt the host to survive, and can be found all over our bodies. These spread via contaminated water and inadequate sanitation, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and cause nasty disease, and even death, if symptoms aren't treated.
Klum's claims are an important reminder that our guts are full of small organisms that are essential for health, too.
While we can exercise caution for infection and manage our diets, we can't just wipe our systems clean, according to Isabelle Coppens, professor of parasitology at Johns Hopkins University. Environmental factors and diet influence how these things affect our bodies, and what's most important is taking steps to avoid unhealthy exposure.
"There is no magic potion," said Coppens.
Cleanses may inevitably strip the good microbiome, too, Dvorin said. And cleanses like Klum described can also cause dehydration or nausea, leading to adverse nutrient and electrolyte loss.
Further, it' not likely for Americans to have this kind of infection, Dvorin said.
"It is unlikely a healthy person from a region of the world with good water, sanitation and hygiene would have a significant amount of infection," Dvorin said.
And while Klum said people who eat raw things like sushi are susceptible to worms and parasites, Dvorin said U.S. restaurants typically freeze fish to kill anything that would cause illness. While eating undercooked food can slighly increase the risk of getting sick, sushi leading to parasites in "uncommon," Dvorin said. And the worm most commonly found in sushi, anisakis, is typically asymptomatic and doesn't replicate in humans, he said.
Klum's heavily herbal regimen containing cloves and papaya seeds has not been studied in robust ways to suggest they're viable treatments, he said. Cloves and papaya seeds have been shown in limited research to have some efficacy against worms, Dvorin said.
"There are lots of bioactive components in herbal substances and some of them do have activity in a laboratory setting however they currently don't have the robust evidence from placebo-controlled studies to support widespread use of them," Dvorin said. And concentrated clove in large quantities also poses a risk of neurotoxicity and liver toxicity, he said.
"And there's less regulation of herbal supplementals, so it's hard to guarantee you know what you're getting," Dvorin said.
And what about Klum's take on metal? We all have metals in our bodies – for good reason: A balance of iron, magnesium, copper, potassium and other metals helps the body maintain, regulate and protect itself. Research shows too many healthy metals or overexposure to toxic metals, such as mercury or lead, can hurt our bodies. But it's important not to deprive ourselves of all metals entirely.
"The idea of medicine to pull these metals out of our body needs to be done with supervision and for a specific reason, not just general health," Dvorin said.
You likely don't need to panic scrub worms, parasites or metal from your body. If you're worried, go to your doctor and seek testing. And, in our digital world, it's especially important to get verified information from medical professionals, not social media, Dvorin said.
"Overall there is really no robust evidence to suggest an otherwise healthy person has any benefit from deworming or taking parasitics."