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Apr 28, 2008 4:01 pm US/Central
Does Foot Detoxifying Service Work?
COLLEYVILLE (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Detoxify your body, feel energized and recharged. Sound like something you might want to try? Those are the claims of a service many local spas are offering. But does it work? CBS 11 went undercover to check it out.
The product is called Aqua Detox, and those who administer the treatment claim it can literally pull toxins out of your body through your feet. It will cost you almost $90 for the treatment.
With undercover cameras rolling, we visited The Spa at the Village in Colleyville. It is one of several spas in the Dallas/Fort Worth area offering the Aqua Detox system. Inside, a spa employee explains it's a foot bath that will "detoxify, re-balance and re-energize your body."
"We actually have four thousand pores on our feet... over four thousand actually," explains the employee.
Using an electrical current that is passed through water, we're told the bath will pull toxins out of our bodies through the pores in our feet.
"The Aqua Detox is basically going to detoxify from your liver, your joints, and the water's actually going to change colors," the employee told our undercover producers.
Next, the employee brings in detox tubs with water already inside, and then she adds salt water. Our producers asked the employee how long it would take before the water would change colors. She said sometimes it happens immediately, while for others it might take the full 30 minutes. Twenty seconds after the machine turns on, the water began to change for our producers.
Two months ago, Kerry Adair and his girlfriend had the Aqua Detox done at the same Colleyville spa. He says their water also started to change color almost immediately...turning burnt orange just like ours.
"And not only orange, after about 10 or 15 minutes, it was really orange," Adair remembered.
Adair says the spa employee used a color chart to show what toxins the treatment pulled from his body.
"According to the color chart, it was pulling toxins out of our joints," he says. "I thought how could there be this much inside of my body, and how come i don't feel anything?"
Adair later researched the system and says he couldn't believe what he found.
"It's just the rust that's coming off the electrodes," he says. "It's not the toxins. It's nothing from our feet."
Dr. John Sibert, an associate professor of Chemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas, says the color change can be explained by simple science.
"Electrolysis, which is used in the marketing of that product, is a very basic chemical process that involves electrical energy being used to do some chemical change," Dr. Sibert said.
He says the orange color in the water is a result of iron in its oxidized form. That's rust.
Our undercover producers took a water sample from the tub used to soak their feet and took it to Armstrong Forensic Laboratory in Arlington to be tested for toxins.
"The only thing we found in the water sample was rust," says Kelly Wouters, a forensic chemist with Armstrong Labs. "We didn't find any evidence of any removal of toxic substances or anything that might be harmful to your body."
A spokeswoman for the manufacturer, Aqua Detox USA, says spas like this one should not use the color chart with the product to imply there are toxins in the water. In a statement the company says "there is no scientific research behind the colors." The statement goes on to say the foot bath does encourage (the body) to find balance and release the toxins via the pores in each foot.
The owners of the spa declined an on camera interview, but told us in a written statement that they have hundreds of satisfied clients who believe in the therapeutic benefits of the Aqua Detox treatment.
But for Adair and his girlfriend, they say it was nothing more than a waste of money.
"I think you should research everything before you go in, and like most things, if they're too good to be true, they probably are," Adair said.
______________________________________________
Aqua Detox USA, the maker of the Aqua Detox product, provided a statement to CBS 11 News. Click here to download it as a PDF file.
A law firm representing The Spa at The Village in Colleyville also provided us with a statement. Click here to download it as a PDF file.______________________________________________Aqua Detox USA, the maker of the Aqua Detox product, provided a statement to CBS 11 News. .A law firm representing The Spa at The Village in Colleyville also provided us with a statement. .
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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