Did you know that one of the best safeguards you\u2019d have in a poisoning situation is charcoal? It may sound quacky, but it has been proven time and time again. In fact, if you were to bring someone who was poisoned to the hospital, chances are high that they would administer some form of charcoal. It may sound strange, but it works.While the Native Americans were known to use charcoal medicinally, a French professor named Touery was the first to prove charcoal\u2019s protective effects. In 1831, he famously ingested 10 times the lethal dose of strychnine in front of the French Academy of Medicine. He survived by mixing the poison with charcoal. That\u2019s powerful stuff! If charcoal can protect you from strychnine, what else can it do?<\/p>\n
Well, over the last hundred years, the use of charcoal as a medicine has been gaining a lot of momentum. Besides cases of poisoning, people have used it to treat hundreds of different ailments. Depending on the situation, charcoal can be taken internally or applied externally as a poultice or with gauze. A short list of charcoal\u2019s uses includes the treatment of:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Poisoning (of many different causes and severities)
\n\u2022 nausea
\n\u2022 vomiting
\n\u2022 diarrhea
\n\u2022 intestinal gasses
\n\u2022 chest or head colds
\n\u2022 neonatal jaundice
\n\u2022 inflammation
\n\u2022 insect bites or stings
\n\u2022 snakebites
\n\u2022 and poison ivy.<\/p>\n
Now, before you think, \u201cGreat, I already have some of that in the garage.\u201d The charcoal used for medicine or consumption is called \u2018activated charcoal\u2019. It is different from the standard charcoal people use to grill\u2014Although it is made from the same stuff, activated charcoal is specially processed for medicinal use.<\/p>\n
Essentially, manufacturers heat common charcoal and expose it to oxygen. This process causes the charcoal to develop countless tiny pores (holes). These pores cause the surface area of the charcoal to increase dramatically. In fact, a gram of activated charcoal tends to have a surface area greater than 500 m 2. That equates to 5382 square feet\u2014which is larger than most peoples houses! That\u2019s a lot of surface area for a small spoonful of black powder.<\/p>\n
The deceptively large surface area is what makes activated charcoal so effective. The charcoal works because it is great at adsorbing various toxins (different from absorb, adsorb means to \u201cchemically attach\u201d). Because it has such a large surface area, the charcoal has no shortage of bonding points.<\/p>\n
When taken internally, charcoal traps toxins and thereby prevents the body from absorbing them. Then, the charcoal simply makes its way through the digestive system and exits, taking the toxins with it. Charcoal doesn\u2019t adsorb every kind of substance, but it does work for a long list.<\/p>\n
I can personally attest to the effectiveness of charcoal in several of these applications. But, I\u2019ll admit it, the first time I heard about it I was very skeptical\u2014both of its effectiveness and the fact that I would effectively be putting ash in my mouth. It probably didn\u2019t help that it wasn\u2019t the first\u2026 odd\u2026 health remedy that my parents had told me about. However, it is definitely one of the most effective.<\/p>\n
Unlike some other remedies, I could clearly see and feel the results of charcoal. A few months ago, about two hours after eating a meal, I began to feel terrible. Really terrible. My stomach began to cramp; I was nauseous and felt like vomiting. I realized that I had gotten some type of food poisoning.<\/p>\n
It took me several minutes just to work up the energy to get out of bed. When I did, I took a spoonful of charcoal and lay back down. For the next half hour, I lay in bed, still feeling terrible and praying that the charcoal would help. It did. Two hours later, all of the ill effects of whatever I had caught were gone. An hour later, I left home and went about the remainder of my day as normal.<\/p>\n
In future articles (and videos), we will be highlighting some of the other benefits and uses for charcoal. We hope we\u2019ve piqued your interest. Now do yourself a favor and pick up some activated charcoal. It\u2019s inexpensive and is readily available online and in many stores. It is also available in powered form, in capsules, and in pellets. Pick some up, you never know when you may need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perhaps the most surprising thing that could save your life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":21196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"yst_prominent_words":[683,678,2550,2519,1045,917,867,692],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-charcoal","category-healing","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"views":4021,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}