Holistic Approach to Cleansing and Detoxing with Dr. Alejandro Junger [Episode #457]
This weekâs topic is: Holistic Approach to Cleansing and Detoxing with Dr. Alejandro Junger
I am so excited to have a very special guest, Dr. Alejandro Junger, who is a New York Times best-selling author, LA-based cardiologist and founder of health and wellness company, CLEAN. Listen in as Dr. Junger shares how he went from being a cardiologist to running a company that focuses on a more holistic approach to cleansing and detoxing, and the 3 pillars of Clean!
- Dr Junger shares how he, as a cardiologist, became interested in a more holistic approach to cleansing and detoxingâŚ
- What was Dr. Jungerâs calling that encouraged him to live in IndiaâŚ
- Going beyond western medicineâŚ
- Whether detoxing is too extreme of a lifestyle and how often one should detoxâŚ
- A breakdown of what the 3 pillars of Clean areâŚ
- Ayurvedic body types and how they are treatedâŚ
- Intermittent fasting principlesâŚ
- Seven Ayurvedic herbs that are beneficial for the detox systemâŚ
- We discuss whether colonics and enemas are helpful when cleansingâŚ
- How often should you do a 7 or 21-day cleanseâŚ
- Foods and herbs that help support the liver and colon long-termâŚ
- Meditation and how to stay presentâŚ

About Dr. Alejandro Junger
Dr. Alejandro Junger, MD, is a New York Times best-selling author and founder of health and wellness company CLEAN. CLEAN, launched in 2009, was inspired by Dr. Jungerâs experiments to restore his own health. Dr. Junger was diagnosed with multiple ailments and none of the traditional treatments that he was prescribed solved his issues. He went on a journey to look at other schools of medicine, and found Ayurvedic medicine, among other things.
He completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine at NYU Downtown Hospital and a fellowship in cardiovascular diseases at Lenox Hill Hospital before studying eastern medicine in India. This led him to developing the CLEAN program. In the years since he launched the program, his patients and followers have experienced benefits of upgrading and reclaiming their health and sense of wellbeing. A Uruguayan-born cardiologist and Functional Medicine practitioner, Dr. Junger is known for working with A-list celebrities, singer-songwriters, and countless other patients seeking to restore the balance of health.
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Dr. Jungerâs Interview
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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Kimberly Snyder: Hi beauties, welcome back to our Monday interview podcast. I am so excited for our special guest today who is sitting right next to me on the couch. His name is Dr. Alejandro Junger and he is a New York Times best-selling author, an LA based cardiologist and the founder of the health and wellness company, Clean. He also has a new book out thatâs called Clean 7.
Dr. Junger: Yes.
Kimberly Snyder: Before we dive in, I have so many questions for you Dr. Junger and thank you for taking the trip up the mountains to sit with me. I always love-
Dr. Junger: I should pay you for
Fan Of The Week
Kimberly Snyder: ⌠I always love being with guests in person. I just want to give a quick shout-out to our fan of the week, who is Cecilia29, she writes, âThis review is long overdue. I look forward to listening to this incredible podcast every week. I absolutely love how Kimberly offers guidance on all aspects of health, physical, emotional, spiritual and diet.â Cecilia29, thank you so much for being our fan of the week. Sending a big virtual hug wherever you are. Thank you, thank you.
Share The Podcast and Leave a Review on Itunes
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Interview with Dr. Junger
Kimberly Snyder: All right, all that being said, Dr. Junger, thank you so much for being here with us today, coming up the hill. I know you live in Venice.
Dr. Junger: It was worth it, the view is incredible.
Kimberly Snyder: Isnât it incredible? Itâs so peaceful up here.
Dr. Junger: I know, very nice.
Dr Junger shares how he, as a cardiologist, became interested in a more holistic approach to cleansing and detoxing
Kimberly Snyder: When I was reading your bio, I was really interested in how, first of all, a cardiologist would become interested in cleansing and detoxing and a much more holistic approach. Most cardiologists I know are quite focused-
Dr. Junger: I really didnât.
Kimberly Snyder: Tell us, how did this come about?
Dr. Junger: I didnât really become interested in detox as a chosen curiosity.
Kimberly Snyder: What happened?
Dr. Junger: What happened is I got really sick. I was diagnosed with three diseases. I was given seven prescription medications.
Kimberly Snyder: Which diseases?
Dr. Junger: Irritable bowel syndrome, severe depression and severe allergies.
Kimberly Snyder: Wow.
Dr. Junger: I was given seven prescription medications and this is already being a cardiologist. So, I had these two ah-ha moments. I wasnât going to live that way, seven pills a day just in order to function. And the other ah-ha moment was, this is what Iâm doing for my patients. So, I said, Iâm going to find a different solution for my health issues. That took me, kicking and screaming to find detoxification. And then, when I found it, I was completely skeptical. I hadnât learned this in medical
Kimberly Snyder: Exactly, I was going to say, this is not part of your formal training.
Dr. Junger: It sounded like hokey pokey. But one thing that I am thankfully wired to, is not to argue with results or with success, or with disaster. So, when thereâs disaster, you donât do that anymore. When thereâs success you try to really understand whatâs going on and through cleansing and detoxification, I found not only the solution for my problems but eventually found the solution for hundreds of thousands of people.
Kimberly Snyder: So, did you try the medication route and you didnât want to stay on the meds? Or right away, were you like, Iâm going to seek alternatives?
Dr. Junger: I was so desperate that I did try.
Kimberly Snyder: Okay, I mean for three diseases that are quite debilitating.
Dr. Junger: Not for long though. I was given antidepressants and anti anxieties and they did not make me feel alive. They maybe they took that deep sadness or sense of doom that was paralyzing me but it wasnât really a solution. And I understand that for a lot of people, it is. Hopefully, it is just a bridge until-
Kimberly Snyder: Temporary, yes.
Dr. Junger: ⌠until they find what is really going to solve things from the root. And for me, it was detoxification.
Kimberly Snyder: How long ago was this?
Dr. Junger: This was in 2001 or 2002 when I found these things.
Kimberly Snyder: So you were a practicing cardiologist, seeing all these patients and suddenly-
Dr. Junger: I was living in Palm Springs.
Kimberly Snyder: Okay.
Dr. Junger: I had admission privileges in four hospitals, so morning rounds, I started at four, five in the morning. And then when I finished my four hospital morning rounds, I went to three different offices to work in different days where I saw more patients. And then I was on-call for overnight, many nights too. And I had gotten sick in New York while doing my training, when I was diagnosed. And then, I stopped everything. I graduated as a cardiologist, but I took off and I went to an ashram in India. And then I lived there for a while. I was exposed to-
Kimberly Snyder: What called you to India?
What was Dr. Jungerâs calling that encouraged him to live in India
Dr. Junger: I had a very strong encounter with a spiritual teacher, with a guru, and she kind of-
Kimberly Snyder: Which one?
Dr. Junger:
Kimberly Snyder: Oh, I get goosebumps. So, you started learning how to meditate.
Dr. Junger: So, I started learning how to meditate. Thatâs the reason I went to India, to her ashram.
Kimberly Snyder: Was it in Rishikesh?
Dr. Junger: No. In a place called Ganeshpuri.
Kimberly Snyder: Oh.
Dr. Junger: Itâs somewhere-
Kimberly Snyder: Yeah, itâs somewhere in this vast, vast subcontinent. Okay, so you go to India, youâve stopped practicing cardiology.
Dr. Junger: Well, once youâre a cardiologist, youâre always a cardiologist. Whether youâre working in
Kimberly Snyder: Sure, you had all that training for a bajillion years.
Dr. Junger: ⌠so every time you see somebody and they have a cardiology problem, you recognize it and you do something about it. But then I started adding other things too-
Kimberly Snyder: Well, when you were a trained doctor, was it really like, okay, hereâs the issues with the heart, hereâs medication, hereâs surgery. You had no training formally up until that point about diet or food or âŚ
Dr. Junger: Very little.
Kimberly Snyder: Nothing. They donât really cover that in medical school, do they?
Dr. Junger: They donât and they donât cover that in hospitals. So, that means you have to look at the hospitalâs cafeteria and see what theyâre feeding
Kimberly Snyder: Oh, they give them Ensure. The gross drink, they tried to give my mom when she was in there. I said, âNo way.â
Dr. Junger: Yeah. So, I hadnât had any and in fact neither of any of the three doctors that I saw, gastroenterologist, allergist and a psychiatrist, nobody asked what I ate, and I wasnât-
Kimberly Snyder: Jeez, with IBS? Can you imagine?
Dr. Junger: Yeah, I can imagine, because I lived it.
Kimberly Snyder: Yeah.
Dr. Junger: Yeah, so took off in the ashram. Food was not only vegetarian but prepared with love.
Kimberly Snyder: Yeah, and Ayurveda concepts.
Dr. Junger: And I was working, running the first aid station there. We saw people from all over the world that were living there. And also-
Kimberly Snyder: You were volunteering?
Dr. Junger: Yep.
Kimberly Snyder: Oh, wow.
Dr. Junger: So also I was running the first aid station, a little clinic there. And also, we were going in a bus turned hospital around the poorest towns and villages where we, at any given day had up to three, 400 patients. They had walked for two weeks to see us.
Kimberly Snyder: Wow.
Dr. Junger: Yeah, it was crazy. But, living there, I started getting a little better. Not fully but a little better. With all the meditation and all the vegetarian food and everything, and then I came back to the States to Palm Springs to work in the hospitals and I got sicker than even before.
Kimberly Snyder: Did you go back to the diet that you were eating before you left?
Dr. Junger: Well, yeah.
Kimberly Snyder: What was your diet? Were you eating a lot of meat and dairy?
Dr. Junger: I was on a see food diet. I saw food, I ate it. Whatever I see, I eat.
Kimberly Snyder: So, you were eating whatever.
Dr. Junger: Yeah, whatever.
Kimberly Snyder: Yeah.
Dr. Junger: And then one day this guy comes to my house, whom I had seen 10 days before, and he was just like a lit bulb, shining, glowing and had lost a bunch of weight. And I had saw him 10 days before and said, âWhat the hell?â And he said, âWell, I just came from a detox center. Come, I can show you.â It was just a five minute drive from where I was living in Palm Springs. Called the We Care Spa. And he took me there and the owner is an Argentinian woman who not only speaks my language but super smart and super well-read.
Kimberly Snyder: Tuned in, yeah.
Dr. Junger: Tuned in and years of practice of guiding people through this. And she basically started me on this journey of detox. Through which in the first 10 days I got rid of all my problems. Not only that, I was looking and feeling 10 years younger. So, I said, well-
Kimberly Snyder: What were you eating in that time? Pure vegan? Mostly raw vegan?
Dr. Junger: Those 10 days were just juices, tonics, enzymes, probiotics. Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder: All the good stuff.
Dr. Junger: Well, some of the good stuff. So, I transformed myself to the point that all my friends, my family, my patients, they were asking me, âWhat are you doing?â
Kimberly Snyder: So then you went back to being a cardiologist?
Dr. Junger: Itâs not that I went back, I never stopped being a cardiologist.
Kimberly Snyder: Well, I mean you took a break to go to India.
Dr. Junger: I didnât take a break. I took a break from the establishment, working in an office.
Kimberly Snyder: Sure, going to that hospital.
Dr. Junger: With nurses and seven minutes per patient, yeah, I took a break of that. I was working again there, which made me really sick, because this is a competitive cutthroat business.
Kimberly Snyder: And it must have felt strange to come back into that environment where itâs just medication and surgery and no oneâs talking about food and lifestyle and eliminating inflammatory foods, all the aspects of detoxing.
Dr. Junger: Yep, I mean-
Kimberly Snyder: Start to feel disconnected.
Going beyond western medicine
Dr. Junger: In a way. I mean, I wasnât fully there yet. But then I started really studying and learning and then whatever I saw happening at the We Care Center which I thought was magic or ⌠I then discovered the Institute for Functional Medicine, which in the language of medical school, in the language of Western medicine, explained to me all things that I already knew, but grouped them and connected them in a different way. So, for example, I knew what the liver was, I knew what the kidney was, I knew what the lymphatic system was. But I never thought of all these things as forming, as being part of a system, the detoxification system.
Dr. Junger: So, once I understand what this system works and why it works and how it works and how you can strengthen it, accelerate it, optimize it, then I started getting incredible results with people.
Kimberly Snyder: So, let me ask you Dr. Junger, so detox is something weâve been talking about in the community for years. So, itâs something thatâs of great interest to me as well. And I always look at it as two types of detox, as I call it, the ones where you go onto a program or you do a juice fast, you do a set amount of time where you really go in deep. And then your everyday life, which isnât a diet, more of a lifestyle incorporating more fiber, taking probiotics. Just how you live your life because sometimes we get a lot of questions about, âOh, detox seems really extreme. Is it just something I do once a year versus how I live?â So, can you tell us a little bit about, because we are detoxing all the time, your perspective.
Whether detoxing is too extreme of a lifestyle and how often one should detox
Dr. Junger: A detox program is, you hire a crew of cleaners and in three days, you clean every single corner of your house. In between those lines on the ceiling, everywhere. Thatâs a detox program.
Kimberly Snyder: But what about in between the cleanings?
Dr. Junger: In between, you got to keep your house somewhat clean or clean. Itâs just not everyday youâre going to the ceiling, stairs, you clean every corner and you go under the carpet. Then today you vacuum, you clean the windows and everything looks good. But if somebody comes and does a deep cleaning, theyâre going to notice stuff. We can go around your house, Iâll show you some spider webs if you want.
Kimberly Snyder: Oh, for sure. So yeah, so, how often do you think people should do that deep clean?
Dr. Junger: Well, it depends on how dirty your house is. It depends on what you do between deep cleaning. Another example that I use is, detox programs are like taking a shower. And how often you need to shower depends on what you do between showers.
Kimberly Snyder: Thatâs right. Thatâs right. So, it just depends. Itâs so individual. Depends on the state of the person, their diet, their lifestyle, their constitution.
Dr. Junger: Yeah, some people should detox for the next three years. Other people should detox once every three years. It depends.
Kimberly Snyder: Well, tell us about your three pillars of clean.
A breakdown of what the 3 pillars of Clean are
Dr. Junger: Many years ago I wrote a book called Clean, which is a 21 day program that is transformational. People that do it sometimes become health gurus themselves. They go into it and they end up studying. I can name a few. As transformation as it is, I realized that not as many people as they need are doing it. And for years Iâve been looking into it and understood that 21 days for the average Joe or Josephine in America is a big commitment, so-
Kimberly Snyder: It is, and people are busy and they have families.
Dr. Junger: People are busy, thereâs birthday parties and
Kimberly Snyder: And work gets busy.
Dr. Junger: And work, so a lot of people were not engaging because it was too long. So, I used to tell people, well, do the first seven days of the 21 days. But it happens that in the first week usually on a detox program, itâs the worst week. So-
Kimberly Snyder: Oh yes. When your skin starts breaking out, you start getting headaches.
Dr. Junger: ⌠for 10 years Iâve been looking for ways to shorten the time and deepen, accelerate, intensify the results. And I did, by combining my first book, my 21 day program, these are basically concepts that I learned from functional medicine and just from life in general.
Kimberly Snyder: So, you went back to the functional medicine school? You studied with them too?
Dr. Junger: Iâve been studying with them since I discovered all these things. Iâm a functional medicine student.
Kimberly Snyder: Are they here in LA too?
Dr. Junger: Theyâre all over the world, yeah. But then, I started going to India. I studied with my Ayurvedic medicine master. I was lucky that I was one of the last ones that he taught.
Kimberly Snyder: In India?
Dr. Junger: In India, in Lucknow. He was a legend, amazing. A Dr. Narendra Singh and he taught me about certain Ayurvedic medicine principles that specifically will enhance the Clean Program, because he had read my book. And when he saw me, he said, he was a very serious man and he said, âThis is an Ayurvedic medicine book.â I said, âNo, Narendra, this is a functional medicine book.â He said, âSame thing.â
Kimberly Snyder: Like principles of Panchakarma and cleansing were already woven in.
Dr. Junger: Principles of Panchakarma and cleansing were not woven in and theyâre still not woven in because the principles that I learned from him that would really enhance cleansing and detoxification were observing the Dosha, the diet-
Kimberly Snyder: Being more specific to your body type?
Ayurvedic body types and how they are treated
Dr. Junger: More specific to your body type, so, he said, âYouâre treating everybody the same and they will get results but thereâs differences between Kapha, Pitta, Vata.â And then he taught me what herbs to use as well. And thatâs where I was like, whoa. In seven days now, somebody can have a full on experience. Not the 21 day full on experience, but full on enough that people would be excited, inspired and make a commitment to continue. Or, at least apply many of these principles on a daily basis.
Kimberly Snyder: And in Clean 7 thereâs some kind of self-diagnosis or quiz so people can tell their body type.
Dr. Junger: Which is pretty okay. You donât need to a-
Kimberly Snyder: Can I tell what, I mean, what I am by looking at me?
Dr. Junger: I cannot, because Iâm not an Ayurvedic medicine expert. So, I do know how to use certain Ayurvedic medicine principles within what I do. I am though, very interested, and Iâve since then, for the last 10 years, Iâve been looking into it.
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