Disclaimer: None of the information in this article constitutes medical advice, and is just the opinion of the writer(s) and published for informational purposes only. We recommend that patients follow their doctor’s guidance in regard to detoxification.
High Voltage Detox is a brand which makes detoxicifcation (detox) products claiming to cause a "complete cleansing of all toxins from your system." As we detailed in our recent vaccine detox review, the health claims made by companies selling detox products are often dubious at best and outright misleading at worst.
In this article, we'll analyze the ingredients in High Voltage Detox's "Premium Detox Drinks" based on published medical research to determine whether we believe they're likely to be effective or not. We'll also provide some general information about detoxing and when it's medically necessary.
High Voltage Detox Drink Review
High Voltage Detox sells "Premium Detox Drinks" that are 16 ounces (oz). The ingredient label above comes directly from the brand's website, and we'd suggest that they upload a new image where the ingredients are less blurry and easier to read.
The brand claims these products will "remove unwanted toxins and pollutants from your urinary tract," but there is no citation for that claim, or any explanation about how a random blend of synthetic vitamins and high fructose corn syrup would remove toxins from someone's urinary tract.
These “Premium Detox Drinks” contain 42 grams (g) of sugar per bottle. That’s 3 g more than a regular sized (12 oz) Coca Cola.
It’s well established in medical studies that excessive added sugar intake is associated with negative health outcomes like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. For this reason, we find it to be unacceptable that High Voltage Detox is making health claims while selling a product containing this much sugar.
This product also contains a wide variety of synthetic vitamin additives, such as Vitamin B2 and Vitamin B12. We cannot identify any medical research suggesting that this seemingly random blend of vitamins assists detoxification pathways in the body, nor does High Voltage Detox provide any, so we'll consider this entire section of the ingredients to be likely ineffective.
The first ingredient in the proprietary (prop) blend is creatine monohydrate, which is typically used to increase workout performance, not detox. We can't locate one single clinical trial suggesting that creatine has detoxification effects, and we actually found a medical review published in the Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry journal suggesting creatine may be toxic: "...one of the theories regarding the potential for toxicity from creatine supplementation is that it can increase oxidative stress and potentially form carcinogenic compounds."
High Voltage Detox also contains artificial food dye, listed as FD&C colors, which may be toxic based on animal studies. We recommend that consumers avoid all products containing artificial food dyes.
This is arguably the worst formulation of any product we've ever reviewed on Illuminate Health, and we've published over 300 articles at the time of updating this article. We would strongly recommend that consumers avoid this product, and we do not believe this product is likely to provide any detoxification benefit.
High Voltage Detox Double Flush Review
High Voltage Detox sells another product line called "Double Flush." The brand claims these products are their "most potent toxin cleanse" and it's a combination liquid and capsule supplement (which explains the two separate Supplement Facts labels above).
The liquid product has the exact same formulation as High Voltage Detox Premium Detox Drinks, so all of our comments hold from the previous section.
The capsule product is formulated mainly using a large blend of herbs. The first-listed ingredient in the prop blend is uva ursi, and while this botanical ingredient has been suggested in a medical review to potentially be effective for treating kidney stones, we cannot find any evidence that it's effective for detoxification generally. We also cannot find dosing recommendations or a clear standard dose that's proven to be safe.
Turmeric powder is the second-listed ingredient in the Double Flush capsule blend, and one clinical trial found that curcumin, which is the active chemical constituent in turmeric, provided some detoxification benefits to mercury-exposed animals.
The dosage of curcumin in the above-linked study was 80 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg), which would equate to a 7,200 mg dose for an average-weight male. This is more than twice the dose of High Voltage Detox's entire prop blend, of which turmeric is only one of 13 ingredients.
Milk thistle may be an effective detoxification ingredient, because it has been proven effective for treating liver disease in a meta-study from 2010. However, we would not recommend that patients use milk thistle alone to treat a condition as severe as liver disease, but rather to speak with their doctor about what appropriate treatment is. The effective and safe dosing range of milk thistle is not clear to us.
The capsules in Double Flush are free of some of the questionable additives that we noted in the liquid product like high fructose corn syrup and artificial food dye.
We would not recommend High Voltage Detox Double Flush, because these two products combined contain many additive ingredients we consider questionable from a health perspective, and because High Voltage Detox provides no proof that these products benefit human detoxification. We don't consider them likely to be effective.
Are Detoxes Really Necessary?
We consider the medical backing for "detox" supplements and health products to be relatively weak.
For most adults, their liver and kidneys naturally detoxify their blood and can easily manage processing the wide range of low-dose toxins we're exposed to on a daily basis (like small amounts of arsenic in rice).
We would recommend that consumers consider claims about "detox" benefits to be a red flag about a supplement company that may not be backed by good science, because we've rarely seen these claims cited (they certainly aren't in High Voltage Detox's case).
There are some circumstances which require medically-assisted detoxification therapy, like high exposure to mercury from dental amalgams, for example.
Dental fillings used to be made with mercury, which is toxic. Today they aren’t. However, many older people still have mercury in their fillings, and removing these safely may require detoxification therapy. Some medical research suggests beneficial outcomes to a proprietary vitamin protocol in this unique case.
Our point is that patients who believe they have been exposed to significant quantities of environmental toxins would be best speaking with their doctor about potential medical therapies. Otherwise, it seems illogical to worry about detoxing.
Medically-assisted interventions for detoxification are used in very narrow circumstances, and typically very severe health conditions, and we don't believe that this class and severity of health conditions is appropriately treated with dietary supplements. To repeat a previous example, a patient with liver disease should speak with their doctor about treatment options rather than taking online supplements to try to treat their liver disease.
In any case, if their doctor recommended a detoxification intervention, it would not be a sugary energy drink called “High Voltage Detox” as the treatment for their health condition.
Our Natural Liver Support Recommendation
We don't generally recommend the use of products to "cleanse" or "remove toxins" from the body as stated above. However, there are compounds which can naturally support the body's own detoxification processes if consumers are intent on doing so.
The liver and kidneys detoxify the body, and moringa leaf is a plant which has been found in medical research to optimize and enhance the body's innate detoxification pathways.
A clinical trial on animals, published in the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal, found that moringa leaf reduced liver damage and improved symptoms of liver fibrosis.
A medical review published in 2016 reviewed tens of individual trials on moringa leaf and concluded that the plant may be effective for chemoprevention due to its ability to support natural detoxification pathways.
We are not suggesting that moringa leaf should be used to treat any specific medical condition; we're just highlighting early research suggesting that this plant may be beneficial to organ systems that detoxify the human body. Moringa is a food product and not a supplement.
Apothékary Moringa Powder is the product we recommend to consumers looking to naturally support the liver and kidneys. It has one single ingredient (moringa powder), and no questionable additives.
Moringa powder can be added to smoothies, yogurt or just mixed into water or tea.
Prop Blend Concerns
Many of the active ingredients in High Voltage Detox products are included in prop blends, as is the case for both of the products we reviewed in this article. Consumers who have read other supplement reviews like our Libido Max Red review will know that we strongly disagree with this manner of referencing product ingredients, as we believe it deprives consumers of information that may be vital to their safety.
A prop blend shows the dosage of all ingredients combined, so consumers have no insight into what the dose of the individual ingredients are.
A company could sell a product with a prop blend totalling 1,000 mg that included four ingredients: rice flour, saffron, echinacea and goji berry. The rice flour could have a dose of 999 mg and the other three ingredients could have a dose of 0.33 mg each.
High Voltage Detox even includes caffeine in their prop blends, which we would consider a consumer health risk. Caffeine is a stimulant which can have harmful health effects for some consumers based on their tolerance. Consumers need to know the exact dosage of caffeine so that they can make an informed decision.
This product could have 100 mg or 500 mg of caffeine. We have no idea since all we know is it’s included in a blend that totals 985 mg. Some consumers could experience serious side effects at high caffeine doses, so we consider it to be absolutely unacceptable for a brand to not disclose this information.
Other Products
High Voltage Detox sells a wide variety of "detox" products, some of which we consider even more ridiculous than the two analyzed above. The brand sells a “Saliva Cleanse Mouthwash” which claims to “remove all toxins from your saliva”.
This sounds to us like an unscientific claim, and as with the other bold health claims made by High Voltage Detox, the brand provides no proof to back these benefits.
The first active ingredient in High Voltage Detox Saliva Cleanse Mouthwash is high fructose corn syrup.
Swishing some liquid with high fructose corn syrup in your mouth is not likely to remove all of the toxins in your saliva, nor does doing so even make any logical sense.
The company sells “Fast Flush” capsules if you’re detoxing “in a hurry”. The brand provides no details about what consumers would be "flushing" nor any proposed mechanism of action.
