Activated charcoal is one of the oldest remedies that exists and it works for a variety of things.
Today it is probably most used to treat drug overdose and excess gas.
Now those don’t sound like brain related issues but activated charcoal can be used for so many other things.
What is Activated Charcoal?
It’s not exactly the same stuff you use to grill your burgers in the summer. It’s similar though. They use a process called pyrolysis to burn off most everything except for the carbon. It’s often also called ‘activated carbon.’
The carbon remains and then they use a process to ‘activated’ it. This process creates billions of little pores in the carbon structure that give it a massive surface area. I’m guessing the activated part isn’t all that ancient, like using the charcoal is.
What does Activated Charcoal do?
Anyway, the charcoal has a huge surface area and a charge that causes it to attract certain ions and molecules. This means that it ‘adsorbs’ certain substances.
Adsorption is similar to absorption for the purposes of our discussion though they are technically different.
This capability to adsorb or bind substances is what makes activated charcoal useful for drug overdose and gas.
If someone goes to the hospital with an oral drug overdose then the doctors will often dump massive amounts of activated charcoal down their throats in attempts to bind up the drugs in the intestines and stop more drugs from being absorbed into the body.
Similarly it helps with gas because it will attract the gas molecules and bind them.
So how does Activated Charcoal help your Brain?
It turns out that activated charcoal can be helpful for your brain because there could be substances in your GI tract that affect your cognitive function.
The easiest way to test this out is to just try it. Activated charcoal is cheap and pretty safe. Trying to figure out if you have some of these substances floating around will be very difficult.
What types of substances might need to be bound up by the charcoal?
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)- These are basically the carcasses of dead bacteria in your intestines. They can be absorbed and cause inflammation as your body thinks they are invaders.
Mycotoxins – Substances that mold and fungus produce as a defense mechanism. Some people are more sensitive to these than others. The most well known is alcohol but things like aflatoxin are in the food supply and are highly carcinogenic.
Alcohol and alcohol metabolites – Ever had a hangover? I don’t think I need to explain this one…
All of these substances (and others) can affect your brain function. Some of them directly (alcohol) and others indirectly through triggering inflammation (LPS). Many of these substances can be bound by activated charcoal.
Another source of toxic material that might be affecting your brain is in the enterohepatic circulation. That’s a fancy way of saying ‘that which circulates between the intestines and the liver’ which is a fancy way of saying bile.
Bile is used to breakdown fat and emulsify it for absorption into the body. However bile is also used to accumulate toxic substances and get them out of your body. In a pre-industrial age that system worked really well. However, we now have a lot more we need to detoxify from our bodies but the system works the same.
One reason it’s sometimes not enough is that only a little bile actually exits your body when you go number 2. Most of it is actually reabsorbed. Furthermore even less is excreted when you eat a low fiber diet which is endemic to modern humans.
So charcoal can bind up those toxic substances as well to help escort them out of your body and away from your brain.
My Experience with Activated Charcoal
I learned about this a long time ago but didn’t really believe that I had a toxin elimination problem. I would read about it here and there but it really never clicked for me to try it except as a way to mitigate the effects of eat some really low quality food.
So I had some on hand for stuff like that but would only take small amounts.
Eventually I went to a doctor who said he really thought I had an issue with mycotoxins. These cause inflammation and are really bad for people with certain genetics. The genes in question make it hard for your body to identify and eliminate mycotoxins.
I’ve never had the genetic test. It’s rather expensive. So I just decided to take massive doses (massive by my previous standards) of activated charcoal to see if it would have any effect on my cognitive function.
I started taking about 1-2 teaspoons (6ish capsules, but be sure you start with 1 and build up over time) of activated charcoal. I did it with meals (away from supplements and medication) and I did it before bed.
I wasn’t super consistent but I did it for about a week.
It definitely made a difference. I felt like I was sleeping better and quite a bit of brain fog has lifted! So I’m pretty happy about that.
I plan to try another week in the future to bump up the detoxing via enterohepatic circulation.
Other considerations
Most people say to take this on an empty stomach if you’re taking a lot of it because it might bind to essential nutrients. That is probably true. But, I wanted to be sure that my bile came in contact with my charcoal. So I think it’s a good idea to take it with meals but only for a short time. Hence why I only did a week.
If you take medication you should definitely wait a couple hours before or after your medication to take activated charcoal.
Activated charcoal can cause constipation for some people. That wasn’t the case for me, but fair warning.
This surprisingly low tech ‘supplement’ is a great thing to try for those of us with brain fog. There are so many causes of brain fog that this one is pretty easy and cheap to try out and see if it helps.
If it works for you, let me know!
Oh and here’s the charcoal I use.
Powder vs Capsules
I initially wanted to do the powder. It’s cheaper and you get a lot more for your money. However, it is really messy! This stuff sticks to everything, not just mycotoxins and LPS!
It gets everywhere.
So it’s probably worth it to spend a little more and get capsules so you don’t have to worry about it. Again, this is what I’m using now.
I hope this is helpful for you and your detoxifying efforts!
In the future, I’ll probably talk about detoxifying via saunas which also has some interesting benefits for your brain via neurotransmitters.