The supplement industry is not as tightly regulated as it could be and while most companies respect the needs and the health of their customers, there are those only interested in making a quick buck.

This is especially true for the weight loss and detox market, which makes it hard to spot the genuine detox products and the potentially harmful and ineffective ones. In this guide we’ll help you to draw a line between these two groups, allowing you to avoid harmful products and purchase only the safe, natural and effective ones.

Best: Superfood Mixes

Fruits and vegetables are essential for any detox. They are loaded with vitamins, minerals, fiber and healthy enzymes and eating a diet rich in them, even for a short time, will drastically improve your overall health and wellbeing, from your skin and nails to your digestive system.

Working a number of fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet can be tricky, not to mention expensive. Frozen varieties are a good alternative but many other options, from high-sugar juices to canned fruit loaded with glucose and preservatives, will do more harm than good.

The best way to get all of your essential fruits and vegetables is with a superfood mix like Detox Organics.

It uses a combination of organic fruit and vegetable extracts, giving you the best parts of the most beneficial plants and helping you to boost your digestive health and to detox cleanly, naturally and cheaply.

By all means keep eating fresh fruit and vegetables as well, but with a supplement like this you don’t need to worry about not getting enough.

Worst: Slimming Teas (Laxatives)

These can be natural and in most cases they are. The most common and one of the most effective laxatives on the market is senna, which is found naturally in rhubarb. The issue is that they should never be used as a weight loss aid.

Laxative abuse is a big problem in young people with anorexia. It’s an epidemic in those communities and one we’re all aware of. But they are also added to detox and weight loss teas, powders and pills. Some of the celebrities that speak out against anorexia and laxative abuse are the same ones that promote these new “slimming teas”, even though their main ingredient is a laxative.

Firstly, laxatives do not make you lose weight. The reason they are commonly added to detox teas is because millions of Americans are constipated without realizing it and when these laxatives are introduced that problem goes away, they feel better and lighter, and they attribute it to the tea. It’s a con, and if you fall for it and drink them everyday then you run the risk of abusing laxatives which can lead to severe health problems.

Best: Tea

Tea is one of the healthiest things that you can drink. It will hydrate you, provide you with an energy boost and ensure you get your fill of cancer-fighting antioxidants. There are many different types of tea to drink, most of which come from the same plant: Camellia sinensis.

This magical evergreen is mostly grown in Africa, India and China. During the growth stages, the young buds can be plucked to produce white tea or the fully-grown leaves can be harvested and turned into green tea or matcha tea (which is ground into a fine powder and consumed whole). The most popular tea is black tea, which is created when green tea is left to ferment.

All of these teas are rich in antioxidants, but matcha tea leads the way, followed by green tea. Pu-erh tea, which is black tea that has been left to ferment for months and sometimes years, is also thought to be a panacea and has been used as such for many thousands of years.

As for red tea, also known as Red Bush or Rooibos, it comes from a different kind of shrub, a hardy variety grown in Africa. It’s not as beneficial as many other types of tea, but it has shown a lot of promise in recent studies and is a great caffeine-free alternative.

Worst: Diuretics

These can serve a purpose. When used for short periods of time they can help patients who are retaining water to release some of that water. They can also can help boxers, MMA fighters, bodybuilders and other athletes to cut weight, which is probably their primary purpose in this day and age.

However, they should not be used for weight loss over an extended period of time. Diuretics leech water out of your body, causing you to lose weight rather quickly as you basically pee it all away.

But unless you were retaining a lot of water, then it was there for a reason and by using these drugs you run the risk of dehydrating your body and leaving it in a constantly depleted state. You need water to live and by abusing drugs and leaving yourself constantly deprived, you could be damaging your organs.

Best: Milk Thistle

Prescribed to aid with digestion and to limit liver damage in people who drink excessively, milk thistle is a powerfully therapeutic herb that has been in use for many hundreds of years. There are very few side effects to milk thistle and it’s abundantly available, sold in most health food stores for just a few dollars a bottle.

Milk thistle is a great addition to any detox, helping your liver to rid your body of toxins and keeping bouts of acid reflux and indigestion to a minimum. It is often added to “liver cleanse” supplements in order to bump up the price, but these tend to be loaded with diuretics and unnecessary fillers, with milk thistle being the only active ingredient that will benefit you.