# Activated Charcoal

Category: Drugs & Compounds

Also known as: charcoal

Activated charcoal is a potent adsorbent that Ray Peat recognized for its ability to bind and remove a wide range of bowel toxins, including bacterial endotoxin, microbial estrogen, and heavy metals, thereby reducing their systemic absorption. He cited the research of V.V…

10 passages · 1 author · 1991–2023 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/activated-charcoal

## Synthesis

**Activated charcoal** is a potent adsorbent that Ray Peat recognized for its ability to bind and remove a wide range of bowel toxins, including **bacterial endotoxin**, microbial estrogen, and heavy metals, thereby reducing their systemic absorption. [Source 4, 7] He cited the research of V.V. Frolkis, which demonstrated that intermittently feeding rats large quantities of charcoal extended their median lifespan by 43%, as the clearest evidence that bowel toxins are a major contributor to the aging process. [Source 4, 7] Peat viewed this toxin absorption as a *relatively late-acting factor* that accelerates aging once the body's detoxifying systems begin to fail, rather than the primary driver itself. [Source 4]

Despite its powerful detoxifying action, Peat generally recommended a daily raw carrot salad as a safer, preferred alternative for the routine reduction of intestinal toxin absorption. [Source 1, 8] His primary reservations about charcoal stemmed from the phenomenon of *persorption*, where tiny particles can pass through the intestinal wall and lodge in tissues, potentially accelerating aging by killing off small areas of cells, as demonstrated in Volkheimer's experiments with starch grains. [Source 1, 9] To mitigate this risk, he advised that the particle size should be at least **half a millimeter** in diameter. [Source 9] Furthermore, charcoal's immense surface area makes it prone to contamination from environmental vapors, requiring storage in a sealed container, and it can oxidatively destroy vitamins, necessitating intermittent use rather than continuous daily intake. [Source 7, 8, 9]

When a clean source is assured, Peat described activated charcoal as a useful tool for specific purposes, such as reducing serotonin absorption from the intestine or as an emergency measure. [Source 1, 7] He noted that it acts not only by binding toxins but also as a **powerful catalyst for the oxidative destruction** of many toxic chemicals, anticipating the action of the body's protective enzymes. [Source 10] A typical dose could be around a tablespoon added to a drink or food, though he stressed the amount depends on the context. [Source 5, 6] He also acknowledged its utility in water filtration, noting that activated carbon effectively adsorbs almost any solid contaminant. [Source 3]

Peat situated charcoal within a broader historical and biological context, linking it to the work of William Koch, who used oxidative carbonyl reagents in a therapeutic approach that resonated with later free-radical and electronic resonance theories of life developed by Szent-Gyorgyi. [Source 2] In practical application, Peat saw charcoal as comparable to the antibiotic effect used in agriculture, recounting how a farmer normalized the growth of runt pigs by adding charcoal to their diet, likely by achieving the same toxin-reducing effect as the antibiotics used in commercial pig farming. [Source 10] He considered it one of several interventions, alongside carrot fiber and sodium thiosulfate, that decrease the formation and absorption of toxins, particularly important during aging, stress, or alcohol consumption when intestinal permeability increases. [Source 7]

## People also ask

### How does activated charcoal extend lifespan according to Peat?

Peat cited research showing charcoal extended rats' lifespan by 43% by adsorbing bowel toxins like endotoxin and estrogen, which he viewed as a late-acting factor that accelerates aging once detoxifying systems fail.

### Why did Peat prefer raw carrot over activated charcoal for daily use?

Peat worried that tiny charcoal particles could persorb through the gut wall and lodge in tissues, potentially accelerating aging, whereas carrot fiber mechanically sweeps the intestine without this particle migration risk.

### What is the oxidative catalytic action of activated charcoal?

Peat described charcoal as a powerful catalyst that oxidatively destroys many toxic chemicals, anticipating the body's protective enzymes, rather than merely binding them through adsorption.

## Related concepts

- [Persorption](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/persorption/index.md)
- [Antioxidants](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/antioxidants/index.md)
- [Cancer](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cancer/index.md)
- [Cancer metabolism](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cancer-metabolism/index.md)
- [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/index.md)
- [Free radicals](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/free-radicals/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 565

Ray Peat · Email · Nov 28, 2019

> **Question:** A member on the forum recently posted the following quote that he attributed to you: [references] Would a cup of activated charcoal in a day be useful for a human, or is there a lower dose that would be just as effective?
>
> **Ray Peat:** The quote is right, but I recommend using a daily carrot salad for the similar purpose. Because of the phenomenon of persorption of particles, and the ease of contamination of charcoal, I don’t recommend its use except in an emergency.

### Source 2 — 100 Years of Cancer Metabolism

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2016

> Some of his articles were published in international journals, but newspaper articles describing cancer cures made Koch famous throughout Europe and America. Koch had been a student of Moses Gomberg, who in 1900 had produced the first stable free radical (the triphenylmethyl radical). During the years of Koch's study at the University of Michigan (1905 to 1914), chemists and physicists were exploring the properties of carbonyl (C:O) groups and their interactions, trying to explain the unusual reactivities and colors of molecules containing these groups. While he was at the university, Koch lived with the family of a professor of homeopathy. From Koch's language, it's clear that he had assimilated the best contemporary knowledge of physical chemistry, and his holistic approach—treating the patient rather than the disease—reflected his familiarity with homeopathic medicine.
>
> When Koch began applying his ideas to the treatment of cancer patients, in 1916, the existence of Gomberg's free radical was still questioned by the majority of chemists; it was only in the early 1930s, when free radical chemistry began to have industrial uses, that the possibility of stable free radicals came to be widely recognized by academic chemists. When Koch used the idea of electronic resonance within molecules, and between molecules, and in cells and organisms, to describe his therapeutic charcoal method, most physicians had no idea of what he was talking about. To some, the idea of catalyzing free radical oxidations in a patient sounded crazy and dangerous. The FDA invested considerable time and expense in demonizing Koch and his dangerous oxidative theory of treatment. I think Otto Warburg and Albert Szent-Gyorgyi were among the few who thought that Koch might be talking about something real. Szent-Gyorgyi acknowledged having "the highest respect" for Koch's work, but he was clearly aware of the dangers involved in premature holism. In the 1950s and 1960s, Szent-Gyorgyi began talking openly about life processes in terms of a very precise balance between oxidation and reduction which kept systems of electrons in cells in a special free-radical-like state, oscillating between "donor" and "acceptor" molecules. He believed that a deficiency of the naturally occurring oxidative dicarbonyl molecule methylglyoxal might be a cause of cancer.

### Source 3 — KMUD: Fukujima 1

Ray Peat · Interview · Aug 22, 2012

> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, I think carbon catches almost any solid will absorb to activated charcoal. Okay, good.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** All right, there's two more callers on the line, so let's take the next one. You're on the air? Hello? Hi, you're on the air.
>
> **Caller:** Well, the brown seaweeds like wakame and kombu, especially kombu, are high in sodium alginate, and they're supposed to take all heavy metals and radioactivity out of your body, just not the iodine. Don't you think they would be good?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Did you hear that, Dr. Peat? Yeah, if they pass through your intestine.
>
> **Caller:** Well, yes, eating them.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, they aren't going to be any more effective than good cellulose. Anything indigestible that stimulates your intestine will sweep out.
>
> **Caller:** Even with the sodium alginate?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Well, the trouble is that alginate is... very dangerously allergenic for many people. So I wouldn't recommend it unless you are sure that you're not sensitive to it.
>
> **Caller:** I don't know one person that eats the kombu that's ever had allergies to it.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah. Dental patients have died, and dental students, a very high proportion of the dental students working with alginate to make molds. surprisingly healthy young gender students.

### Source 4 — Bowel Toxins Accelerate Aging Process

Ray Peat · Newsletter · Feb 1991

> # Bowel Toxins Accelerate Aging Process
>
> newsletter
>
> Townsend Letter for Doctors
>
> February/March 1991
>
> The gerontologist, V. V. Frolkis, recently found that mice lived 43 longer than animals on the standard diet when they periodically had activated charcoal added to their food. This is the clearest evidence I have seen that bowel toxins make a major contribution to the aging process. Although I think carrot fiber would have a similar effect, there might be important differences in the substances bound by wet cellulose and by microporous carbon. Analysis of the substances bound to the charcoal after it has been excreted should give us important new knowledge about aging. Besides endotoxin, I think the charcoal might protect against microbial estrogen and glucocorticoids, carbon monoxide, cyanide, and unsaturated oils. Absorption of heavy metals is probably decreased by all types of fiber.
>
> While Boganmoletz and Metchnikof saw the bowel toxins as the factor which drove the aging process, I see bowel toxins rather as a relatively late-acting factor that accelerates a process which develops for other reasons. Once our detoxifying mechanisms begin to fail, bowel toxins pass the bowel with relative ease, and rapidly destroy the remaining systems of defense and detoxification. The altered hormonal environment and weakened digestion of an aging organism create a new balance between the animal and the bowel flora, sometimes allowing the proliferation of more toxic flora. The accumulation of iron and other heavy metals, and of unsaturated fats, and the progressive loss of copper under the influence of the stress of darkness, are probably the central events in the process of aging.

### Source 5 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Vaccination & Immunity II

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 18, 2014

> **Caller:** Dr. Peat, what’s your thoughts on L-glutamine. I’ve been reading about some people using it to heal stomach ulcers and to restore intestinal integrity.
>
> **Ray Peat:** I think it should be pretty much limited to what’s available in proteins of the diet, partly because when an amino acid is manufactured in a pure chemical form, it's always going to have risky contaminants that aren’t present in the whole natural protein. And, secondly, a lot of people have talked about the glucose dependency of cancer cells, but actually glutamine is a favorite food for promoting cancer cell growth. And an excess of any single amino acid can be harmful for various reasons, including simply overloading you with ammonia as they breakdown. But it's one of the least harmful. So if you had a clean source of it, it would, in some cases, be beneficial, but I still think it’s risky.
>
> **Caller:** Okay. What's the upper limit of glycine on that topic?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Oh, I think a few grams per day divided into doses of 0.5 to 1 g at a time, I think, would be safe.
>
> **Caller:** Okay. You also mentioned in some interviews about activated charcoal to help clean up the intestine if carrots and bamboo shoots weren’t doing the job. How would you go about using activated charcoal?

### Source 6 — Vaccines and Immunity 1 and 2 — KMUD, 2014

Ray Peat · Interview · 2014

> ## Part 2
>
> **Caller:** Okay. You also mentioned in some interviews about activated charcoal to help clean up the intestine if carrots and bamboo shoots weren’t doing the job. How would you go about using activated charcoal?
>
> **Ray Peat:** First, you want to make sure that it's clean and hasn't been exposed to contaminants in the environment. Because it will capture things from the air that it’s exposed to. But if you’re sure you have a clean source, you can simply add it to a drink or to food.
>
> **Caller:** Like a tablespoon at a time?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yes. It depends on what you’re using it for.
>
> **Caller:** Okay. All right then. Thank you.
>
> **Herb Doctor:** We have a second caller on the air.
>
> **Caller:** My question for Dr. Peat was about skin tags. And I was just wondering, basically, what’s the underlying cause. And is there anything topically or otherwise that you could do to get rid of them?
>
> **Ray Peat:** I don't really know the underlying cause, but they become very common when a person approaches middle age, the age of 40 or 45. And that suggests that there might be a deficiency of the protective, stabilizing hormones. And since the skin is a major hormone synthesizing organ, making sure that you have enough cholesterol and thyroid in your diet, so that you can make a generous amount of the protective steroids, I think, would be helpful. Some people have used topical DHEAs dissolved in oil, or progesterone dissolved in oil. Or even just micro-pulverized pregnenolone on skin. And sometimes that will clear up a variety of growths on the skin, including skin tags.

### Source 7 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 961

Ray Peat · Email · Jan 5, 2023

> ## Thread 6
>
> **Question:** [Activated Charcoal: Benefits, Risks, and Frolkis Lifespan Studies]
>
> **Ray Peat:** Activated charcoal can absorb many toxins, including bacterial endotoxin, so it is likely to reduce serotonin absorption from the intestine. Since it can also bind or destroy vitamins, it should be used only intermittently. Frolkis, et al. (1989, 1984) found that it extended median and average lifespan of rats, beginning in old age (28 months) by 43% and 34%, respectively, when given in large quantities (equivalent to about a cup per day for humans) for ten days of each month.
>
> **Question:** [Reducing Intestinal Toxin Absorption with Age and Stress]
>
> **Ray Peat:** Aging, stress, and heavy consumption of alcohol increase the permeability of the intestine, causing increased absorption of microbial toxins. Laxatives, carrot fiber (not carrotjuice), activated charcoal, and a small amount of sodium thiosulfate decrease the formation and absorption of toxins, increasing the organism’s adaptive capacity

### Source 8 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 147

Ray Peat · Email · Aug 17, 2014

> **Question:** Hi Dr. Peat, I have a a few questions about using activated charcoal. I've read that due to its powerful adsorption it is best to take it at least 2 hours before taking any medications, supplements or food. There has been some debate whether its necessary to take it away from food or if it's OK to take with meals? There is some concern that nutrients may be adsorbed and/or that digesting food may hinder the effectiveness of the charcoal. I am aware of the V.V. Frolkis study that you have quoted but wanted to ask if you could further clarify this for me? Thank you so much.
>
> **Ray Peat:** It does destroy some vitamins by oxidation, that's why he used it only intermittently. Usually fibers, such as carrots or bamboo shoots, are preferable for reducing toxin absorption.

### Source 9 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 480

Ray Peat · Email · Mar 30, 2018

> **Question:** In the past you have talked about potential issues from charcoal persorption, would these issues lead to clear immune reactions so that feeling better on it means there are no issues? Interestingly people have tried a product with bigger mesh size but reported less effects.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Volkheimer's experiments with mice showed that persorbed starch grains accelerated aging, killing off small areas of cells throughout the body.
>
> **Question:** Ok thanks, so I guess you think that applies to charcoal too, does that mean you recommend against it?
>
> **Ray Peat:** I don't recommend against it, but it's important to know exactly what the product is.
>
> **Question:** Thanks, are you talking about purity and source (coconuts) or are you talking about mesh size as well? Do you have an idea of the threshold for a safe mesh size?
>
> **Ray Peat:** I think half a millimeter would be safe. It has to be stored in a sealed container to prevent absorption of vapors.

### Source 10 — Food-junk and some mystery ailments: Fatigue, Alzheimer's, Colitis, Immunodeficiency

Ray Peat · Article · 1995

> I have previously discussed the use of antibiotics (and/or carrot fiber and/or charcoal) to relieve the premenstrual syndrome, and have mentioned the study in which the lifespan was extended by occasionally adding charcoal to the diet. A few years ago, I heard about a Mexican farmer who collected his neighbors' runt pigs, and got them to grow normally by adding charcoal to their diet. This probably achieves the same thing as adding antibiotics to their food, which is practiced by pig farmers in the US to promote growth and efficient use of food. Charcoal, besides binding and removing toxins, is also a powerful catalyst for the oxidative destruction of many toxic chemicals. In a sense, it anticipates the action of the protective enzymes of the intestinal wall and the liver.
>
> Some women with premenstrual fatigue have found that the “premenstrual” phase tends to get longer and longer, until they have chronic fatigue. I found that to be one of the easiest "PMS" problems to correct. When people are older, and have been sick longer, the fatigue problem is likely to involve more systems of the body. The larger the quantity of "toxic fat" stored in the body, the more careful the person must be about increasing metabolic and physical activity. Using more vitamin E, short-chain saturated fats, and other anti-lipid-peroxidation agents is important.
>
> The inflammatory diseases that develop after prolonged stress are sometimes hard to correct. But avoiding exposure to the major toxic allergens--such as carrageenan--is an essential consideration, just as important as correcting the thyroid function and avoiding the antithyroid substances.
>
> Low cholesterol is very commonly involved in the diseases of stress, and--like inadequate dietary protein--will make the system less responsive to supplementary thryoid hormone.
>
> The proliferative aspects of the inflammatory diseases represent, I think, a primitive form of regeneration. Arthritis, atherosclerosis, various granulomatous processes, breast diseases, liver adenomas, etc., provide an opportunity for investigating the various systems and substances that guide cell proliferation toward reconstruction, rather than obstructive and deformative, degenerative, processes. Degenerative diseases probably all contain clues for understanding regeneration, as I have suggested in relation to Alzheimer’s disease and inflammation. I will be talking about these in other newsletters, but the first step will always be to minimize exposure to the disruptive substances.
>
> [references]

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