Fasting and Eating for Health (4 page)

Extended religious fasts were frequently practiced by followers of far eastern religions and in the early days of Christianity, especially during the Middle Ages. Many of us have heard of individuals who have fasted for political reasons. Mahatma Gandhi, for example, fasted 21 days to promote Hindu–

Moslem unity and mutual respect and tolerance between religions. Gandhi was actually very familiar with the scientific and health-related literature regarding fasting and even read the writings of and corresponded with Dr. Herbert Shelton, who conducted more than thirty thousand fasts on his patients earlier in this century.

Occasionally we hear of entombed miners, shipwrecked sailors, or stranded aviators who are forced to go without food for weeks and weeks. People survive for extended periods of time, until they are rescued, as long as they have access to nonsalt water.

So fasting is not new. It has been practiced for religious, political, and health reasons for thousands of years and has been recognized throughout recorded 21

history as having a curative effect on sickness and disease. Mark Twain wrote in
My Debut As a Literary Person
(1889), ―A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best of medicines and the best doctors. I do not mean a restricted diet: I mean total abstinence from food . . .―

For more than ten thousand years fasting has been utilized to heal the sick.

Hippocrates regularly prescribed fasting for numerous conditions. The famous
Hippocratic Oath
, familiar to every physician, admonishes us to ―First do no harm,‖ recognizing that the most important foundation of healing the sick, even today, is the remarkable recuperative power inherent in the human body. This power of self-repair is beautifully witnessed during the fast.

Is Fasting Uncomfortable?

The reason many people are so afraid of fasting and find the mere thought of it so unpleasant is that when they skip even one meal they feel awful. They assume fasting would be very uncomfortable. These individuals, who exhibit uncomfortable signs early in the fast, are in greatest need of a fast. Headaches and other discomforts brought on by not eating are signs that the body has begun to withdraw from and detoxify waste products retained in body tissues.

When we delay eating or fast, these tissue stores of toxic waste are mobilized for removal. Thus fasting is ―cleansing‖ of the internal system. These detoxification symptoms usually do not occur in those who are in excellent health, with a lower level of retained wastes. When one is prepared properly with a low-fat, lowered-protein, natural, plant-centered diet prior to the fast, these symptoms, which actually are nothing more than withdrawal symptoms from a more rich diet, usually do not occur.

Fasting is not as uncomfortable as many would think. Hunger typically goes away completely by the second day and the symptoms of withdrawal from food and toxins typically end quickly, usually by the second day of the fast.

Interestingly, it has been noted by physicians conducting fasts for decades that true hunger is a mouth and throat sensation, felt in the same spot that one feels thirst. Gnawing in the stomach, stomach cramping, headaches, and generalized weakness from not eating or skipping a meal or two are experienced only by those who have been eating the standard American diet with all its shortcomings (those most in need of a fast). Those who have been consuming a healthier, low-fat, low-protein, plant-based diet for months prior to the fast typically experience no such typical hunger pains when they fast.

Symptoms such as abdominal cramping and headaches, traditionally thought of as hunger symptoms, are not really symptoms of hunger. The medical books are obviously wrong here. These symptoms are experienced only by those eating a diet far too rich and stressful for their own internal controls. These symptoms are signs of withdrawal that indicate healing is beginning when the body has the opportunity to rest from the continual intake of food.

Detoxification and Improvement in Organ Function Occur
Simultaneously

22

Nothing is more fascinating than watching toxins being rapidly discharged from the system while a person fasts. In fact, fasting has been employed to treat chemical poisoning by people who have recognized the powerful effect it has on accelerating the discharge of internal noxious wastes. One such enlightening use of fasting was the subject of an article in the
American Journal of Industrial
Medicine
in 1984 entitled ―A Trial of Fasting Cure for PCB Poisoned Patients of Taiwan.‖ The study involved patients who had ingested rice oil contaminated with PCBs. After a seven-to ten-day fast, dramatic relief was noted and improvement in symptoms was reported by all patients.

Fasting also has a powerful effect on improving liver function. This benefit is not limited to the fasting period but continues after the fast. Medical studies have tested the ability of the therapeutic fast to improve conditions such as alcoholic liver injury, damage from fatty liver, and drug-induced liver injury.

Dramatic improvements were consistently reported.1

Fasting is a very valuable treatment for psychological disorders. There are hundreds of journal articles in the medical literature documenting the value of fasting in improving the function of the entire body, including the brain.2,3,4,5

Fasting has been repeatedly observed to alleviate neuroses, anxiety, and depression.6 It appears from these studies that fasting improves our ability to adapt to frustration and external stress. One Japanese clinic fasted 382 patients with psychosomatic disease with a success rate of 87 percent.7

When the beneficial effects of the therapeutic fast were investigated with various research parameters measuring organ function, it was found repeatedly that substantial improvements are seen in the autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, and adrenal function after the fast.8

Fasting Typically Achieves Results Where Other Methods Have
Failed

Many who earnestly want to improve their health are convinced that their diets are lacking in some vital nutrient or other substance that they can buy to recover their health. Though it may be true that some individuals, especially the elderly, may be borderline deficient in certain nutrients, the reality is that most of the chronic diseases people suffer from are not primarily the result of nutrient deficiencies. Therefore, supplying additional nutrients does not result in recovery. After a while, those with chronic medical conditions, including cardiovascular disease, migraines, colitis, arthritis, psoriasis, asthma, and sinusitis, realize that they still have not achieved a recovery and that they cannot purchase optimal health at the health food store or pharmacy.

The diets that I prescribe for my patients are abundant in appropriate nutrients, yet contain no excess of sugar, protein, fat, or cholesterol. Generally, by following an optimal diet and lifestyle, which will be described in the next chapter, chronically sick people get well. The rate of recovery from the diseases that have been mentioned, as well as from many other autoimmune and diet-related illnesses, is astonishing. While dietary modifications alone may be enough for recovery from disease in some cases, to obtain a complete recovery 23

a physician-supervised fast often becomes the only solution to enable the individual to achieve the desired healing in a reasonable time frame. A properly conducted fast is a safe and expedient way to remove excesses from the body

— excesses that are preventing the body from achieving a full recovery.

Medications cannot do this.

Some persons who are suffering from serious chronic ailments can make great strides in their health while continuing to eat. It is important that these individuals strive to remove all the possible causes of ill health. This must include reducing all the stressors on the body, and calls for careful management of the diet (adapting it to their individual digestive and nutrient needs), less food, less work, and more rest. This method can frequently take too long and require infinite diligence and patience. A successful outcome is not so certain as when a prolonged fast is undertaken.

Sometimes people are not careful enough with the changes in their diet or are unwilling to make the changes that are sufficient to bring about a complete recovery from their condition. Then, when their health is restored with a fast and they see the health potential that is available to them through natural methods, they develop a heightened ability to conform to a healthy way of life to maintain their long-sought-after good health.

For those who are not in need of a fast, the very principles behind the fast are the basis for dietary changes that will lead to recovery and the subsequent control of health. Throughout this book the concepts of health recovery and disease causation that apply to both the fasting and the eating state will be explained. Readers will gain a clear comprehension of the causes of disease and how to maintain and achieve optimal health, even if they never fast.

The medical profession's primary method, over the last century, for combating the effects of improper diet and lifestyle has been to offer medication and surgery. This approach has not been effective. Almost every medical treatment offered for the chronic disease sufferer today attempts only to control symptoms. There are no ―cures.‖ The current medical treatments not only have risks, but also represent a Band-Aid type of approach. They can offer relief from symptoms, but they cannot cure because they do not address the cause of the disease. Under ―modern‖ medicine, the incidence of most chronic diseases has increased and the vast majority of people are still dying from what are preventable, diet-and lifestyle-induced illnesses.

Obviously, traditional medical treatments can be lifesaving in an emergency situation and on some other occasions can be appropriate and extremely beneficial. We certainly have today the best emergency medical care ever available. But, overall, modern medicine has continued to fail. People are still suffering needlessly and dying prematurely. This is because treatments don't eliminate the primary cause: a rich diet that stresses the system and overloads the body with excesses and toxins.

Imagine if every day I smashed my hand with a hammer. Could I expect a pain medication or anti-inflammatory drug to heal the wound? Obviously, I 24

would not recover unless I stopped the daily pounding. Every day our nation's people are pounding themselves with a rich diet, ill-adapted to the needs of our species. This inevitably results in the eventual breakdown of our internal systems and the development of chronic disease.

Fasting, as opposed to the usual medical treatments, helps to remove the cause of the disease. For example, with atherosclerosis (the buildup of plaque in the arteries), fasting allows the body to work to actually remove the plaque from within the blood vessels. In diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, fasting clears out the waste deposits that are stimulating the immune system and inflaming the joints. This allows the body to heal itself.

In addition to the consistently positive results of fasting on disease, fasting enables the disease sufferer to drop weight rapidly to a safer level. Excess weight in those suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, or angina can contribute to their premature death from a heart attack or stroke. While diets of every description flood the media, nothing will remove these risk factors more effectively, more quickly, or more predictably than fasting.

A natural foods dietary approach, utilizing superior nutrition, combined with therapeutic fasting, when appropriate, is the only way our society will be able to free itself from the hordes of ill people still chronically suffering and taking multiple drugs as the only option to lessen their symptoms.

The practice and methods described here offer a rational approach that is not only effective but also consistent with the Hippocratic admonition to ―do no harm.‖ The results described are consistent with natural laws and logic that would assume that health will result from healthful living and from removal of the causes of disease. Likewise, abuses done to our bodies, whether recognized or not, can result in ill health. Rather than merely reduce the signs of disease, such as lowering blood pressure with medication, this approach enables the faster to remove the disease itself and significantly extend longevity.

Doctors leave medical school with the hope and intent of gaining self-satisfaction through helping others in need. Doctors and patients both, however, become resigned and frustrated due to the inherent weaknesses in today's approach that calls for powerful diagnostic tests, and then leaves the patient with little option but to take potentially harmful drugs to attempt to control the signs and symptoms of disease. Rather than hoping for the discovery of some wonder drug, we are discovering the true wonder of the healing properties inherent in the human body that can be unleashed by removing impediments to normal function.

Once you are exposed to the powerful effects the methods described within this book will afford you, there is no turning back. As a result of reading this book, you will come to view your own body in a completely different way and will inevitably take better care of yourself in the future. The clear comprehension of the causes of disease and how to maintain and achieve optimal wellness will crystallize in your mind, giving you a powerful tool to 25

regain control of your own health even if you never undergo a fast.

26

The Major Cause of Disease

Man lives on one quarter of what he eats.

On the other three quarters lives his doctor.

-INSCRIPTION

ON AN EGYPTIAN PYRAMID,

3800 B.C.

Modern research has confirmed the folk adage that eating less, and especially eating less fats and high-protein animal foods, prolongs life.

Our rich, modern diet has been implicated as a causative factor in cancer, heart attack, stroke, hardening of the arteries, and diabetes, and the leading causes of death in this country can be prevented or delayed by adopting healthier nutritional habits. The same foods that cause premature deaths also subject us to misery and chronic illness in life.