Therapeutic fasting

Therapeutic fasting accelerates the healing process and allows the body to
recover from serious disease in a dramatically short period of time. In my
practice I have seen fasting eliminate lupus and arthritis, remove chronic skin
conditions such as psoriasis and eczema, heal the digestive tract in patients
with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, and quickly eliminate cardiovascular
diseases such as high blood pressure and angina. In these cases the recoveries
were permanent: fasting enabled longtime disease sufferers to unchain
themselves from their multiple toxic drugs and even eliminate the need for
surgery, which was recommended to some of them as their only solution.
As a means for recovery from disease, fasting has hit the front pages of
major medical publications due to its recognized effectiveness in well-controlled
scientific studies. Although fasting has been around as a therapeutic approach
for thousands of years, only now is the medical profession studying the broadreaching
reparative properties of the fast. Even with this progress, most of the
medical community and the general public are still unaware that the medically
supervised fast is the safest and most effective treatment for many dangerous
but common illnesses.

The health of our nation is not improving; in fact, we are getting sicker.
Changes are developing in health care, and the public is more aware that a
problem exists. Our economy is weighed down by an expensive and largely
ineffective medical system that relies on expensive tests, treatments, and lastminute
heroics to attempt to combat the harmful effects of a nation poisoning
itself with a rich, disease-causing diet.

The U.S. Public Health Services, in a progress report of its "Healthy People
2000" program to reduce the prevalence of chronic disease in the nation, found
no improvement in the overall dietary practices of Americans between 1976 to
1980 and 1992. This conclusion is based on data from the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In fact,
we now have the most overweight population in the history of mankind.
Medical propaganda to the contrary, our adult population has never been
sicker, and cancer rates have continued to climb.

While high-tech methods such as new drugs and surgical techniques
(angioplasty and bypass surgery, for example) aim to reduce symptoms, they
do not address the underlying cause of the disease, and people are getting
sicker and sicker. The underlying cause I am referring to is not an absence of
adequate medical care. It is severe malnutrition. By malnutrition, I do not
mean the lack of food or nutrient deficiency; rather, what we have today is a
society of overfed people, poisoning themselves with high-fat, high-protein,
highly refined foods. This rich diet harms our bodies and lays the groundwork
for chronic degenerative disease. Fasting in conjunction with optimal nutrition
after and before the fast offers the ability to undo the damage done to the body
by the rich diets of modern societies.

In the last ten years there has been a revolution in medicine. The diet—
disease relationship is more well documented than ever before. More and more
physicians are embracing nutritional and preventive approaches. Doctors are
advising their patients about the quality of their diets and about the importance
of exercise and life-style modifications such assmoking cessation. The
physician community and the population are attempting to modify cardiac risk
factors by lowering their intake of fats and cholesterol. Even dietary
suggestions for reducing the risks of cancer are in vogue.
New information, collected from large investigations on various human
populations, has shown that the majority of the chronic and life-threatening
diseases are preventable. But because conventional medical therapy does not
address the cause of disease, it thereby limits itself greatly as a long-term
solution.

Because of conventional medicine's limited success and high costs,
alternative treatments are becoming more widely used. Fasting, combined with
nutritional competence, removes the most significant causes of disease, and
due to its great success, is now being looked at by conventional physicians as
well as by patients. The health care of the future will have to be both more
effective and less costly than what we have available today. Fasting, as a.
therapeutic modality, is safe, effective, and a true health care bargain.
In most serious chronic diseases the body can heal itself and recover when a
properly conducted fast is undertaken. Certainly there are advanced pathologic
states, such as cancer, that will not respond to fasting, but the majority of
chronic diseases do respond in a predictable manner. Modern medicine offers
little hope of recovery from the variety of chronic debilitating diseases affecting
the population. Fasting offers that hope.

Many current approaches offered by the medical profession to deal with a
medical problem or health crisis involve significant risk or side effects. Fasting
is noninvasive and can be both more effective and safer than the more
standard approach. The details of this with regard to multiple disease states
will be explained in this book. Additionally, the traditional medical practice of
treating the symptoms of a disease with medicine or surgery does not remove
the causes. Inevitably these causes, left unchecked, allow the disease process
to advance. By contrast, therapeutic fasting, supported by a healthy life-style,
removes the causes of disease and accelerates the healing process. This can
allow the disease sufferer to reclaim a normal life, free of a lifetime of
medicines and further suffering.

As you read this book you will experience the thrill of learning all about the
miraculous healing powers of the human organism.
The self-healing power of the body is often overlooked because it is rarely
given a chance to act in a world that expects the quick fix. The power of the
body is as evident as green grass, rainy days, and sunshine. It is by no means
a mystical power: it arises from the same exceptional intelligence that

produced you out of two microscopic cells and that heals your wounds when
you are injured. It is the same set of natural human characteristics that allows
you to eliminate waste or to "lose weight" when you change your diet. It is the
same innate ability that allows an exhausted individual to go to bed (without
eating) and wake up vibrant and full of energy for another 16 hours. Fasting
enables the body to repair and rejuvenate its own tissues, by directly providing
the conditions for recovery and removing the impediments that curtail your
recuperative powers. The fast establishes a unique opportunity, vital for the
restoration of health.

I will present many case histories in this book in order to give you factual
knowledge about how fasting can help get you healthy . . . fast. After reading
these pages you will be clear on how to act efficiently in putting your life on the
fast track of healthy living.
I present this case history now as an illustration of why I am so enthusiastic
about fasting and why I feel it is so vitally important to share this information
with everyone.

Years ago, a 20-year-old world-class athlete and Olympic ice skating hopeful
suffered a severe injury to his leg. Forced to walk on crutches, he could not
bear weight on his leg without excruciating pain. His heel was so swollen and
sensitive that the mere weight of a bed sheet caused intense discomfort.
Because he was ranked among the top two in the country in his event, the U.
S. Olympic Committee encouraged him to seek treatment by one of the
country's leading orthopedic surgeons.

After months of prodding, probing, and medical tests by the prominent
doctor, and still unable to walk after a year in pain, the young man was quite
discouraged. His doctors offered him no solution to the swelling and acute
sensitivity in his injured foot. Then one day without warning, while in the
hospital, a nurse instructed him to take a medication because the doctor
intended to perform surgery the following morning. Outraged, the young man
refused to take the drug and demanded that his physician discuss the proposed
surgical plans with him.

Later that day, the doctor stormed into the room and brusquely informed the
athlete that experimental surgery was required to promote the healing of his
foot. The doctor explained that after exposing the injured tissues, he would use
his scalpel to traumatize the area in a checkerboard pattern in an attempt to
stimulate the area to heal. When the young man refused to participate in such
an experiment, the physician angrily told him that if he did not have the
surgery he would never walk again. Nevertheless, the young man rejected the
surgery and left the hospital.
The young athlete was aware that a few years earlier his arthritic father had
restored his health by fasting. He remembered the articles and books he had
read on fasting at that time and realized that the technique probably offered his
best chance to recover.

Determined to give fasting its best chance, he traveled to Dr. Shelton's
Health School in San Antonio and fasted a total of 46 days. At the end of the
fast he was able to walk again. In a little over a year he placed third in the
World Professional Figure Skating Championships.

At Dr. Shelton's Health School, the young man saw asthmatics cured so they
no longer needed medication. He- met colitis patients with bleeding bowels who
recovered without drugs or surgery. He observed people with chest pain who
had been told they needed bypass surgery. They were riding bicycles and
jogging for the first time in years. The young man saw for himself how the
body could heal itself if the causes of disease were removed.

This man was so impressed with what he witnessed and experienced that he
sought out other practitioners who used fasting and natural diets to heal
patients. What he learned from them excited him so much that he later decided
to attend medical school and become a physician. At medical school, however,
the patients were treated with conventional modem methods. Given large
amounts of medication to control their symptoms, they rarely got well. No
cardiac patients stopped taking drugs because their angina disappeared. No
hypertensive patients stopped taking medication because their condition
improved. No arthritic patients recovered and threw away their pills.

As a medical student, the young man saw patients suffer and die needlessly,
while under the care of modern medicine. Through it all, he remained
convinced that people could get well if only they knew how to use fasting and
natural diet to restore their health.