Fasting: The only introduction you’ll ever need

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WHEN DOES FASTING STOP AND STARVATION START?

The difference between fasting and starvation was the subject of much early research, and it has continued to exercise minds in subsequent concerted and lengthy studies. The conclusions drawn are that, in instances of food deprivation, starvation cannot be said to begin until all the body’s fat stores have been used up, and significant protein breakdown has occurred.

Research shows that an average individual weighing 154 lb (11 stone/70 kg) has fat stores adequate for maintaining calorie requirements for between two and three months (calorie usage will vary with the basic metabolic rate of the individual and the amount of activity undertaken during a fast). When fat stores are used up there remains a store of protein which, as a rule, can maintain calorie levels for a few weeks longer before essential proteins from the vital organs start to be used. There are many signs which indicate when this threshold has been passed, when fasting which is beneficial has ended and when starvation which can kill has started.

WHAT DISEASES ARE HELPED BY FASTING?

The benefits of fasting in the treatment of diabetes were first revealed in research conducted by Dr G. Guelpa in 1910

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(#litres_trial_promo) Since then studies into this particular therapeutic potential of fasting have continued.

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Various medical papers have been published describing clinical trials showing how patients with epilepsy can be helped by fasting. Controlled fasting was found to reduce the length, severity and number of seizures.

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The use of fasting in obesity has not unnaturally received a great deal of attention. In one famous case, reported in 1973

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In one stringent study which lasted over seven years, involving over 120 obese patients who fasted for an average of two months, it was shown that after between two and three years half the patients had reverted to their previous weight, and after seven years and three months 90 per cent of the patients weighed what they did before the fast.

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A great deal of research has verified the value of fasting in the treatment of heart disease and high blood pressure. In the 1960s and 1970s a host of reports appeared in the medical press on how fasting had been shown to reduce the levels of undesirable fats in the bloodstream, to lower high blood pressure, to reduce cholesterol levels, to bring about improvements in cases of atheroma and to alleviate congestive heart failure.

The use of fasting as a treatment for acute pancreatitis was compared with the standard medical treatment for this condition (nasogastric suction and cimetidine) in a clinical study conducted in 1984 involving 88 patients. Results concluded that:

Fasting alone should be used initially as the simpler and more economical therapy. Neither nasogastric suction nor cimetidine offer any advantage over fasting alone in the treatment of mild to moderate acute pancreatitis, of whatever cause.

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Chemical toxicity has been successfully treated using fasting – for example, when toxic cooking oil containing the rice oil contaminant PCB was consumed, patients were reported to have relief from their symptoms, sometimes dramatically so, after between seven and 10 days of fasting.

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A most important caution relevant to the above case needs to be reiterated here, since it is pointed out that when fat is mobilized during a fast, fat soluble toxins (such as DDT) can reach very high, and potentially lethal, levels in the bloodstream. This highlights the advice given in the first chapter of this book, which is that in today’s world, and especially if toxic levels are high (previous exposure to chemicals, medical and other drugs, for example), repetitive short fasts are a safer way forward than lengthy fasts. If long fasts (anything over four days) are chosen then these must always be under clinical supervision, including monitoring for blood toxaemia.

Patients with those conditions known as auto-immune diseases, which include lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, glomerulonephritis (kidney disease) amongst others, have shown marked benefits when fasting has been used in their treatment. In glomerulonephritis, for example, when fasting was used in the early stages the overall prognosis was improved. The researchers stated: ‘all patients with acute glomerulonephritis should fast.’

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Treatment by fasting of another auto-immune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, was shown in a recent Scandinavian study to be very effective indeed. This study is worth looking at in a little more detail than those mentioned above, since it brings out a number of the possible benefits which fasting has to offer.

A one-year study was undertaken in which patients with well established rheumatoid arthritis were either treated using standard medical methods or a month of periodic fasting followed by a dairy free vegetarian diet. Many tests were performed to measure the changes in the blood status and symptom pictures of the two groups, and the examining doctors were unaware of which group the patient they were evaluating belonged to.

After the fast period, foods were reintroduced very carefully, with one ‘new’ food being started every second day and a watch being kept on any reaction to it (stiffness, swelling, etc.). If any symptom did appear, the food was left out for another week then tried again, and if a second reaction occurred (within 48 hours of the food being eaten) it was left out completely for the rest of the one-year study.

This part of the study suggests the possibility that in autoimmune disease there may be undesirable absorption through the intestinal wall of food particles which then provoke the immune system into an over-reaction, leading to some or all of the symptoms. Certainly, the fast would deny the chance of this happening since no food is being taken.

On restarting eating, the careful monitoring of foods for reactions allows for the accurate identification of culprit foods so that they can be eliminated from the diet altogether.

This process explains why those doctors specializing in allergy, often called Clinical Ecologists, use fasting as their main method of clearing the system of all allergen foods before starting the process of ‘challenge’ or testing, to see what provokes symptoms to return.

It is generally thought by Clinical Ecologists that five days is the length of time needed to completely clear the body of all traces of such foods, and the five-day fast is, therefore, a standard approach used by them.

That there are probably other benefits which derive from fasting, such as improved function of elimination and detoxification, is commonly ignored by this group of doctors. However, their unawareness or non-acceptance does not stop such additional fasting benefits from happening.

In the study involving the patients with rheumatoid arthritis, after one month of fasting and the gradual reintroduction of foods (but with no eggs, dairy foods, meat, fish, refined sugar, alcohol, tea and coffee for at least three months) remarkable benefits in the fasting/vegetarian group of patients were observed and reported. Joints were less stiff, swollen and painful and strength was increased, while blood tests showed lower sedimentation rates and reduction in markers which indicate rheumatoid activity. These benefits were still present after a year – in all the many signs and indications which were measured – when compared to those patients receiving standard medical attention.

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Were these benefits simply the result of the elimination of particular foods? Or is there overall a more efficient immune response after fasting? In an earlier study, which showed similar benefits of fasting in the treatment of auto-immune disease, D. R. Panush suggested that the answer to both questions is possibly yes:

Nutritional modification (fasting) might alter immune responsiveness and thereby effect manifestations of rheumatic diseases; or rheumatic disease may be a manifestation of food allergy or hypersensitivity.

Fasting might, in other words, improve the way the body works, or it might just remove from the scene the irritants to which the immune system is reacting … or both.

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Joel Fuhrman, MD, who strongly advocates fasting, has had success in treating a wide range of diseases, including autoimmune problems, using fasting. He reports that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) responds well to this approach.

As soon as a person is diagnosed with lupus, they should immediately begin a medically supervised fast to initiate remission. Breaking the fast carefully under proper guidance is extremely important. Upon completion of the fast the following foods should be avoided for a prolonged period of time: 1. All animal foods, including dairy products and eggs; 2. All legumes except peas and lima beans; 3. Celery, corn, alfalfa sprouts, mushrooms, spinach and figs.

The reason for avoiding these plant foods is that they contain a variety of chemicals which have been shown to cause reactions which can aggravate lupus and other auto-immune diseases.

OTHER CONDITIONS AND FASTING

Many other diseases and problems have been successfully treated using fasting as the main therapeutic tool. These include psoriasis, the often intractable skin condition. Scandinavian research showed that benefits could be obtained by fasting (eight out of 10 patients improved markedly after a 7–10 day fast) and a vegetarian diet, but that the condition returned if the diet reverted to the previous pattern.

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Auto-immune bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease have responded extremely well to fasting and modified fasting (where liquid containing vitamins, minerals and some glucose was taken, but no food at all). In one study 84 per cent of those patients with Crohn’s disease who were treated with fasting went into remission. Just as in the way rheumatoid arthritis was treated (see above), after the fast, foods (usually cooked for ease of digestion) were slowly reintroduced, and eliminated if there was any sign of diarrhoea or pain. Only 30 per cent of the patients with Crohn’s disease who went into remission on the fast had relapses, whereas 66 per cent of those who were treated with cortisone type medication had relapses. The most provocative foods for irritable bowel diseases of this type are dairy products, most notably cow’s milk, tea, coffee, chocolate, corn, wheat, rye, apples, oats and mushrooms.

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Among the many other conditions for which there is evidence of a useful role for fasting are eczema26, bronchial asthma27 and a variety of mental illness, including schizophrenia. Russia has been the country where mental illness has been most widely treated using fasting, most often by Professor Serge Nikoliav of the Moscow Psychiatric Institute. He has, with great success, treated over 6000 patients for chronic refractory schizophrenia by means of water fasts which run from 25 to 300 days (often accompanied by daily aerobic exercise).

Fasting for health is natural, efficient and, given the caveats already mentioned, safe. There are few conditions which cannot benefit from it and, as the brief survey in this chapter indicates, there is ample clinical evidence of its success.

The reason for this is that it allows healing to occur, and does not impose a solution on the body which, through its well-known homoeostatic (self-regulating) mechanisms, has an innate ability to normalize itself if it is given the chance. Fasting gives it that chance.

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THE EFFECTS OF FASTING (#ulink_b3ed3f1a-11a1-508b-8b6e-15a1c9afd6f7)

Your mind–body is equipped to defend itself against, and cope with, invading micro-organisms, toxic materials, changes in temperature, unpleasant situations and a bewildering variety of stresses and strains of a mechanical, biochemical and emotional nature. For our entire lives we are in a state of adaptation, as the struggle to retain equilibrium continues.

Your body repairs itself given the chance – broken bones mend, cuts heal and the vast majority of infections are dealt with efficiently and without symptoms. Even when symptoms appear they are often only evidence of the body doing its self-repair and self-healing work. Fever, inflammation, diarrhoea, vomiting – are all evidence of the immune and other repair systems of the body performing their survival tasks.

Many emotions, such as anxiety and depression are only evidence of excessive degrees of perfectly normal emotions. It would be abnormal not to feel anxious in a situation of danger – however, an excessive amount of anxiety is not normal.

In just the same way, allergies are often evidence of an over-reaction on the part of the defence systems of the body to undesirable substances to which some reaction is perfectly normal.

Without fever, the body could not deal with invading microbes, viruses, parasites, etc. Without inflammatory processes, repair of damaged tissues could not take place. Without the ability to rapidly purge ourselves of the danger (vomiting, diarrhoea, etc.) poisons could rapidly kill us…and so on.

On a less dramatic scale we can see that a host of stress factors are making demands on our adaptation and repair processes all the time – both emotionally and biochemically – through the toxic exposure to which we are subject, the relative denatured quality of our food, the major emotional stresses of modern life – whether involving economics, family, relationships, employment or simply the hustle and rush of late twentieth century urban existence.

These multiple and complex adaptive demands can ultimately overwhelm our capacity for adaptation – especially if they are interacting on a mind–body complex which has inherited imbalances and weaknesses from the start.

A gradual decline in health therefore becomes an inevitable outcome, often signalled by the onset of what has been called ‘vertical ill-health’ in which we develop a range of minor symptoms which are not severe enough to send us to bed (horizontal ill-health) and which are seen as ‘normal’ because so many others have the same problems – ranging from digestive problems to skin complaints, headaches, disturbed sleep, aches and pains, etc.

WHAT’S TO BE DONE ABOUT THE STRESS OF LIFE?

There are only three strategies which can offer a beneficial change to the inevitable decline in health caused by biochemical, mechanical (posture, etc.) and emotional stressors impacting your defence systems:

1) You can try to remove the causes (eat better, exercise better, sleep better, relax more, etc.) and so reduce the demands being made on the adaptive, repair and defence capabilities of your body.

2) You can try to improve the adaptive, repair and defence capabilities of your body by methods which enhance immune and repair functions.

3) You can treat the symptoms – either in a way which causes no new problems (the ideal) or in ways which mask symptoms and actually create new problems. Examples of this are the use of anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis, pain killers for a headache, antacid medication for indigestion – all of which can ease symptoms but do nothing to remove causes, and as a rule create side-effects and therefore new problems for the body to deal with.

In summary, we can try to reduce the stress load, and/or improve our ability to handle it, or we can try to palliate the effects of our handling of the load – well or badly – or, of course, we can choose to do nothing and simply crumble under the onslaught.

NATURAL HEALING OBJECTIVES

Unlike the use of medication and much surgical intervention which imposes solutions, or which makes forced alterations to the situation, natural healing methods start by respecting the self-healing (homoeostatic) potentials of the body.

This is sometimes referred to as vis medicatrix naturae or the ‘healing power of nature’. In German texts it is often referred to as ‘awakening the physician within’, and in more scientific terminology as ‘enhancing homoeostasis’.

By whatever name, such methods appear to work by allowing space, giving a healing opportunity and doing the opposite of forcing a solution.

Fasting sits at the centre of such approaches, along with relaxation and meditation methods, the use of relaxing hydrotherapy methods such as the ‘neutral bath’ (see Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)), the use of non-specific bodywork (‘wellness massage’ and aromatherapy relaxation methods, for example) and employment of techniques which have a balancing, harmonizing, normalizing influence – including some herbal and acupuncture methods.

None of these methods, in themselves, is ‘curative’, but all allow a healing potential to operate more efficiently because they offer the body–mind complex essential time, space and reduced demands, which encourages normalization and recovery, irrespective of whatever is wrong.

This is not to say that problems can be completely removed in all cases, since in many instances the processes that have already taken place will have created so much change, so much damage, that the best that can be hoped for is that matters do not get worse, or that there is a marginal improvement. This is, nevertheless, an infinitely better outcome than a steady decline into ever more ill health.

Trevor Salloum ND, a naturopathic practitioner, describes the benefits of fasting as:

… decreased weight, clearer skin, increased elimination, tissue repair, decreased pain and inflammation, increased concentration, relaxation, plus spare time and savings in the cost of food. Perhaps the greatest benefit is the satisfaction that you are taking a major role in improving your health.

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FASTING’S ANTI-AGEING POTENTIAL

Apart from having to constantly adapt to the stress of life, another inevitable factor is always at work which makes demands on our adaptive processes – ageing.

There are a number of competing theories as to just what constitutes the mechanics of the ageing process, but there is increasing agreement that it is probably a combination of interacting elements – all happening at the same time. This was neatly summarized in Newsweek (5 March 1990) by journalists Sharon Begley and Mary Hager:

One theory holds that the changes that accompany ageing are the inevitable result of life itself. DNA, the molecule of heredity, occasionally makes mistakes as it goes about its business of synthesizing proteins; metabolism produces toxic avengers (free radicals) that turn lipids [fats] in our cells rancid and proteins ‘rusty’. This damage accumulates until the organism falls apart like an old jalopy…