DR. HERBERT SHELTON ON FASTING

NATURAL HYGIENE CLASSICS - ABOUT FASTING
Note: the term fasting equals "water fasting". E.g. juice fasting
should properly be referred to as juice diet.

LINKS
For a (water) fasting SUPPORT GROUP - go to
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/WaterFasting/

FASTING ARTICLES

Constructive Phases of the Fast by Dr. Shelton (1972)
Fasting "Cures" Stomach Diseases by Dr. Shelton (1967)
Living without Eating by Dr. Shelton
Fasting in Chronic Disease by Dr. Shelton (1964)
Fasting and MS by Dr. Shelton
Bowel Action During Fasting by Dr. Shelton (1942)
Therapeutic Fasting by Arnold deVries

"As a novice swimmer would seek expert guidance and advice before
starting on a long swim, so the inexperienced faster must obtain
reliable guidance as a precautionary measure before launching upon a
fast of any extended duration."
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Constructive Phases of the Fast

Hygienic Review
Vol. XXXIV November, 1972 No. 3
Constructive Phases of the Fast
Herbert M. Shelton

It is customary to think that all the changes that take place in the
body during a fast are of a destructive nature and that this
destruction begins with the omission of the first meal and continues
at an accelerated rate throughout the whole of the fast. Few
mistakes could be more glaring than this one, as a hurried
consideration of a number of facts bearing on the subject will
quickly reveal.

A fasting man may be quite active during the day and come to the
evening tired and weary. He may go to bed and sleep through the
night and awaken in the morning refreshed, reinvigorated and ready
for another day of activity just as though his tissues have been
duly nourished during the hours of repose. Indeed his tissues are
nourished as truly as if he had three meals the preceding day. The
processes of nutrition are carried on during a fast almost as
vigorously as when feeding. Almost all the losses that occur during
a fast represent reserves and expendables that are employed in
nourishing the more vital tissues of the body. These reserves and
expendables may be used not only in making good the daily wear and
tear of the body, but also, as materials of growth. Strange as this
may appear to the uninformed reader growth may go on during the
fast. Indeed, some growth seems not to occur except during the fast.

A classical example of growth while fasting is that of the growth of
the tail of the salamander that has been deprived of its tail and
that is compelled to fast following its loss. It is, perhaps,
generally known that if the salamander loses its tail, it grows a
new one. What is probably not so generally known, is that the
salamander grows a new tail, whether fasting or fed. The growth is
slightly more rapid if the animal is fed than when it is forced to
fast. Numerous instances of this kind are observed in nature. There
are large numbers of lower forms of life that are capable of
regenerating lost parts—tails, legs, stomachs, eyes, even whole
heads and in many of these cases the nature of the loss
automatically compels the animal to fast.

A process of growth that takes place only during a fast and which
does not take place if the animal continues to eat is that of the
metamorphosis of the tadpole into a frog. Simultaneously with the
absorption of the tail of the tadpole, the materials of which are
used as food, the tadpole grows legs. The tail is digested
(autolized) and the proteins and other nutritive materials contained
in it are absorbed and utilized in the construction of new tissues.
Metamorphosis is part of the reproductive process in frogs, insects
and some other forms of life. It is significant that fasting is
frequently associated with reproduction.

Another example of the association of fasting with reproduction is
seen in the long fasts of salmon during the mating season. A
remarkable growth of new tissue takes place in the fasting salmon.
There is a luxuriant growth of the gonads of both sexes, with the
production of thousands of ova by the female ovaries and millions of
sperm by the male testicles. The materials for this growth are
derived from the reserve stores and expendables carried within the
body of the salmon.

The Hawaiian monk seal gives birth to one young weighing about forty
pounds. Within fifteen days this weight has doubled. By the twenty-
sixth day its weight has trippled. By the thirty-fifth day its
weight has quadrupled to more than one hundred forty pounds. The
mother fasts throughout the whole of the nursing period and supplies
from her own tissues materials for the growth and fattening of her
cub. At the end of thirty-five days she deserts the young glutton
and swims away, leaving him to fend for himself.

Somewhat similar to the female monk seal is the female bear. When
she enters her long winter fast she is both pregnant and loaded with
fat. The evolving young bears (two in number) in her womb develop
and grow and are born and are nursed subsequent to birth while the
mother continues her long fast. The cubs are born nude (that is,
devoid of hair) and the fasting mother must provide adequate heat to
keep both herself and her two cubs warm.

The female seal and bear, providing nutriment for their offspring
while fasting, must draw upon their own tissues for the materials to
meet the needs of their young. Her own nutritive reserves and
expendables must contain adequacies of protein, sugar, fat, mineral
salts and vitamins to supply not only their own needs but those of
their growing offspring. It is generally assumed that the animal
organism and especially the human organism does not store vitamin C.
It is even asserted by supposed authorities that man cannot go for
more than fifteen days without a supply of vitamin C. Not only
fasting experiences among animals but in man also indicate that this
is a mistaken assumption. Fasts in man of more than a hundred days,
without taking any vitamins of any kind with no deficiency diseases
arising, indicate that in man, as in animals, the stored vitamin is
fully adequate to carry man safely through an extended period
without food.

Some of the most remarkable examples of constructive work during a
period of fasting is provided us by metamorphosing insects. One
example must suffice. The caterpillar eats everything in sight and
stores up a lot of fat and other nutrients in its tissues. Then it
wraps itself in a cocoon and undergoes a complete transformation,
emerging after a time as a butterfly. It does not taste food from
the time it begins the work of wrapping itself in the cocoon until
it emerges therefrom. All this tearing down of old structure and
building of new ones is achieved in the fasting stage. It is
possible that, as in the case of the tadpole, the fast is essential
to the metamorphosis of the insect. I need hardly emphasize the fact
that all the nutrients including vitamins, needed in the
construction of the butterfly are contained in the body of the
matured caterpillar.

Experiments have shown that calves, when forced to fast, continue to
grow. Although losing weight and becoming gaunt, they continue to
increase in size, drawing upon their reserves and expendables for
the nutrient materials and vitamins necessary to sustain growth in
those portions of its organism that are growing at that stage of its
existence. Many more such examples of constructive work being
carried on during a fast could be given, but this is enough to
demonstrate how false is the common notion that fasting gives rise
to destructive changes only. A more detailed study of the metabolism
of the fasting organism demonstrates that the changes that occur
during a fast are orderly and constructive. The vital tissues are
protected from injury and only the reserves and expendables are
sacrificed. These are quickly replenished when the fast is broken.
In man, wounds (scratches, cuts, bruises and more formidable wounds)
heal and broken bones are knit during a fast. Healing is as much a
process of life as digestion, circulation, respiration and
excretion. The processes of healing are in continuous operation.
Minor accidents such as scratches, shallow cuts, and minor bruises,
often heal so quickly and attract so little attention that we do not
notice their existence. More formidable injuries heal by the same
process, longer time being required for the accomplishment of the
work. All of this healing work proceeds in an orderly and efficient
manner during a fast. Ulcers and old sores that frequently have
persisted for years heal with astonishing rapidity during a fast.

I know of no studies made upon fasting babies to show that the human
infant will continue to grow during a fast, but I know of no reason
why the human infant should be an exception to the general rule that
fasting young continue to grow. Both in the young and in the aged,
hair and nails continue to grow during a fast. A remarkable
phenomenon associated with fasting is seen in the many instances in
which tumors, even tumors of considerable size, are autolized and
completely disappear during a fast. Undoubtedly the nutritive
materials of which the tumor is composed are utilized with which to
nourish essential tissue, while the non usable portions are cast
out. In a similar manner the extra materials contained in
hypertrophied (enlarged) structures and in dropsical or edematous
swellings are utilized as nutrient materials with which to sustain
the vital tissues of the fasting body.

The fasting organism draws upon every possible eternal source for
nutrients with which to sustain its essential tissues and functions,
safeguarding the integrity of such structures and functions
throughout an extended period of abstinence. No vital organ is
permitted to suffer damage as a consequence of the nutritive
stringency so long as its stored reserves and expendables are
collectively capable of meeting the requirements of life. That it
may meet these requirements for long periods, even in the face of
great expenditure is seen in the cases of the Alaskan fur seal bull,
the fasting salmon and the lactating bear.

We live in a world in which food is not always abundant. Indeed, in
wild nature food is often in short supply. In every prolonged
drought many deer die from lack of food and water. This is typical
of life in the wild. Not only droughts, but floods and blizzards as
well as insect invasion cut short the food supply of many animals.
In a world in which food shortage is so common, nature has made
provisions for animals to store up reserve food stores within their
own tissues, during the periods of plenty, upon which the animal may
draw for sustenance during periods of scarcity or under those
circumstances in which, although food may be available, it cannot be
appropriated.

Herbert M. Shelton
from Karl Anderson's collection
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Fasting "Cures" Stomach Diseases

Hygienic Review
Vol. XXVII April, 1967 No. 8
Fasting "Cures" Stomach Diseases
Herbert M. Shelton

"Prolonged fasting can cure stomach diseases. In fact, certain
tribal people are following the method as a cure." This view was
expressed by professor Joseph Harold Burckhalter, M. D., head of the
pharmacy research department in the University of Michigan, U. S.
delegate to the Pharmaceutical Congress, held in Bombay, India, as
reported in the Sunday Standard (Sunday edition of the Indian
Express), on Jan. 1, 1967. Speaking on the preceding Friday,
Burckhalter found it necessary to conjure into existence "tribal
people, " among whom stomach diseases are very rare, to support his
view that prolonged fasting will cure diseases of the stomach.

He lives in the United States where fasting has been employed on an
extensive scale for more than 145 years and where, it is safe to
say, more than a million fasts have been conducted, great numbers of
them in diseases of the stomach; and he is reduced by the ethics of
his profession, to conjure up from out of the void, tribes of
uncultured people to validate his statement.

Great numbers of the fasts conducted in America have been supervised
by regularly trained and licensed physicians of his own school, who
abandoned drugging practices and adopted nature's own methods of
Hygiene. But to the professor and the regular members of his
profession these men are "quacks" and their observations and
testimony are not to be received. Better the testimony of unlettered
tribesmen than that of scientifically educated men who have lost
their standing in the medical community.

Burckhalter has developed drugs for malaria and stomach diseases and
has conducted guided research in cancer. This certifies to
his "regularity" so that we may be sure that when he credits
prolonged fasting with the cure of stomach diseases, his statement
is not the utterance of a "quack!"

He expressed sorrow over the obvious fact that "The world-wide
researches in cancer, despite the tremendous amount of money spent
on them, were still inadequate to conquer the disease. Perhaps, if
he would do a little basic thinking on the subject, this man, whose
researches have developed drugs for stomach diseases and who, yet,
finds it necessary to fall back upon fasting in these diseases, will
realize that cancer research, like his own research that led to
drugs for stomach diseases, is headed in the wrong direction.

Does or can prolonged fasting cure stomach diseases? To cure disease
is to restore health without the necessity of removing or correcting
the causes that have impaired health and are maintaining the
impairment. It is like sobering up a drunk man while he continues to
drink.

Recovery from diseases of the stomach, to be genuine and lasting,
can follow only upon the removal or correction of the causes that
are responsible for the diseases. Can fasting remove these causes?
Unless we can answer this question in the affirmative, we are not
justified in crediting prolonged fasting with recovery from diseases
of the stomach.

It is quite true that when one goes on a fast, one automatically
ceases most of the practices that lead to diseases of the stomach.
One discontinues overeating, imprudent eating, eating wrong
combinations of foods, eating under emotional, physical, and
physiological conditions when food should not be taken, eating
condiments; and, usually, one discontinues coffee, alcohol, ant-
acids, analgesics and other drugs, including tobacco. With the rest
afforded the stomach by the fast and the cessation of abuses the
stomach is given an opportunity to repair its structures, restore
its functions, replenish its substances and recuperate its
functioning capacities. A genuine restoration of health takes place.

But, if when the fast is broken, the individual returns to his prior
habits, he builds again the trouble from which he has recovered.
Lasting recovery can result only from lasting correction of the ways
of life. Fasting should be not as a one shot remedy that restores
one to health for all time to come. Only vaccines and serums are
claimed to make man disease-proof. Stomach diseases, ranging from
simple indigestion through gastritis, gastric ulcer, pyloric,
hypertrophy, to gastric cancer, grow out of modes of living and
modes of eating that impair the functions of the stomach and keep it
in a state of chronic irritation. Overwork, lack of rest and sleep,
emotional stresses, sexual over-indulgence, and many other factors
that contribute to producing and maintaining enervation help to
impair digestive function and produce stomach diseases. In seeking
to remove the cause of stomach diseases it is necessary that we
correct and remove all factors that contribute to the impairment of
the general health, and not think exclusively of those factors that
affect the stomach directly and immediately.

Herbert M. Shelton
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Living without Eating

Living without Eating
Chapter 3
Fasting Can Save Your Life
Herbert M. Shelton

In March, 1963, newspapers around the world described the almost
incredible story of the seven weeks deprivation of food and the
survival of Ralph Flores, a forty-two year old pilot of San Bruno,
California, and twenty-one-year old Helen Klaben, a co-ed of
Brooklyn, New York, following a plane crash on a mountain side in
Northern British Columbia. The couple was rescued March 25, 1963,
after forty-nine days in the wilderness in the dead of whiter, over
thirty days of this time without any food at all.

By means of a fire, a lean-to and heavy clothes in which they
wrapped themselves, they managed to withstand the bitter cold.
During the first four days after the crash, Helen Klaben ate four
tins of sardines, two tins of fruit and some crackers. Twenty days
after the crash, the pair took their last "food"—two tubes of
toothpaste. Melted snow became their diet, for breakfast, lunch and
the evening meal. "For the last six weeks," she explained, "we lived
on water. We drank it three ways: hot, cold and boiled." Varying it
in this way helped reduce the monotony of their single item menu of
snow.

Miss Klaben who was "pleasingly plump" at the time of the plane
crash, was happily surprised, at the ordeal's end, to learn that her
weight loss totalled thirty pounds.

Flores, who was more active during their enforced fast, had lost
forty pounds. Physicians who examined them after the rescue, found
them to be in "remarkably good" condition.

Many thousands of men and women have gone without food for much
longer periods, not only without harm, but with positive benefits.
Periods of abstinence under such taxing conditions as the ones these
two people endured and survived are extremely rare.

Whatever our view of the origins of life, we must all recognize the
fact that nature provides for need, including provision for plants
and animals over periods of food scarcity. Famine is more frequent
in nature than we commonly realize. Winter, floods, periods of
drought, often leave wild animals less well fed and watered than
domestic animals who can generally depend upon their masters to
store food for continuous food supplies. In the wild state, both
herbivorous and carnivorous animals often subsist on reduced food
supplies. Most wild dogs are gaunt: like the dogs, lean, hungry
wolves whose skeletons have shrunk with their bowels, are
common; "half-starved" wild cattle and horses were once common. What
happens to these creatures under such stringent conditions? Do they
die of starvation? The answer is they rarely do.

In his Zoological Sketches, Dr. Felix L. Oswald writes: "In a
sparsely settled country, animal refugees soon accustom themselves
to the vicissitudes of their wild life. The ten months' drought back
in 1877, which almost exterminated the domestic cattle of southern
Brazil, was braved by the pampa cows, whom experience had taught to
derive their water supply from bulbous roots, cactus leaves, and
excavations in the moist river-sand. Solid food is only a secondary
requirement.

"The Syrian Khamr dogs manage to eke out a living in regions where
no human hunter would discover a trace of game and where water is as
scarce as in the eternal abodes of Dives; nay, they multiply, for
the Khamr bitch, like other poor mothers, is generally over-blest
with progeny; six youngsters is said to be the minimum.

"A sausage-maker would probably decline to invest in Khamr dogs: the
word leanness does not begin to describe their physical condition;
strappedness would be more to the purpose, if an Arkansas adjective
admits of that suffix—skin and sinews tightly stretched over a
framework of bones. I saw their relatives in Dalmatia, and often
wondered that they did not rattle when they ran; but Dalmatia is
still a country of vineyards and sand rabbits, while the Syrian
desert has ceased to produce thorn-berries. Without moisture not
even a curse can bear fruit."

That animals do survive such conditions and go on generation after
generation is a fact of utmost significance. A weasel hiding in a
closed room will survive for days without food and seek food when
released. The hibernating bear, taking no food for prolonged
periods, will give birth to her cub, and secrete milk upon which it
feeds. The fasting salmon and fur seal bull are very active while
abstaining from food. These few examples of activity while fasting
suffice to reveal that

the fasting body does have means of meeting its energy requirements,
even if these are at a low ebb and this is far from being true in
the case of the salmon and the seal.

One of Sweden's distinguished biochemists, Dr. Ragnar Berg, a Nobel
Prize winner, and an authority on nutrition, says, "One can fast a
long time; we know of fasts of over a hundred days duration, so we
have no need of fearing that we will die of hunger."

The actual time period of abstinence forced upon Mr. Flores and Miss
Klaben was of relatively moderate duration. The question is not how
long man can fast, but what are the provisions of nature that enable
him to do so.

Wear and waste, repair and replenishment, are continuous and almost
simultaneous processes in all living structures, and none of these
processes halt during a fast. The hibernating animal in the far
north must produce sufficient heat to maintain body warmth. Both man
and animal, while fasting, must breathe and the heart must continue
to pulsate. The blood must continue to flow and the organs of
elimination must continue their work of freeing the tissues of
waste. The vital functions of life must be carried on, even if at a
slightly reduced rate. Cells must be replenished, wounds must be
healed. All of this, as I know from years of observations, goes on
during a fast, moreover, and I will cite examples of this fact
later, physical development and growth may take place, even while no
food is being taken.

All manifestations of life—movement, secretion, digestion, and
similar processes—depend upon the use of the materials of the body.
If an organ is to work, it must be supplied with the materials with
which to work. In the absence of fresh supplies with which to
replace those that have been used up the organ wastes and weakens.
If life is to continue, a basic irreducible level of activity is
imperative. Even the hibernating and aestivating animal, with
activities reduced to a bare minimum consistent with continued life,
must breathe and the heart must pulsate.

In the case of the bear that gives birth to a cub while hibernating
and suckles it, with milk produced during hibernation, for this
purpose, we have a significant example of the possibilities of the
fasting animal meeting the needs of its functioning tissues from
sources other than the food eaten daily. All of these activities
require food, which must be supplied from some source while the
animal is fasting.

An understanding of the process by which the body nourishes its
vital tissues and sustains its essential functions during prolonged
abstinence, and the sources upon which it draws, will help us
understand how the body can survive periods when outside food is not
available or cannot be digested.

The normal body provides itself with a store of nutritive materials
that are put away in the form of fat, bone marrow, glycogen, muscle
juices, lacteal fluids, minerals and vitamins. Always the healthy
body maintains in store adequate nutritive reserves to tide it over
several days, weeks or even over two or three months of lack of
food. This remains true whether fasting is enforced, as in the case
of a plane crash, or of entombed miners, or is brought on by illness
where one cannot swallow or digest food, or by free choice as in
voluntary fasting to lose weight. When food is not taken, the body
draws upon its reserves with which to nourish its functioning
tissues. As this reserve is used up, weight is lost.

Basic in the fasting process is the fact that our "built-in
pantries" contain sufficient nutriment to hold out, in most
instances, for prolonged periods, especially if they are conserved
and not wasted. In the blood and lymph, in the bones, and especially
in the marrow of the bones, in the fat of the body, in the liver and
other glands, and even in the individual cells that make up the
body, are stores of protein, fat, sugar, minerals, and vitamins
which may be drawn upon during periods of scarcity or when food is
not usable.

Neither animal nor man can survive prolonged abstinence from food
unless he carries within himself a store of reserve food on which
the body can call in emergencies. The fasting organism will not be
harmed by abstinence so long as the stored reserves are adequate to
meet the nutritive requirements of its functioning tissues. Even
thin individuals carry a reserve of food in their tissues, to tide
them over periods of abstinence. These people too, may safely fast
for varying periods.

By a process known technically as autolysis, achieved by enzymes in
the tissues, these stored reserves are made available for use by the
vital tissues to which they are carried by the blood and lymph as
required. Glycogen or animal starch, stored in the liver, is
converted to sugar and distributed, as needed, to the tissues. It is
significant that, even in prolonged fasts, no beri beri, pellagra,
rickets, scurvy or other "deficiency disease" ever develops, thus
showing that the reserves of the body are generally well balanced.

Fasting has been shown to improve rickets and calcium metabolism. In
anemia, the number of red blood cells are increased during a fast. I
have observed benefits in pellagra during a fast. The bio-chemical
balance may be maintained and even restored while fasting. It is
important to know this, for if it were not so, the fast would prove
to be deleterious.

Numerous animal experiments have shown that underfeeding, as
contrasted with overfeeding, tends to prolong life and to provide
for better health. Other experiments involving fasting rather than
underfeeding, have shown that fasting not only prolongs life, but
results in a marked degree of regeneration and rejuvenation.

Thousands of observations of both man and animals have established
the fact that when the physical organism goes without food, the
tissues are called upon in the inverse order of their importance to
the organism. Thus fat is the first tissue to go. The stored
reserves are used up before any of the functioning tissues of the
body are called upon to supply nutrients for the more vital tissues
such as the brain and nerves, the heart and lungs. As it feels among
its supplies for proteins, sugars, fats, minerals, and vitamins, and
redistributes, utilizes and conserves these stores, the fasting
organism exercises an ingenuity that seems almost superhuman.

The aggregate of tissues of the organism may be regarded as a
reservoir of nutriment which it may call in any direction or to any
part as needed. But these tissues are not sacrificed
indiscriminately. On the contrary, wastage of those organs that are
primarily essential to life is repaired by withdrawal from less
essential organs of materials required by the more important ones.
Many of the necessary nutritive constituents, and this is especially
true of certain minerals, are vigorously retained.

Studies made on men and animals to determine losses of various
tissues and organs in prolonged abstinence from food have almost all
been made on organisms that have died of starvation. Starvation and
fasting are two totally different stages of abstinence. It should be
quite obvious that the extreme losses seen at the starvation stage
of abstinence are far greater than they are in a fast of reasonable
length. Extreme weight losses are not experienced in any normal
fast. Where they occur, the fast should be broken.

One must differentiate between fasting and starving. To fast is to
abstain from food while one possesses adequate reserves to nourish
his vital tissues; to starve is to abstain from food after his
reserves have been exhausted so that vital tissues are sacrificed.
We are not left unwarned as to when the reserves are nearing
exhaustion. Hunger returns with an intensity that drives one to seek
food, although during the fast proper, there is no desire for food.
This differentiation between fasting and starving should help to
dispel any notion that starvation sets in with the omission of the
first meal.

Contrary to popular and even professional opinion, the vital tissues
of a fasting organism, those tissues doing the actual work of life,
do not begin to break down the instant a fast is instituted. The
fasting body does lose weight, but this loss, for an extended
period, is one of reserves and not of organized tissues. There are
numerous examples in nature of continued growth while fasting, both
of the organism as a whole and of parts that have been lost.
Experiments have" shown that calves continue to grow while fasting.
The starfish may grow a new stomach, new tube feet, and new arms
while fasting. The fasting salamander that had lost a tail, will
grow a new tail while taking no food. Such facts bear out
dramatically the underlying truth: the process of fasting does not
suspend the constructive processes of life, but that these continue
in a remarkable manner.

The efficiency of the living organism in regulating the expenditure
of its resources during a fast is one of the marvels of life.

In periods of abstinence, the less important organs of the human
being although they waste consequent upon the withdrawal of
substance from them with which to nourish the more vital tissues, do
not undergo degeneration until the starvation phase of the period of
abstinence is reached. The atrophy of muscles may be no greater than
that seen to occur from a lengthy period of physical inactivity,
while there is no loss of muscle cells. The cells grow smaller, the
fat is removed from the muscles, but the muscle retains its
integrity and a surprising amount of strength.

Loss of weight varies according to the character and quality of the
tissues of the individual, the amount of physical and emotional
activity engaged in, and the temperature surrounding the faster.
Physical activity, emotional stress, cold and poor tissues all
provide for more rapid loss. Fat is lost faster than any of the
other tissues of the body.

Bodily condition is, perhaps, the chief determiner of how long one
may safely fast. In the case of the two who survived the plane
crash, and went four weeks without food, for example, they had snow
which is water and this kept them from the danger of dehydration.
They could live without food; the lack of water would have been
fatal. Voluntary or involuntary, the faster must have water.

It is clear then that fasting must be carried out intelligently,
with proper precaution, and with common sense.

Precisely as a novice swimmer would seek expert guidance and advice
before starting on a long swim, so the inexperienced faster must
obtain reliable guidance as a precautionary measure before launching
upon a fast of any extended duration.

Herbert M. Shelton
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Fasting in Chronic Disease

A Chapter from "Fasting Can Save Your Life"
Herbert M. Shelton
Natural Hygiene Press 1964
Fasting in Chronic Disease

"I have lost my appetite."
"Nothing tastes good to me any more. I eat only as a matter of
routine."
"I suffer with distress after every meal."
These are some of the complaints of patients who suffer with some
chronic form of disease, such as colitis, chronic gastritis, hay
fever, asthma, arthritis, nervousness, stomach ulcer or cancer.

These people eat, only because they honestly think that they must
eat—regularly, every day, three times a day—to stay alive. Some of
them are overweight, but great numbers of them are thin and remain
so, although they may be overeating.
Another class of chronic sufferers are, as they put it, "always
hungry." They eat at all hours of the day and night. They habitually
overeat, whipping up their jaded sense of taste with condiments,
strong flavors, and in other ways. Often they suffer after each meal
but they don't cut down on their intake. Then there are those among
this class who suffer almost as much when they do not eat as when
they do.

"Hunger" here, as we have seen in other cases, is not hunger at all,
in a true sense, but a morbid sensation or set of sensations
mistaken for hunger. It may be a "gnawing" in the stomach, pain in
the stomach or some other symptom of gastric irritation. This is the
reason the sensation cannot be satisfied. The fact that eating
palliates the discomfort for a few moments, does not prove that food
was actually needed, any more than the need for a cup of coffee is
proven when it temporarily relieves a coffee addict's headache. The
surest, simplest way for those who are "always hungry" to overcome
their supposed hunger is to fast.

Man tends to abstain from food when under great emotional distress.
Rejection of food is frequent among the insane. Although it is the
present practice to use force to feed mentally ill patients, it is
doubtful if such enforced feeding is proper. Man instinctively fasts
under certain conditions, as do the lower animals, and the rejection
of food by the mentally ill is probably an instinctive act that
will, if not interrupted, prove very beneficial. Indeed, my
experience with such patients has convinced me that this is true.

The most important feature about fasting in chronic disease is the
marked acceleration of elimination that it occasions, thus speedily
freeing the body of its accumulated toxic load. The disappearance of
symptoms, sometimes of years standing, when one fasts, is often
dramatic. Fasting provides opportunity for the body to do for itself
what it is unable to do under conditions of surfeit. Surfeit makes
impossible the cleaning of the fluids and tissues in a physiological
housecleaning.

A properly conducted fast will enable the chronically ill body to
excrete the toxic load that is responsible for the trouble, after
which a corrected mode of living enables the individual to evolve
into a vigorous state of health.
It should not be thought that eating must be continued so long as
the body does not vigorously rebel against food. When there is
functional impairment, symptoms of impairment, sluggishness and
unease, then is the time to institute what may be described as a
preventive fast, A fast at this point need not be long. Improvement
often is swift—preventing an evolution of serious sickness. When we
observe the eyes become brighter, the skin fairer, and the breath
sweeter while fasting, or when we see a poor complexion clear up, or
other symptoms fade and vigor return—we can be certain that the fast
has enabled the body to carry out a preventive housecleaning.

It is a mistake to expect one fast, even a long one, to be
sufficient to enable the body to free itself of the whole of its
accumulated debris. A lifetime of piling up toxins cannot be
corrected in the span of a few weeks. In such diseases as paralysis
agitans, arthritis, a large tumor, and other conditions that require
so much time to build, three or more fasts are often needed to
obtain all the improvement possible in a particular case.

Sinusitis is inflammation of the nasal sinuses. It would have been
called a catarrhal condition by our fathers and mothers, but the
tendency today is to discontinue the use of a general term like
catarrh and to use so-called specific terms.
Sinusitis may be either acute or chronic. Most people have some
inflammation in one or more parts of the mucous membranes of the
body—that is to say, they have one or more "catarrhs."

Names of catarrhal inflammations vary with the different locations,
but it is all the same disease with the same general cause. The
practice of classifying each local inflammation by a different name
and giving each an individuality, confuses both the patient and the
physician. This keeps alive the delusion that there are many
diseases,
Replying to the charge that fasting lowers resistance to disease,
Dr. Weger says: "I have seen many cases of infection of different
kinds recover completely on a fast. Take for example an advanced
case of sinusitis after five or six painful operations—frontal,
ethomoidal, and antrum—with surgical drainage and irrigations two or
three times a week, continued over a period of two to five years,
with no relief or amelioration of symptoms. After almost unendurable
suffering, such patients are as a rule, thin, and physically and
mentally depressed. When they make complete recoveries after a
prolonged fast, as the great majority of them do, is this not
sufficient proof that fasting somehow or other raises the power of
the organism to overcome infection, rather than fasting renders them
more susceptible? What is true of sinusitis is equally true of other
infections—even those so situated anatomically that they cannot be
surgically drained, and must therefore be absorbed."

What is here said of recovery from sinusitis is equally true of
recovery from other inflammations in the respiratory, digestive,
genito-urinary tracts and other regions of the body that are lined
with mucous membrane.
Thus otitis, conjunctivitis, gastritis, doudenitis, ileitis,
colitis, metritis—all have been known to clear up during the course
of a lengthy fast. Only in comparatively rare instances are two
fasts required. Hay fever and asthma, both belonging to this same
group of "diseases," are remedied by the forces of the organism
during a fast.

Extensive experience with fasting in a wide variety of diseases,
running over a period of more than a hundred and thirty years and
involving the work of hundreds of men and women caring for many
thousands of patients, has demonstrated that when the load is lifted
from the digestive organs by fasting, all of the energy of the body
is transferred to the organs of excretion, permitting full use of
these organs in freeing the body of an accumulated load of toxin.

What the body can do for itself in the way of restoring normal
function and full vigor when the toxic load is lifted has to be seen
to be fully appreciated.
Speaking of pernicious anemia, Tilden says: "A fast of two weeks,
without anything at all except water, will improve anemia condition
by increasing the blood-corpuscles sometimes by five hundred
thousand in that length of time." There is poisoning from the
digestive tract in all of these cases and it seems most likely that
this befoulment of the blood with sepsis from this source is the
cause of the failure of the blood-making organs.
A similar septic befoulment seems to exist in cancer, causing anemia
in this condition. It should be emphasized strongly that no person
suffering with anemia should undertake a fast, except under
competent supervision.

There is an equal need for experienced supervision of the diabetic
who fasts. The diabetic may safely and profitably fast, particularly
if he carries considerable weight. If insulin has been taken over an
extended period of time, fasting is rarely recommended.
The sufferer with Bright's disease may also fast with great benefit.
In both these conditions and all similar "diseases," more important
than the fast is the correction of the total way of life. It is
imperative that these patients be taught how to eat and that they
learn their individual limitations and to respect these. They may
evolve into good health—continually improved health—if all
enervating habits are discontinued and the patient learns the laws
of proper eating.

Herbert M. Shelton