Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days. Peter Glickman

I will never die of cancer. I am taking measures to prevent it... It is caused by poisons created in our bodies by the food we eat... What we should do, then, if we would avoid cancer, is to eat... raw fruits and vegetables; first, that we may be better nourished; secondly, that we may more easily eliminate waste products... We have been studying germs when we should have been studying diet and drainage... The world has been on the wrong track. The answer has been within ourselves all the time... Drain the body of its poisons, feed it properly, and the miracle is done. Nobody need have cancer who will take the trouble to avoid it.”¹⁸

      By the way, Lane lived to be 87 years old and died from being run over during the Second World War in London.¹⁹

      Modern medicine does not classify “a growing lack of energy and enthusiasm toward life as you age” as a disease. So, if you experience this condition, do not expect a conventional doctor to be able to help you. Some even mislabel it, call it depression, and prescribe drugs with dangerous side effects. It is not that he does not care. It is that he has not been taught the name of a disease to match those symptoms and he does not have a drug or surgical operation to treat your condition. What other options are there?

Support for Alternative Medicine

      Although modern medicine may have a poor view of it, fasting and severe calorie reduction is the only method proven to extend life uniformly for all members of a species and this has been proven in numerous scientific experiments since 1935. In that year, Dr. Clive McCay at Cornell University reported that rodents fed on a 30% reduced calorie diet increased their life span by 40%—that would be almost 30 more years for a human!²⁰

      In addition to increased longevity, most age-related diseases, such as kidney degeneration or tumors, were also reduced. A later study published by the National Institutes of Health found monkeys on a 30% reduced calorie diet lived 15 years longer. And, like the rodents, the monkeys avoided much of the usual diseases of old age.²¹

      Stephen R. Spindler, Ph.D., of the University of California Riverside, has proven in his experiments that calorie restriction partially restored liver function in mice and reduced inflammation.²²

      Allan Cott, M.D. was no stranger to the benefits of fasting. He wrote the 1975 bestselling book, Fasting—The Ultimate Diet.²³ The cover of his book quotes the New England Journal of Medicine as saying, “Fasting is a valid experience. It can benefit any otherwise healthy person whose calories now have the upper hand in his/her life.” His book cites 329 references on fasting: 158 are scientific or medical journals. In his 1977 book, Fasting as a Way of Life, Cott includes an entire chapter on the resistance shown by many in modern medicine who have not actually had any first- or second-hand experience.²⁴

      Dr. Cott, a psychiatrist, got interested in fasting when he learned that the Russian psychiatrist Dr. Yuri Nikolayev had successfully treated 7,000 neurotic, psychotic and schizophrenic patients with fasting alone after they had not been helped by drugs or other means.²⁵

      Carlos Garcia, M.D. and Elson Haas, M.D. are two contemporary examples of medical doctors who have discovered more natural ways to help the body heal itself. More are doing this every day.

America’s Health Care Crisis

      Much has been said in health care reform about the millions of Americans not covered by health insurance. The mistaken assumption is that our current health care system just needs to be expanded to give more people access to doctors, drugs and hospitals. More money, more drugs and more days in the hospital are not necessarily the answer to better health. If you doubt that, reread the comparison of Cuban health with American health above.

      Your health is your responsibility. Learn what works for your body. Consult with health care experts, do your own research, but you choose what to believe and act on.

       Part II:

       Anti-Aging

      The current word for looking and feeling younger is “anti-aging,” which can mean different things to different people. Women in their thirties and forties use it to mean looking younger, and having less wrinkles and lines. Fifty- and sixty-year-olds frequently use it to mean being free of the diseases of old age: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer ’s and arthritis. Other people in their fifties, sixties and seventies think of it as extending life. Happily, they are all related. The following studies will show you that when you successfully extend life, you also reduce the risk for the diseases of old age, and you look younger!

Scientific Studies

      There has only been one scientifically proven method of extending life beyond the normal span of years, demonstrated over and over in eight different species of life, from single-celled yeast to monkeys.²⁶ (The studies on man are mentioned below.) This method is calorie restriction, which consists of reducing the amount of calories consumed by 30% to 40%, while ensuring optimum nutrition. This method was originally shown in 1934 to nearly double the life span of laboratory rats.²⁷

      Some would argue that it has been known for thousands of years.

       One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive.

       The other three-quarters keeps your doctor alive.

      Hieroglyph found in an ancient Egyptian tomb

      The above Egyptian hieroglyph would be a fitting summary for a twenty-year study on monkeys begun in 1989. It showed that monkeys on calorie restriction lived longer with less age-related diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer and brain degeneration) and looked younger than monkeys free to eat all they wanted. Among the animals eating all they wanted, 13% developed diabetes and 29% became pre-diabetic. None of the calorie-restricted animals showed any such problems. The monkeys eating all they wanted had twice the rate of cancer, twice the rate of heart disease and three times the rate of diabetes and / or arthritis.²⁸

      You may wonder, “Why not study humans?” A study of humans would have to run at least eighty years to prove life extension. Fortunately, there have been “short” human studies that show the same kind of improvements in health. One six-month study reported a significantly lower risk of diabetes and reduced DNA damage.²⁹ (DNA is the chemical that controls how new cells are created. Less DNA damage means less abnormal cells and increased cellular health.) Another human study showed dramatic, long-term reduction in major heart disease factors “that usually increase with advancing age.”³⁰ The calorie-restricted group (ages 35-82) had triglyceride (blood fat) levels equal to the very healthiest twenty-year-olds, and their blood pressure levels were the equivalent of ten-year-old children!

      Other wise men have known this for hundreds of years:

       “To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals.”

      Benjamin Franklin

A More Practical Approach