Fasting: The only introduction you’ll ever need. Leon Chaitow, N.D., D.O.

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.^{21, 22, 23}

       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.²⁴

      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.²⁵

      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).^28,29

      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

      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