Dedication

The publishers would like to thank Jillie Collings for her suggestion for the title of this series, Principles of …

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Caution

1 What is Fasting?

2 Fasting – Ancient and Modern

3 The Effects of Fasting

4 How to Fast (and How to Stop Fasting)

5 The Many Ways of Fasting

6 Assisting Detoxification

7 The Spiritual Dimension

References

Keep Reading

Resources

About the Author

In the Same Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

CAUTION

The evidence offered in this book about the possible value of therapeutic fasting should be understood to be provided for information only, and not as a recommendation in any particular case for the use of fasting as a therapeutic intervention.

If any fast is undertaken for longer than 48 hours it is strongly suggested that a suitably qualified, competent and experienced health care professional (see Resources section) should be consulted for advice and to ensure that supervision is available.

Fasting is to be actively discouraged outside of a residential setting for anyone with an eating disorder (such as anorexia and bulimia) or who suffers from any form of mental disease which requires medication to control it. Fasting is particularly contraindicated for anyone who does not fully understand and agree with its application.

The author and publishers specifically caution against lengthy fasting (anything longer than two days) without expert supervision.

1
WHAT IS FASTING?

At the age of 12 I experienced acute abdominal pain, and a doctor advised immediate hospitalization for removal of my appendix. My mother had also asked for advice from my father’s brother, a noted naturopath and chiropractor, Boris Chaitow (cousin of Stanley Lief, of whom more later).

My uncle Boris took the extraordinary – many would say irresponsibly foolhardy – step of advising against surgery, and placed me on a water fast. During the following 10 days I (a most unco-operative patient!) was subjected to the indignity of regular tepid enemas, as well as hot and cold packs and a water-only regime.

A few key facts are clearly embedded in my memory – that after the first day I lost all interest in and desire for food; that I detest enemas, and that I felt extremely well during the last week of the fast, with no sign of the agonizing pain previously experienced.

I am well aware that the whole enterprise could have turned out disastrously had my appendix ruptured, as the doctor had envisaged if surgery was delayed. But it did not, and I still have both it and a firm conviction based on personal experience of the value of therapeutic fasting. Incidentally, at the time of writing, Boris Chaitow is alive and well and just short of his 90th birthday.

Having subsequently trained in osteopathy and naturopathy (of which fasting forms an important element) I have over the years advised many patients with a variety of health complaints to fast – but have never had the nerve to risk what Boris (and my parents) risked with my appendicitis – nor do I recommend anyone else to do so.

FASTING DEFINED

Fasting is the avoidance – totally or partially – of the eating of food and liquid, except for pure water, for a particular period of time.

There are also a number of modified versions of fasting which allow the taking of juices, and even some foods, as part of their protocols. There are ‘mono-diets’ (single food fasting such as the ‘grape cure’), dry fasts (eating dry rusks with minimal liquid intake, as in the ‘Schroth Cure’), juice fasts and herb tea fasts.

In absolute terms, these methods are not really ‘fasts’ at all, but ‘restricted diets’. However, since they offer some of the benefits of fasting (especially if repeated regularly) they are included as possible alternatives.

FASTING IS NOT STARVATION

Not eating does not mean that you are starving. There is, in most people, enough reserve food stored to last for many days – usually many weeks. So, during a controlled therapeutic fast the body does not use any of its essential tissues as fuel, but instead ‘burns’ or metabolizes fat stores. At the same time a variety of important detoxification and repair processes begin which are of immense value to health, and these are explained in detail in later chapters.

RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF FASTING

The use above of the word controlled is meant to indicate that there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways of fasting, and just what should and should not be done when a fast is undertaken (to ensure both safety and effectiveness) is very carefully outlined as we look at the long history and use of fasting for health.

Probably the most undesirable way to fast is if you have a particular health problem and stop eating, fail to drink sufficient water and/or continue to take non-essential medication. Note that insulin, thyroid hormone and, in some instances, prednisone are regarded as ‘essential’ if you have become dependent upon their continued use to the extent that stopping their intake could produce a violent and possibly fatal result.

The way a fast is conducted, and the way it is broken, are very important indeed, and you are urged to read all of this book, not just parts of it, and to fully appreciate the guidance offered before experimenting with a fast. Serious problems have been known to occur when rules are broken during fasts.

To effectively and safely use fasting as a means of restoring (and maintaining) good health, it is necessary to fully understand the self-healing functions of the body and how they operate. These are explained in this book, and once you have grasped them and are fully aware of the rules, the potential of this marvellous method of regeneration is open to you, should you choose to use it.

FIRST CHOICE IN FEVER

There is probably no more powerful healing method than therapeutic fasting when it is applied correctly and used responsibly and safely, since fasting does not impose a solution on the disturbed workings of the body, but allows it space and time, a period of ‘physiological rest’, during which healing can occur naturally.

In acute conditions, most notably fevers and infections, it should be the first choice of health care, since fasting dramatically increases the efficiency of the immune function, at least for the first 24 to 36 hours.

In chronic conditions, such as heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis and eczema, there is a huge amount of evidence showing that controlled and supervised fasting can help such stubborn and sometimes life-threatening conditions to clear completely.

LONG OR SHORT FASTS?

In the UK, between the First and Second World Wars, Stanley Lief ND, DC, the gifted naturopathic healer, supervised thousands of successful lengthy fasts at Champneys, the health resort in Hertfordshire which he ran for over 30 years. The longest fast recorded at Champneys lasted for over three months (95 days), the outcome of which was the patient’s complete recovery from chronic ill-health (I know because I met the ‘patient’ some 30 years later during my own working period at Champneys in the early 1960s).

In the USA, Herbert Shelton, the pioneer practitioner of Natural Hygiene, also initiated and supervised numerous fasts in severely ill patients, often with amazing results.

If these two practitioners, and their countless followers, achieved such wonderful results, why are we not told more of fasting as a means of healing?

Well, to be sure, we are, but you have to search for reports of fasting benefits in the medical journals, where only now and then evidence appears which supports the results claimed for this most ancient, efficient and potentially inexpensive of healing methods.

In 1991, for example, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet published the results of a one-year study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis who had been treated by means of fasting and a vegetarian diet.

WHAT PREVENTS THE WIDER USE OF FASTING?

The results of fasting patients with rheumatoid arthritis were so good that there can now be no doubt at all that fasting should be the treatment of choice for this condition – and for almost all auto-immune conditions in which the body’s defence systems attack parts of itself. That few rheumatologists employ fasting for their patients is indicative of both the lack of awareness of such studies by most doctors, and the power of the pervading idea that we have to ‘take something’ to assuage symptoms, or to control pain and disability.

To be fair, even when faced with the evidence of the value of fasting, many people will still opt for the dubious convenience of swallowing pills and potions rather than doing something for themselves to restore their health by methods which are slow, sometimes uncomfortable, and which involve effort and will-power.

Fasting involves commitment, acceptance of responsibility for getting well, and a dedicated sense of purpose, and these qualities are not always the first to present themselves when we are faced with a choice between a means of treatment which someone may not fully understand and something which has the backing of current medical authority.

This is why it is so important to be fully aware of the facts about fasting – including its drawbacks, requirements, benefits and potentials before embarking on its use.

DRAWBACKS

There are several potential drawbacks to fasting which need to be highlighted at the outset.

 Long fasts (of more than two days) require supervision by a suitably qualified health care professional. This raises the question of cost and time, since staying in a clinic (often for many weeks) where appropriate supervision is available, or paying for regular home visits over an extended period of time, could prove very expensive. Also, since awareness of the value of fasting is limited amongst orthodox medical practitioners, a level of determination is sometimes required to find someone suitably qualified. You will need to look for a fully trained naturopath, a German ‘heilpraktiker’, an Ayurvedic (traditional Indian medicine) practitioner or a clinical ecologist.

 Many people find the whole idea of stopping eating for weeks on end too bizarre to contemplate, and they would undoubtedly have anxieties which could make the starting of such a process unwise. For the best results it is essential that the person fasting should be comfortable with the idea, aware of the processes involved, and happy to participate in the healing process.

 There is evidence to suggest that because of the increase in levels of environmental toxicity, to which we are all exposed in one way or another, the progress of a fast is far less predictable than it was just 50 years ago when Lief and Shelton were at the peak of their practice of therapeutic fasting.

During a fast, such pollutants and residues from previous medical treatment (e.g. steroid medication) or from ‘social’ use (e.g. tobacco and other drugs) can be released when fat stores are used up – fat is where many toxins are safely stored or ‘dumped’ by a body overloaded with toxic debris – possibly producing reactions of an unpredictable nature as a ‘cocktail’ of chemicals hits the bloodstream.

AN EFFECTIVE COMPROMISE

Given the above drawbacks, which may preclude many from enjoying the benefits of fasting, what modifications are possible which might allow for fasting to be inexpensively and safely applied?

To avoid expense, to make the process less intimidating and, above all, to ensure greater safety – regular short fasts are suggested as an alternative to lengthy or ‘open-ended’ fasts.

The process of detoxification and healing is bound to be less dramatic with this alternative, but it is really the only option open if you cannot afford the expense or the time (leaving out the toxic danger referred to) needed for an open-ended, supervised fast.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

In this compact but complete introduction to fasting for both health enhancement and spiritual growth, the different techniques and modifications of fasting (long and short) are explained, backed up by research evidence for its use in the treatment of various ailments. It also includes the pros and cons of using fasting as part of a weight maintenance strategy.

Associated detoxification methods are outlined – including various forms of hydrotherapy and the vexed question of supplementation (should you or shouldn’t you during a fast?).

Indications and contraindications to fasting are spelled out, so that by the end you will know when fasting should be used, when it is inappropriate, how to plan, prepare for and start a fast.

You will also have a good idea of what benefits, signs and symptoms to expect on a fast, what to do about breaking the fast (a very important consideration) as well as how often and for how long to fast, taking into account your age, health status, weight, etc.

Evidence is also presented to explain an unexpected bonus from fasting – the increased production of growth hormone (HGH) by the pituitary gland, which helps to retard the ageing process.

For most people, fasting can be a revitalizing experience, restoring energy and a clear mind, as well as helping to remove a host of minor symptoms, while encouraging the self-healing mechanisms of the body to regenerate and rebuild a level of well-being you have probably all but forgotten.

2
FASTING – ANCIENT AND MODERN

Partial or total fasting has been used for thousands of years by many religions and cultures as a means of increasing spiritual awareness and religious observation. For example, in Islamic tradition the period of Ramadan is characterized by complete abstinence from food or water during daylight hours for a period of a month. In the Jewish religion a fast day (no food or water) occurs during the ‘Day of Atonement’ (Yom Kippur) and yeasted grain products are avoided during the feast of the Passover, while Christianity has its Lent period when consumption of animal products are restricted prior to Easter.

Biblical descriptions of lengthy fasts are common, with the emphasis on the heightened levels of spiritual awareness that they lead to, and texts also exist showing fasting to be part of pagan ritual, for instance in classical Greek tradition hundreds of years before the Christian era.¹

FASTING FOR HEALTH 2, 3

Fasting as a health enhancing method also dates back to prehistory, with records of the great physician Hippocrates employing fasts as part of his healing regime for many patients.

‘When one feeds a sick person, one only feeds the sickness.’ (Hippocrates 460–377 BC)

In more recent times the use of fasting as a therapeutic measure has been most widespread in Germany, the UK, Scandinavia and the USA. In these countries in particular there has been a good deal of research which shows the value of fasting in a wide range of diseases, some of which is recounted below.

One of the first doctors to widely advocate fasting in the USA was Isaac Jennings (1788–1874) who eventually abandoned the use of drugs and relied on a programme of vegetarian eating, pure water, sunshine, exercise, emotional balance, rest and fasting to bring about a restoration of health in his patients. With the assistance of a Presbyterian preacher, Sylvester Graham, Jennings promoted his Natural Hygienic methods which became extremely popular as an alternative to the indiscriminate and dangerous drugs in use at the time (early 1820s).

At much the same time in Germany and other parts of Europe the development of a Nature Cure tradition of healing closely mirrored that of the Hygienists, with priests such as Father Kneipp promoting both herbal methods, hydrotherapy and fasting. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the German physicians Henry Lindlahr and Benjamin Lust took these methods to the USA where, with aspects of the Hygienist concept, they and other doctors using the German tradition developed what became Naturopathic Medicine, which had fasting as one of its core strategies (along with dietary reform, herbal medicine, hydrotherapy, physical exercise and manual methods) of health promotion.

Dr John Kellogg (of corn-flake fame), with his vast Battle Creek Sanatorium (where there were over a thousand patients resident at any one time – most of them fasting), and John Tilden MD were two of the leading American doctors to promote fasting during the first half of this century in the USA.

Tilden’s philosophy was summarized in his book Toxaemia – the basic cause of disease, in which he wrote:

Every disease is built within the mind and body by enervating habits. A fast, rest in bed and giving up the enervating habits, mental and physical, will allow nature to eliminate the accumulated toxins, then, if enervating habits are given up, and rational living habits adopted, health will come to stay.

Tilden was emphasizing the main philosophical core of natural healing, that the body is self-healing if it is given the chance, and that the chance comes most effectively when the causes of the illness are removed (‘giving up enervating habits’) and the body is given the chance to recover (‘fast and rest’).

The naturopathic tradition in the USA is now well established, with three seats of higher education issuing doctorates in the subject (Naturopathic schools in Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and Scottsdale, Arizona). Graduates of these are recognized in approximately a quarter of the states of the USA as primary care physicians. The Bastyr College in Seattle, which became Bastyr University in 1994, is arguably the most dynamic of these training establishments, and is named after the last of the great American pioneers of naturopathy, John Bastyr, who died in 1995 at the age of 83.⁴

It was Stanley Lief, ND, DC, who brought naturopathic concepts and methods to the UK just before the First World War. His enthusiastic, widespread and highly successful application of ‘the fasting cure’ at Champneys Health Resort between 1925 and the late 1950s, helped to promote natural healing in Britain. Lief and his cousin Boris Chaitow, ND, DC, and subsequently Lief’s son Peter, established modern naturopathic awareness in Britain. The long-term professional training of naturopaths in Britain was guaranteed thanks to Lief’s founding of the British College of Naturopathy and Osteopathy in London, where a full-time four-year degree course in osteopathy (validated by the University of Westminster) also contains a sound naturopathic education which incorporates training in the use of therapeutic fasting.

CLINICAL RESEARCH

Fasting research was first begun in the late nineteenth century, with 40-day fasts being closely monitored and the physiological and metabolic effects which took place being carefully recorded. For example, a report in the British Medical Journal in 1880⁵ outlines the effects of a 40-day water fast on a Dr Tanner.

In the early twentieth century, therapeutic fasting – where patients were treated using the method – began to be reported in medical journals and in 1910 a report by Dr Guelpa appeared in the British Medical Journal6 on the benefits of fasting in diabetes (see below).

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.7, 8

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 1910⁶, and in 1915 Dr F. Allen showed that fasting could normalize the blood sugar levels of a diabetic, as well as improve associated gangrene.⁹ Since then studies into this particular therapeutic potential of fasting have continued.¹⁰

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.¹¹

The use of fasting in obesity has not unnaturally received a great deal of attention. In one famous case, reported in 1973¹², a man fasted for over a year and lost 276 lb (19.7 stone/125 kg). Despite the success of this particular case, and while there is always an obvious and sometimes dramatic weight loss in response to fasting – research shows that for every pound lost more than half is fat, just over a quarter is protein and the rest water and salt – this method alone is not recommended. There is general agreement that a fasting weight loss programme should include counselling and lifestyle modification if weight loss is to be maintained.

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.¹³

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.14, 15

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.¹⁶

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.¹⁷

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.’¹⁸

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.¹⁹

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.²⁰

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.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.

3
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 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), 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.¹

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…

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