Fasting: the best therapy and natural remedy ever


This information has been taken from the “Hygienic System Vol III Fasting and Sunbathing” by Herbert M. Shelton and the chapter “Introduction to fasting” of the book “The Life Science Health System” by T.C. Fry. 

"There are many definitions of fasting and there are many misunderstandings about fasting.
From our standpoint, fasting refers to abstinence from food in the total sense. Commonly, and in many religious organizations, fasting refers to abstinence from certain prescribed foods.
In certain quarters, the common language usage is to refer to certain specific foods, and a person may be said to be on a “juice fast” when they are subsisting on juices. In actual fact, these are juice diets.
Fasting in the broad sense may be regarded as negative nutrition compelling the organism to subsist on nourishment that it has stored within itself.
Fasting means the voluntary and complete abstinence from all food except water while nutritional reserves remain adequate to sustain life and normal function.
 

Fasting vs. Starving


It is important also to make a clear distinction between fasting and starving. We must fully understand that fasting represents a process of utilizing nutritional reserves while abstaining from eating. Conversely, starvation represents a state where the nutritional reserves have been exhausted and the organism’s vital tissues are rapidly being broken down.

Today starvation is used almost wholly to designate death from lack of food. When we mention fasting to the average person and even the average physician, he immediately pictures to himself, the dire consequences that he thinks must inevitably result from going for even a few days without food. To him to fast is to starve - that is, die.

The fear of fasting is kept alive by the press, which, ever so often carries the story of somebody dying while fasting, and invariably death is attributed to starvation. These deaths are presented as “horrible examples” of the “evils of fasting”. How rare are these deaths? But it would be enlightening if we could have all the details of each of these deaths. No doubt, we would find that most of them are not due to abstinence from food at all. Most of these deaths have been due to irreparable damage to some vital organ, an occasional one may have been due to pushing the period of abstinence beyond the fasting period, a few have been due to injudicious breaking of the fast, some of them have been due to drugs. But every day people die from unnecessary and “unsuccessful” operations and the press keeps quiet. Everyday people die from drugging and the editors and newsmen ignore such deaths.

The uninformed physician imagines that the blood and the vital tissues of the body begin to break down the moment food is withdrawn. This idea is false. The body, at all times, has stored within itself reserves of food sufficient to last for considerable time in the event of scarcity of food, or of sickness, when food cannot be digested. We saw how the body feeds upon this food reserve and how the vital tissues of the body feed off the least essential, so that even if actual starvation occurs, there is almost no damage to the vital organs.

So long as the body’s food reserves last, the individual abstaining from food is fasting. When this reserve has been consumed to the point where it is no longer able to sustain the functions of life, further abstinence becomes dangerous; starvation begins. It is only after this point is reached that any real damage is sustained by the vital organs. As a general rule, under proper conditions of environment, one may fast for weeks, and even months, before the starvation point is reached. It is true that men have died of starvation in three or four days; but the starvation existed in their minds - it was fright that killed them.

Death may result at any time, feeding or fasting, due to the failure of some particular vital organ, which is so far destroyed that a fatal ending cannot be prevented by any means, but death from abstinence from food cannot occur until all possible nutritive material has been exhausted.

Fortunately we are not left unprotected and unwarned in this matter. Before the danger point is reached an imperious demand for food will be made. We say, then, that so long as hunger is lacking, the person is fasting; but after hunger returns, if he continues to abstain from food, he is starving. Besides the return of hunger, there are other indications that the body is ready to take food, that a good professional of fasting knows.

Thousands of fasts, ranging from a few days to three months in duration, in men, old and young and both sexes, in all conditions of life, have demonstrated not only that man can go for long periods without food and not be harmed thereby, but also, that he will receive great benefit from a rationally conducted fast. To starve is to die; to fast is to live.
 

History Of Fasting


Fasting has a long history, but much of it is associated with religion. There are over 30 references to fasting in the Bible. There are numerous references to fasting among non-Christian religious groups. As a religious observance fasting has been practiced for centuries, and it undoubtedly, as a practice, preceded recorded history.

It is evident from records that exist that abstinence, either partial or complete, from all food or from certain foods, existed in Assyria, Babylon, China, Greece, India, Palestine, Persia and Rome, and the records from the early civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt indicate that fasting of some type was an important part of religious practice. However, I would refer the reader to other literature to investigate this aspect of fasting because here we are more properly concerned with the utilization of fasting as a means of recovering and preserving health.

Asclepiades used fating 2.000 years ago, as did Thessalus of Tralles; Celsus employed fasting in jaundice and epilepy; Avicenna used to fast his patients four or five weeks. Even Paracelsus declared, “Fasting is the greatest remedy.” In the 17th century, Dr. Hoffman wrote a treatise on fasting entitled “Description of the Magnificient Results Obtained Through Fasting in All Diseases”. In the 18th century, Dr. Anton Nikolai asked: “What is more sense, to feed the patient and give him medicine and keep him sick for the rest of  his life, or make him thin for a while and make him absolutely well?”

Fasting is now employed in several world wide sanatoriums.
 

Why We Should Fast


Fasting represents a physiological rest and to make this point more lucid, we may look at the process of bio-energetics.

If we look closely at the whole process of digestion, we will observe that ingestion, mastication, transport, gastric secretion, and mobility, intestinal secretion and activity, bowel action, absorption, circulation, storage, distribution, and final assimilation within the cell are energy expensive processes. Right to the point where the molecules of the nutrients are enzymatically broken down and energy is liberated, right to this point energy has been expended.

We can now see that in fasting-much of this energy does not have to be expended. In fact it is conserved. First, the nutrients are already in the body. Although they may be stored and subject to reconversion, they are nevertheless beyond the point of absorption, and are therefore more easily available to the body with a minimum energy expenditure. At the same time another grand process of the body is elimination. That is, the particular process by which metabolic toxins (by-products of normal bodily processes) are eliminated from the body.

The living organism is constantly producing toxins. These are substances which are the end result of the body’s chemical processes, and it is essential that may be removed from the tissues and the blood as rapidly as they are produced. This is the process of elimination which is accomplished largely by the kidneys in producing urine, by the liver in producing bile, by the lungs in exchanging gaseous wastes.

In this total process then, we can argue that fasting represents a physiological rest, in that less energy is required for the utilization of nutrients when fasting than under normal conditions of feeding, and that as a consequence, more energy is available for the restorative and recuperative effort that the body is to make which involves increased elimination among the many processes.

During this physiological rest, the organs are enabled to repair their damaged structures and restore their fagging energies, thus they are prepared for renewed function.

In certain states of disease, the more the organs of digestion are weakened and disordered, the best beginning of a cure may be total abstinence from all kinds of food, There is no cure like it. If the stomach cannot digest, the best way is to give it a rest.

Accumulation of Waste Products

We must bear in mind that the average person in this country eats far more food than necessary, exercises far less than needed, and rests far too little. All of these changes result in a build-up of unwanted waste material in the body. For instance, consider fat. When a person eats too much fat, the level of fat in the bloodstream becomes elevated. When there is too much fat in the bloodstream, some of it diffuses into the space between the blood vessels and the cells. When there is too much fat in this space, called the intercellular space, some of the fat diffuses across the cell membrane into the cells.

The result of having too much fat in the bloodstream, too much fat lining the blood vessels, in the intercellular spaces, and inside the cells, is to interfere with normal functioning of the cells. This excess material partially blocks the exit of carbon dioxide and other waste materials from the cells. Poor functioning, called disease, is the inevitable result of this situation. The type of disease depends on the location in the body in which the greatest amount of fat has accumulated.

Chemical Wastes Commonly Found in Excess

There are many waste materials, excesses, and other toxins that accumulate in and around cells and blood vessels and cause harm. Consider some of the chemicals that are commonly present in the bloodstream, but cause harm when present in excess quantities.

The fact is that any chemical substance, if present in too great an amount in the body, will cause problems, such as cholesterol or glucose, but also chemicals which are not normally present, such as cadmium (strictly speaking, this is a metal, not a chemical).

If any food, even protein (it might be more accurate to say especially protein), is eaten in amounts exceeding the body’s ability to burn up or eliminate, it will accumulate and cause problems. When a person exercises too little, less food is burned and health problems can thus more easily develop.

Finally, when a person is under too much stress or gets too little rest, the body has little energy to devote to the process of elimination.

Unimpeded Elimination Essential

Consideration of the subject of fasting brings attention to a major, but usually neglected, area of nutrition and biochemistry—that of elimination. Most nutritionists are only concerned with supplying the body with enough food; they give little attention to the damage brought on by too much food and too little elimination of waste.

Imagine the body’s metabolic systems as a funnel. Only a certain amount of food can pass through the small end of the funnel. In the body, this means that only a certain amount of food can be burned by the body to form energy, carbon dioxide, and water; also, the body’s eliminative systems (intestines, liver, kidneys, lungs, skin) can only eliminate a limited amount of excess food. Therefore, when too much food is poured into the funnel, there is a backup. First the bloodstream, then the intercellular spaces, then the cells become loaded with excesses. This condition is called tissue constipation and toxemia.

In society, there is a tremendous concern for intestinal constipation. Yet, the scientific research shows that the main cause of discomfort from the intestinal constipation is from the pressure it causes, not from chemical poisoning from the colon. Compare this to the condition of tissue constipation: here we have a build-up of many harmful chemicals to which all our cells and tissues are exposed. Tissue constipation is hundreds of times more damaging than colon constipation.

And this is where fasting enters the picture. While fasting, the body can remove the chemicals responsible for tissue constipation and toxemia, the very chemicals responsible for a wide variety of diseases.
 

The Body’s Innate Wisdom Guides Us During A Fast


When a person is fasting, his heart and lungs and kidneys and other essential organs continue functioning. They must be functioning or death would rapidly ensue. To function, these organs need fuel. While eating, this fuel comes from ingested food, yet this source is obviously not available during a fast. While fasting, all nourishment is supplied from within the body.

Hygienists have long recognized the wisdom behind the functioning of the body. To maintain the blood acid/alkaline balance, or the blood sugar levels, or the body temperature, or the blood pressure level, requires tremendously complicated physiological systems. That the body is able to maintain itself in a steady state, called homeostasis, even when there are great pressures to deviate from this state requires properly functioning mechanisms which are far more complicated than the finest engineer or computer scientist could design.

Yet, there are some scientists who believe that when a person is fasting his body lacks the intelligence and self-protective mechanisms to break down nonessential material within the body first, and thereby spare the essential tissues.

Scientific studies, however, along with the accumulated experiences of 150 years of Hygienic doctors, testifies to the contrary. The body’s innate wisdom continues functioning during a fast. The body is well aware of the fact that tissue constipation and toxemia are interfering with its normal functioning.

In fact, even while eating the body is attempting to break down and remove the waste material in and around cells and blood vessels. During a fast, however, this process is greatly accelerated. The body at this time needs to devote no energy to digestion and absorption of food. This energy, therefore, is devoted to elimination of waste.
 

Nonessential Matter is Utilized First


Fundamentally, fasting is as simple as this. While fasting, the body breaks down and burns for energy the least essential substances within it first. After a period of weeks (2-6 weeks in the nonobese person), this process is completed. When all waste material and nonessential substances (fat reserves) have been eliminated, the fast is finished. If a person continues not to eat, he will be starving. During this period of time, the body will break down and burn for energy its essential tissues. A doctor can easily tell when a fast ends. The way in which this is done will be discussed in future lessons.

Scientific research has totally confirmed this metabolic scenario. When the average person begins to fast, the body initially will burn for energy the glycogen which has built up in the liver and muscles.

This glycogen, formed from blood sugar (glucose), is present in only small quantities. Once the glycogen stores are exhausted, which occurs in just a few days, the body will burn mainly fat, a non-essential reserve material which has accumulated not only in the thighs and buttocks but in and around every cell and blood vessel in the body. After the fat is gone, the body will begin to burn the protein which is in excess.
 

The Body Conserves Its Vital Organs and Nutrients


During a fast the brain will undergo metabolic conversions so that it can burn fat. This spares blood sugar, which in turn spares body protein (mainly muscle and liver), which in turn vastly prolongs the amount of time during which a person can safely fast.

For 135 years, Hygienic doctors had claimed that the average person can safely fast for about 2-6 weeks with little or no loss of essential tissue.

The loss of weight during a fast does not represent a loss of vital tissue, but of surplus fat, waste, etc. It is just so many pound of “disease” that one loses. The muscles, for example, decrease in size, But this is due to a decrease in the amount of fat in them, and to a decrease in the size of their cells. There is no actual lessening of the number of muscle cells during the ordinary fast. The weight lost during a fast is rapidly regained, if it is desirable to do so. There is not the slightest danger from loss of weight.

The body does not lose its supply of vitamins The continuance of growth while fasting and the rapid acceleration of growth after the fast, indicate very strongly that the body holds onto and uses to greater advantages those substances or qualities in food which are called vitamins and which are claimed to play such important roles in growth and regeneration of tissue. It may even be true that the body does not lose any of its stored supply of vitamins during the most prolonged fast. Fasting does not only not stop growth, but actually, accelerates it.

Deficiency diseases never develop during the most prolonged fast, and are not met with during a prolonged fruit or green vegetable diet. They develop quickly enough on a pure carbohydrate or a pure protein diet. Mineral depletion is the probable explanation of such conditions.

In experiments with animals fed on mineral free diets, it was found that the animals that were forced to eat the mineral free diet died quicker than animals not fed at all. This is because a diet is lacking in some essential components there is an unbalanced demand upon the stored reserves of the body and such foods draw so heavily on certain of the body’s reserve elements that these are soon exhausted and body chemistry is badly unbalanced. The contrary phenomena occur when the body is fasting. The body easily controls the use and loss of its reserves, using some of them comparatively rapidly, while conserving, hoarding and redistributing others. In this manner, chemical balance is maintained and no deficiency disease is produced and no organ is crippled.

Fasting never produces blindness, deafness, eye diseases, bowel disorders, etc. that follow in the wake of famine. So long as no food is consumed, the organism is able to supply from its stored reserves the elements needed to sustain the vital organs and their functions and to supply these elements in correct proportions.

Thin people also carry a reserve supply and may safely fast for considerable periods if they are properly supervised.
 

Benefits of fasting


So, what does the body do when you fast? Dr. Shelton lists four main activities.

    1.    Breakdown of body fat, thereby leading to rapid weight loss. Fasting is the “fastest” way to lose weight. Fat subjects lose more rapidly than lean ones. At the beginning, the loss is due to the emptying of the alimentary canal of several pounds of food and feces.

    2.    Diversion of energy from digestive processes to other tissues where needed for repair and rejuvenation. Dr. Shelton explains that “if you have the water running in your bathtub and somebody turns on the water in the kitchen sink, the rate of flow into the bathtub is immediately diminished. When the water in the kitchen is cut off, the rate of flow into the bathtub is immediately increased.”
When digestion is suspended for a period of time by fasting, far less blood flows to the digestive organs. This blood is then free to flow to other tissues in the body, bringing with it essential oxygen and other nutrients which are needed for healing. This extra blood also serves as the vehicle in which wastes can be carried away.

    3.    Physiological rest is secured. We all know the importance of rest after a hard day’s work. At night, we fall into bed exhausted. If we do not secure a good night’s rest, we will function poorly the following day. Our internal organs need rest also, yet we almost never give them rest since we eat every few hours every day. By fasting, an opportunity for complete rest is given, and the internal organs thereby are able to rebuild their strength.

    4.    Fast to eliminate wastes. Again quoting Dr. Shelton: “Nothing known to man equals the fast as a means of increasing the elimination of waste from the blood and tissues. Only a brief period elapses after food is withheld until the organs of elimination increase their activities and a real physiological housecleaning is instituted.”
 

Assimilation is rejuvenated

Frequently the chronically underweight man can gain weight after the fast, who, previous to the fast, could gain in no way. The general increase in functional vigor and the detoxication that take place during the fast contribute greatly to this result.

Autolysis is Accelerated

Also during fasting, the process of autolysis is accelerated. Each cell in the body contains the seeds of its own destruction. When the need presents, itself, the cell will release its own self-destructive enzymes and self-destruct. This is autolysis. As stated earlier, the body will break down and burn nonessential substances first for energy while fasting. One source of nonessential material is diseased tissue such as benign tumors (fibroid tumors of the uterus are a good example). During the fast, the process of autolysis leads to the breakdown of this type of tissue which has hampered normal functioning.

Increased Diuresis

An important body activity during a fast is greatly increased diuresis. Diuresis is the excretion by the kidneys of salt and water. Medical doctors give diuretic drugs to high blood pressure patients in order to decrease the amount of salt and water in the body, which will then result in lower blood pressure. Diuretic drugs, however, damage body tissues. While fasting, the body spontaneously and automatically eliminates salt and water without damaging body tissues. This diuresis is of tremendous health benefit.

Phagocytosis Is Accelerated

While fasting, the ability of the body’s defensive army of white blood cells to destroy virulent bacteria and digest waste material is accelerated. An experiment compared the ability of these cells to destroy virulent bacteria when taken from the bloodstream of someone who had been eating, versus cells from someone who had been eating, versus cells from someone who had fasted for a few days. The white blood cells from the fasting person were significantly more effective at killing virulent bacteria.

Rejuvenation of the blood

The first effect of the fast is to increase the number of red blood corpuscles. The increase of red cells, during the early part of the fast, is regarded as due to improved nutrition resulting from a cessation of overeating. This increase in red blood cells has been repeatedly noted in anemia. The decrease is seen only after the starvation period is reached.

Clearer mind and more acute senses

All the purely mental powers of man improve while fasting: memory is improved; attention and association are quickened; intuition, sympathy, love, etc. are all increased; intellectual and emotional qualities are given new life.

The old Roman proverb, “a full stomach does not like to think” well expresses a fact that is known - a full meal leaves a person dull, unable to think clearly.

Large amounts of blood and nervous energies have to be sent to the digestive organs to digest a meal, so they may be drawn upon by the brain in thinking.

One of the most remarkable things about the fast, one that impresses people even more than the physical gains made while fasting, is the mental benefit that accrues from a period of abstinence. The clearness of the mind, the ease with which previously difficult problems can be handled, the improvement of memory, etc., all surprise and please the people that fast. These improvements must be attributed to the clearing of the brain of toxins.

This increase in mental power may not manifest in the first few days of the fast, due to the fact that when persons are taken off their coffee, tea, alcohol, stimulating viands, etc., there is likely to be a general physical and mental letdown. But after a few days, re-action sets in and they improve both physically and mentally.

The benefits of fasting are even deeper in insanity. Insanity is frequently overcome while fasting, and practically all cases are improved by the fast.

The majority of the cases of epilepsy, the seizures were entirely absent or greatly reduced during the fast.

The acuteness of perception is most marked in fasting cases. Many users of glasses are enabled to discard their glasses and see as well as ever without them. The senses of touch and smell are invariably sharpened. The improvement in the sense of hearing is even more marked than that of the other special senses. No doubt part of this improvement in the sense of hearing results from the clearing of catarrhal conditions in the ears and eustachian tubes. The fast by cleaning out the excesses and wastes and eliminating them from the system and also by permitting nervous recuperation, removes the causes of dulled senses.

The list could go on forever.

So from what has gone before about the body’s reserves, its ability to autolyze these reserves and its less important tissues, its ability to shift its materials from one part of the body to another, it should not surprise to learn that tissues and organs are repaired during a fast; even, that they are often repaired more rapidly than while eating the accustomed amounts of “good nourishing food”.

Excess is fatal to healthy action. A reduction of surfeit is essential to the most vigorous manifestations of vitality. Autogenerated toxins and poisoning from gastro-intestinal putrefaction and fermentation are the chief limiting influences upon life. Surfeit produces and fasting eliminates these. A removal of toxins and surfeit permits tissue regeneration.
 

Withdrawal effect


Some undesirable symptoms may occur at the beginning of a fast: lassitude, headache, leg and back ache, irritability, restlessness, redness of the buccal mucous membrane and tongue, drowsiness, and also a fruity or foul odor to the breath. These symptoms may develop at the beginning of the fast and grow less and less as the fast continues, until they cease altogether. They result from the withdrawal of the accustomed stimulation: coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, alcohol, tobacco, meat, pepper, spices, salt, etc.; and are identical when a person gives up coffee or tobacco, but who does not cease to eat.
 

Fasting in Chronic Disease


Most people who have voluntarily resorted to fasting for recovery from chronic illness, have done so as a last resort. They are usually in a very bad condition. That the results have been so great, when we consider the type of patients that fast, is remarkable. That there are those who fast with only meager results must be expected, from the fact that so many of those who consent to fast are nearing death at the time. Fasting does not enable the body to accomplish miracles. But 95% of chronic sufferers may undergo a properly supervised fast with every hope of good results.

Fasting in thin persons and lost appetite

Great numbers of the chronic sufferers who habitually over-eat are very thin and grow progressively thinner with the passage of time. They are slowly starving from over-consumption of food which they cannot digest. Fasting literature is full of records of cases that had been suffering while surfeiting and who recovered health through fasting, regaining their normal weight when eating was resumed.

The most common complaints of the chronic sufferer is: “I have lost my appetite”, “Everything I eat turns to gas”, “Nothing tastes good”. Physicians customarily prescribe tonics and digestants under such conditions and urge these patients to “eat plenty of good nourishing food”. But how can a body be nourished when it is incapable of absorbing, and especially incapable of expelling, that which has already been stuffed into it? How foolish to give more food when it cannot be digested, absorbed and assimilated! Not more food, but more ability to assimilate and excrete, is needed and this must be first provided through rest and fasting before food is to be though of.

The man who is sick but who is able to be about his work complains of having lost his appetite. He no longer enjoys his food. This is because his organic instincts know that to eat in the usual way is to increase the disease. The man thinks the loss of appetite a great calamity and seeks ways to restore it. In this he is encouraged by physician and friends who alike erroneously think that the sick man must eat to keep up his strength. The doctor prescribes a tonic and stuffing and, of course, the patient is made worse.

Nature indicates both in animals and man that in acute disease no food but water should be consumed, while, in chronic disease, the amount of food eaten should be much less than consumed in normal health. If this rule were adhered to by all, an untold amount of suffering would be avoided and many would be saved from an untimely death. But, thanks to the medical delusion that “ the sick man must eat to keep up strength”, this rule is not likely to be adopted by the great majority for years to come.

The loss of appetite is not the cause of diseases, but it is the consequence of being sick; so obliging a sick person to eat is not going to help in the restoration of health but all the contrary - it’s going to make him worse.

Deficiencies

In cases of nutritional deficiencies, it’s thought that a nourishing diet is needed in order to fulfil the lack of nutrients. Then, diet cures and food concentrates in form of supplements or juices are adviced.

But most deficiencies are due to failure of assimilation and can be corrected only by removing the causes that have impaired the nutritive processes. Enervation, toxemia and the mental and physical habits that are responsible for these are the chief causes of deficiency. The toxic state is the large factor and the mineral and vitamin deficiencies are secondary to this.

In anemia or goitre, for example, care that eliminates the toxemia is followed by immediate and marked improvement in the blood and thyroid, without any food at all, except water, being given.

The great object to be achieved is the elimination of toxins. Nothing more effectively promotes the elimination of toxins than a fast coupled with rest. No detox or curative diet, no supplementation can equal the fast for this purpose.

Using foods to cure, instead of removing the causes of disease and using foods to nourish the body, is fundamentally as unsound as using drugs to cure. Foods do not cure.

Fictional appetite, over-eating and remedies

Many chronic sufferers think they are ravenous. They feel that their supposed desire for food should be satisfied. They eat all day and are always hungry. They say that they become very weak if they miss a meal. But in reality, they are never actually hungry. They are food drunkards. They suffer from neuroses. Their troubles have grown out of habitual over-eating. They overlook or do not know that bad habits have, in the end, dominated and perverted their instincts.

The common mode of caring for the body in health and disease is a tragedy. It consists of eating food several times a day, of employing stimulants (coffee, tea, chocolate, spices, meat, alcohol, vitamins, herbs, conventional medicines, etc) to whip up fatigued organs until they are exhausted, of yielding to indulgences; of whipping into submission (removing the symptoms) any and all organs and functions which attempt to correct matters (trying to heal); of cutting out (surgery) offended organs and structures which are the seat of discomfort; and of neglecting any and all rational and radically remedial measures (healing processes) until some parts of the organism have become so badly damaged and the organic destruction is so great that recovery is all but impossible.

When organs have been lashed into impotency by overwork and over-stimulation, rest alone can save, it alone can restore power. Fasting not only brings absolute comfort to those who have a fatal disease, but it brings comfort in every other disease, cuts all diseases short, and gives the sick person the very best opportunity and the surest road out of suffering into health.

A few diseases considered

Fasting is the most effective and safest method for eliminating morbid elements from the system. Any flux, issue, diarrhea, bronchorrhea, water retention, flow of fluid into the pleura, pericardium, peritoneum, inflammation on the brain, flow of pus from any chronic suppuration, polyuria, and any disturbance of the fluids of the body - is favorably influenced by fasting. All catarrhal conditions - rhinitis, ozena, bronchitis, colitis, metritis, cystitis, hay fever, asthma, and other conditions - quickly cease to exist under a fast.

All observers record cases of improvement of eyesight while fasting, even an occasional case of blindness in which sight is restored. Hearing that has been faint for years is brought up to the acuteness of childhood.

Some of the most remarkable recoveries it has been Dr. Shelton’s privilege to witness have been in cases of incurable heart disease. Fasting in heart disease is a sure means of giving the heart a rest. Eating places a load upon the heart. Overeating needlessly increases this burden. Fasting relieves the heart of the excess load it is carrying and provides an opportunity for rest.

Neurological diseases

Due to the close unity of the body it is utterly impossible for any one part of the body to become impaired without involving the whole organism in the consequences and impossible for any part to be impaired so long as it receives adequate support from it physiological partners. The brain and the nervous system are not separate from the organism as a whole. The brain and nervous system are subject to the same law as of organization as in the rest of the body, are subject to the same nutritive requirements and are subject to poisoning. Its condition, strength, power and functioning ability depend wholly upon the composition, purity and quality of the blood with which it is supplied.

The effects of over-eating upon nervous diseases are readily apparent to all who will take the trouble to observe them. Likewise, the benefits that flow from fasting in nervous and mental diseases have only to be observed to be appreciated.

It is usual for an increased nervous irritability to manifest when the mental and nervous patient is not fed, hence the advice is to feed him up. But this stuffing treatment only serves to smother symptoms, not to remove their causes. It is significant that when food is withheld for a few days, the nervous storm that ensues upon discontinuance of food, subsides and the person progresses healthward.

The remarkable manner in which attention, memory, association and the ability to reason with more than ordinary brilliance are acutened during a fast indicates as nothing else can, the benefits the brain derives from a period of physiological rest. Recoveries from insanity while fasting are equally dramatic evidence of this benefit.
 

How long can and should a man fast?


Fasts of even up to 70 to 90 days have been recorded. A baby may survive more than seventeen days of fasting. Numerous fasters have not only survived but benefit by fasts lasting longer than 76 days.

In general, Nature will always indicate when the fast should be broken. The return of natural hunger is the most important indication that the fast is ended, and the system is able to digest and assimilate food. The usual coincidental cleaning of the tongue and of the breath are also a good sign to take into account.

Concerning the sensation of hunger, sometimes people say that they are hungry when they are not. They mistake many different sensations, chiefly morbid sensations, for hunger. After a short wait, the supposed hunger passes, whereas, the genuine article persistes until food is taken.

During the first four days of the fast, there is a sensation of hunger accompanied with the withdrawal syndrome that depends on every person. Headaches, weakness, mental depression, nausea, etc. are all possible during that period. After the fourth day without food, a repugnance or indifference to food appears, and all the other symptoms associated with hunger disappears.

It should be known that there are no “seven day cleansing diets”, as popular nowadays. It is impossible to tell a priori when to break a fast. In acute disease the fast must continue as long as the acute symptoms continue; but in chronic disease a long fast is required.

A long fast is far more effective and more satisfactory than a series of short ones. Many people attempt to do with a fast of two to four days what can only be accomplished by a fast of two to four weeks or more. The body cannot undo, in three to four days of fasting, the results of years of surfeiting and of unhygienic living. The most rapid recoveries are seen in acute diseases and three to four days of fasting is enough in these. Long fasts are never advisable in advance tuberculosis. Short fasts can aid but little in cancer. A long fast is usually required in rheumatism, arthritis, and gout. Long standing digestive complaints usually require a long fast. Diabetes and Bright’s disease call for a long fast, as do most forms of heart trouble.
 

What about after the fasting?


Nothing should be expected to produce permanent regeneration if, after the regeneration has been achieved, the renovated organism returns to the habits of living that accounted for the prior degeneration.

A healthy life style must be set after the fasting in order to keep healthy.