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Fasting for Health

Fasting for Health

Table of Contents

Introduction

Wild animals fast when they are sick. Refusing to eat is the instinct of
self-preservation in which the life energy, otherwise used in digesting and
assimilating food, is concentrated at the site of the injury or sickness to remove waste
products, thus purifying and healing the body (Bragg & Bragg, 1999). We, as
humans, have this kind of instinct too. We usually do not have the desire to eat when
we feel sick. That is the body’s signal for us to stop eating and use the energy to
cleanse and heal the body itself. The father of medicine, Hippocrates stated:

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural
healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food
should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are
sick is to feed your sickness (www.fasting.com).

Joel Fuhrman, the author of Fasting and Eating for Health says, “Fasting is based on
unchanging biological laws that insist the cause of disease must be removed…”
(www.fasting.com).

Fasting is a health and religious practice that has been employed since the time of
ancient civilization. Ancient Egyptians, Mongolians, and Syrians believed that fasting
preserved their health and prolonged both youthfulness and life. Egyptians clearly
recognized that excessive eating caused diseases in their lives. One Egyptian pyramid
inscriptions says, “humans lives on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-
quarters lives their doctor” (cited in www.fasting.com). This ancient knowledge can
be applied to modern people.

Along with fasting, the ancient Greeks made a practice of “sleeping off” all types of
illness. Their hospitals were known as “Temples of Sleep” and patients were kept
resting during their entire recovery period. Actually patients went through the fasting
cure and the digestive organs received needed rest (Ehret, 1966). Also, in ancient
times, fasting was used to detoxify the body and purify the mind to reach a complete
natural health. Indeed, the Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, required his disciples to

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undertake a 40-day fast before he would teach them his philosophy. He claimed that
only after a fast of 40 days, the minds of his disciples could be sufficiently purified
and clarified to understand the profound teachings of the mysteries of life (Bragg &
Bragg 1999).

The founders of the modern world’s four major religions – Christianity, Judaism,
Buddhism, and Islam – taught disciples that fasting is a means of communicating
with the Divine through purification of body, mind, and spirit (Bragg & Bragg 1999;
www.fasting.com). In the rest of our history, fasting has remained a religious
practice.

However, early in the 20th century, fasting was rediscovered as a health practice and,
with support from the medical community, became extremely popular. This may be
due to the fact that modern people have become more aware of the harm of modern
lifestyles and the polluted environment and have recognized the need of internal
detoxification for both curing and preventing diseases.

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Toxic Intake and Detoxification

Toxic Intake Though the Food, the Air, and the Water

Although the old saying “you are what you eat” has been ignored for long time in our
civilization, scientific facts have begun to prove that most chronic diseases are due to
bad eating habits. The American standard diet still consists of high cholesterol, fatty
food, high protein food, refined and processed low vitality food, and junk food with
preservatives and chemical additives. All of these foods, without proper enzymes and
fibers, place a tremendous burden on the digestive systems and are accumulated as
toxic wastes. Every kind of meat, including fish, contains the wastes of its cells or
drugs and requires the digestive organs to work even harder. When the unhealthy diet
is combined with caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, our body responds adversely.

To avoid accumulating toxic waste materials in our body, organic vegetables, fruits,
nuts and seeds are recommended as our main foods (Bragg & Bragg 1999;
Burroughs, 1976; Ehret, 1966). However, unfortunately in these days, even
vegetarians need to be careful to pick out food to avoid health risks associated with
eating. Many varieties of deadly chemicals are sprayed in the air to kill insects in crop
fields and on already mature fruits and vegetables to extend their shelf life in
groceries. Deadly poisons sprayed on crops include chlorinated hydrocarbons,
pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Environmentalists, farm workers, and federal
agencies have argued about “safe levels” of the 20,000 registered pesticides (Galland,
1998). Moreover, other phosphorus and toxic compounds in fertilizers and weed
killers are absorbed by mature crops and become part of them. We cannot wash or

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peel off these chemicals. Also it has been proven that fruits and vegetables grown in
chemically treated soil severely lack proper vital mineral and vitamin contents.
(Bragg & Bragg, 1999; Ehret, 1966; Galland, 1998).

Air pollution is a real and serious threat to our health. Especially in modern big cities,
people breathe air containing soot and smoke from factories, incinerators and power
plants; gaseous by-products of industry; and toxic exhaust from cars and trucks. Our
water supply is so filthy that more strong toxic chemicals such as chlorine are used to
make it drinkable. However, these same chemicals that “cleanse our drinking water”
can be accumulated in the body’s tissues to cause health problems (Bragg & Bragg,
1999; Ehret, 1966).

Detoxification Process of Our Body

Environmental pollutants, pesticides, poisons and other waste materials from

food, air, and water are neutralized and eliminated from the body by an ongoing
internal detoxification process. Toxins that can be eliminated from our body are
categorized in two ways: water-soluble toxins like alcohol and cocaine, and various
fat-soluble chemical toxins. The latter are absorbed in our fat tissue including our cell
membranes, so they are very difficult for human body to break down and eliminate
(Gormley, 2000; Walsh, 1997). Under ideal circumstances, our bodies constantly
perform detoxification just as the heart beats and lungs breathe. The liver, spleen,
intestines, kidneys, lungs, skin, and lymphatic system do the primary work to get rid
of toxins. In modern society, the bodily systems have been overrun.

The liver is especially burdened by toxins. The liver’s job is to break down toxins and
excrete them into bile or blood as less harmful by-products. These by-products in the
blood are filtered out by the kidneys, and by-products in the bile enter the colon and
leave the body in feces (Duncan, 1996). However, when our body is overloaded with
too much food and toxins, the digestion and detoxification process cannot keep up
and finally loses its proper function. Eventually the colon turns into a waste dump for
undigested food and toxins and also becomes a breeding ground for harmful bacteria
and carcinogens while the growth of friendly bacteria, such as Lactobacilli, which
help digestion, are inhibited. Kidneys also fail to filter the blood’s various toxins. The
excess waste materials remain in our body. Autopsies often reveal colons that are
clogged with about 80 percent waste materials, weighing ten pounds in an average
person (Zucker, 1998; Ehret, 1966).

Those toxic materials do not only cause disease in the colon and kidneys, but
also they can cause various diseases all over the body. When the bowel walls become
crusted with unexcreted fecal matter, the proper eliminative functions are lost,
causing chronic constipation. If we eat three times a day, we should have at least three
bowel movements, otherwise the digestive and eliminative functions are not working
sufficiently. Many toxins in our body are absorbed into the blood stream, circulated
throughout the whole body, and accumulated in various parts of the body, causing
aches, diseases, premature aging, and all sorts of other health problems. Health

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problems associated with toxins range from “something as simple as fatigue or

weight gain to serious health disorders such as arthritis, cancer and other degenerative
conditions.” In fact, it has been argued that the amount of toxicity in the body has a
99 percent direct correlation with the seriousness of the body condition (Duncan,
1996; Jensen & Bell, 1998). Stanley Burroughs (1976), the author of The Master
Cleanser says that, “[a]ll diseases, regardless of their names, come within this
understanding as only varied expressions of the one disease of toxemia.”

Taking medicine and eating healthy food does not eliminate toxicity -- the
fundamental cause of our health troubles. Instead, their residue remains and
accumulates as extra toxins in our body. Fasting then is a way to give our body a
chance to get rid of the waste materials and accumulated toxins that are unavoidable
in our modern, complex civilization (Bragg & Bragg, 1999).

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Physiological Effects of Fasting

How Does Fasting Work

At the beginning, fasting achieves a physiological rest to the digestive, assimilative,

and protective organs, probably the first time for most people. Next, the bodily energy
normally used to digest and assimilate food is now used to purify our body. The
purification process is called autolysis, or auto-digestions in which our body draws
energy by decomposing and burning unused substances and metabolic wastes with
the help of bacteria and enzymes. Waste materials to be decomposed, reused, and
eliminated include fat and calcium deposits, atheromatous plaque, morbid
accumulations, abnormal cells, dead and dying cells, damaged tissue, and various
kinds of neoplasm (Burroughs, 1976; Ehret, 1966; www.fasting.com). This is the
single most important phase of fasting: breaking down superfluous tissue and
mobilizing the toxins from their storage areas. Non water-soluble chemicals are also
transformed into relatively polar substances and then quickly excreted through
enhanced cleansing ability of all the eliminative organs (Gormley, 2000).

During the auto-digestion process, because waste materials, chemicals, and toxins
begin to circulate in blood stream and throughout the body, they can cause headache,
nausea, and some other physical symptoms. At this point, many people quit fasting
and start to eat. They blame fasting as the cause of their uncomfortable conditions.
However, it is well-known fact that these symptoms will go away in few days as the
elimination process progresses and fasters feel better and even stronger.
Auto-digestion stops when they start to eat (Bragg & Bragg, 1999; Ehret, 1966).

One caution should be made here. Those who have been seriously ill or on heavy
medications need to fast only under medical supervision because a prolonged fast can
be dangerous because of the large amount of toxic substances they have to eliminate
(Bragg & Bragg, 1999; Burroughs, 1976; Ehret, 1966). “Fasters who died from a long

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fast did not die from lack of food, but actually suffocated in and with their own
wastes” (Ehret, 1966, p47). All fasters must educate themselves to know what
physical conditions occur during a fast.

Health Benefits of Fasting

The process of decomposing and eliminating waste toxic materials can improve or
even cure various diseases: cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, diseases of
digestive system, diseases of the locomotor system including rheumatism, respiratory
system diseases including asthma, and the early stage of malignant diseases like
cancer (Bragg & Bragg, 1999; Burroughs, 1976; Ehret, 1966; www.fasting.com).
Stanley Burroughs (1976) says,

All mucus diseases such as colds, flu, asthma, hay fever, sinus and bronchial troubles
are rapidly dissolved and eliminated from the body, leaving the user free from the
varied allergies which cause difficult breathing and clogging of the sinus cavities….
The types of diseases that are a result of calcium deposits in the joints, muscles, cells,
and glands are readily dissolved and removed from the body. Cholesterol deposits in
the arteries and veins also respond to the cleansing power of fasting (p13).

Fasting can be used to normalize our weight. As our common sense says, weight
reduction is achieved by fasting, along with other health benefits. There are many diet
programs using an unbalanced diet that can be dangerous for our health. Carefully
planned fasting is a natural way to normalize our body weight. Fasting dissolves all
unnecessary and unnatural fat deposits all over the body and the body is relieved of a
tremendous burden. When we fast for a few days, the stomach shrinks to its normal
size and the hungry feeling gradually fades away. When we go back to the normal
diet, we won’t have exaggerated hunger and won’t overeat (Bragg & Bragg, 1999).

Surprisingly enough, fasting programs can be used for underweight people who
cannot gain weight even if they stuff themselves with many fattening foods. The
cause of both overweight and underweight is a nutritionally unbalanced diet. “People
are not nourished in proportion to amount of food they eat, but in proportion to how
much they digest and assimilate” (Bragg & Bragg, 1999, p120). Thus what
underweight people need is exactly what overweight people need – revitalizing the
digestive and assimilative systems to work efficiently. As metabolism is improved
through fasting, the body recuperates the capability to assimilate proteins, fats,
carbohydrates, starches, sugars, minerals, vitamins and all other essential nutrients
necessary (Bragg & Bragg, 1999).

The human body uses the skin as a secondary eliminative organ. Because conditions
such as boils, abscesses, carbuncles, and pimples are the body’s effort to eliminate
poisons, skin problems also disappear as the rest of the body is cleansed (Burroughs,
1976). Baldness may be cured or at least prevented by pure blood that supplies the
correct nourishments of the hair bed. After all the tonics have failed, we must
recognize that the cause of baldness is not external and cannot be cured or prevented

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externally (Ehret, 1966).

Finally, fasting can help people to break addictions to harmful substances: tobacco,
drugs, alcohol, tea, coffee, and other habit-forming beverages. Fasting leads our body
to get rid of stored poisons, including addictive substances, and we lose our craving
and tolerance for them. Thus after fasting we will feel nausea or sometimes have
attacks of vomiting, “nature’s purge” if taking addictive substances. (Bragg & Bragg,
1999; Burroughs, 1976). After I fasted for two weeks, I became very weak for
alcohol. A bottle of beer was strong enough to make me very drunk. I imagine that
smokers can quit or at least reduce the number of cigarettes if they go though fasting.

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Psychological and Spiritual Effects of Fasting

Psychological Effects of Fasting

The physical and psychological benefits cannot be separated. Fasting purifies cells all
over the body, including those in the brain. Negative mental states such as anxiety,
boredom, loneliness, tension, and fear, to the some extent, can be said as the mental
expression of a physical state. When the brain is free of toxic poisons, the mind is
liberated both physiologically and then psychologically. Although psychological
drugs only temporarily alter the mental states by affecting the brain, fasting may free
the brain forever (Bragg & Bragg, 1999). In the last 50 years in Russia, therapeutic
fasting has been found to be the most effective treatment for schizophrenia. As early
as 1972, Dr. Yuri Nikolayev, director of the fasting unit of the Moscow Psychiatric
Institute, reported on the use of fasting to successfully treat over 7000 patients who
suffered from various mental disorders including schizophrenia. Now Nikolayev after
30 year’s experience fasting over 10,000 patients says, “seventy percent of those
[schizophrenia patients] treated by fasting improved so remarkably that they were
able to resume an active life” (www.fasting.com).

Many fasters report that their mind is sharpened and focused. This is explained by the
fact that the cleansing process of fasting actually gets rid of cementing and intrusive
particles of the nerve tissues. As a result, a greater number of our brain cells come
into contact with purified blood and the improved flow of blood to the brain helps to
clarify our mind. An Irish literary critic and dramatist, George Bernard Shaw,
attributed his successful works to the effect of fasting (www.fasting.com).

Spiritual Effects of Fasting

People fast not only for health and youth, but also for spiritual illumination. Fasting is
a rite in all religions; the Bible alone has 74 references to it (Bragg & Bragg, 1999).
Prolonged fasting was practiced by the Bible saints, Ahab, Anna, Esther, Hannah,
Ezra, John the Baptist, the Apostles. Christ, Daniel, David, Elijah, and Moses all did
40-day fasts. Moses received the Ten Commandments after fasting for 40 days. Jesus

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fasted 40 days in the desert before starting His ministry. Great religious leaders knew
that abstaining from food led them to focus on God and also opened their mind for
spiritual perception and understanding (www.fasting.com).

We can find Christ teaching about fasting in the Dead Sea Scroll found in 1947:
“Renew yourselves and fast, for I tell you truly, except you fast you shall never be
freed from the power of Satan, and from all diseases that come from Satan” Similar
teachings can be found in Matthew 17: 14-21. Great saints of our history approached
and some reached to “the truth” with their focused mind and spirit that were attained
through asceticism including fasting, probably not only by special grace (Ehret,
1966).

In this modern world, we know that a great number of people fast for religious
reasons.

For example, one billion Muslims fast daily during the entire month of Ramadan.
Nearly 14 million Jews fast during the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), as well as
on other special occasions. About 800 million religious Hindus fast on the Ekadashi
day, on Janmashtami, and in the month of Shravan.

Gandhi, who led India’s nonviolent movement for freedom from Colonial England,
initially tried fasting as means of self-restraint and realized its far greater benefits:
“detoxification, heightened clarity of consciousness, and spiritual enhancement.”
Gandhi concluded: “There is no prayer without fasting,” “The light of the world will
illuminate within you when you fast and purify yourself” (www.fasting.com; cited in
Bragg & Bragg, 1999).

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Fasting Methods

Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers, said, “If there is one way better than
another, it is the way of Nature”. Although abstaining from food to restore vitality is
counterintuitive to modern people, fasting has been proved to be the most natural and
original way to rest our body and revitalize its detoxification process to restore
physical and mental health. Fasting is one of naturopathic healing methods that will,
hopefully some time in the future, replace disease-suppressing therapies in modern
scientific medical care. We can achieve a disease-free civilization only by following
Mother Nature’s law.

Reference

Bragg, C. P., & Bragg, P. (1999). The Miracle of Fasting. Santa Barbara, CA:
Health Science.

Burroughs, S. (1976). The Master Cleanser (14th ed.) Moana Lane Reno, NV:

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Burroughs Books.

Duncan, L. (1996). Internal detoxification. Total Health, 18, 42-44.

Ehret, A. (1966). Rational Fasting for Physical, Mental and Spiritual Rejuvenation
(14th ed.). New York: Ehret Literature.

Galland, L. (1998). The four pillars of healing. Total Health, 20, 23-24.

Gormley, J. J. (2000). Garlic and detox. Better Nutrition for Today’s Living, 62, 16.

Jensen, B. & Bell, S. (1998). Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management. Tokyo,
Japan: Tyuo-Syuppan.

Walsh, T. (1997). Debunking the detoxification theory. Nutrition Forum, 16, 1-2.

Wolf, G. (1995). The effect of fasting and fructose and glucose infusion on
gluconeogenesis and triose phosphate flux in rats in vivo. Nutrition Reviews, 53,
299-301.

Zucker, M. (1998). The lowdown on colon care. Vegetarian Times, 247,

82-83.

www.fasting.com -- an official web site of Fasting Center International, Inc.

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