There is an amazing book I highly recommend called The Oldest Cure in the World by Steve Hendricks that will have your eyes spinning about the health benefits of fasting.
“Stop eating long enough, and you’ll set in motion cellular repairs that can slow aging and prevent and reverse diseases like diabetes and hypertension,” the book jacket states. “Fasting has improved the lives of people with epilepsy, asthma, and arthritis and has even protected patients from the worst of chemotherapy’s side effects.”
He writes that people are the healthiest when they confine their eating to a narrow window of no more than 12 hours. The health benefits increase with every hour that we shave off, down to perhaps six hours.
The author Steve Hendricks found that when he went on doctor supervised extended fasting for over a week it reduced his pain and fatigue symptoms remarkably.
Hendricks tells the story of a woman whose follicular lymphoma disappeared in 2014 after an extended fast at a medical facility in Santa Rosa, Calif. The reason, according to one of the doctors, was that her fasting reduced the levels of a hormone linked to her cancer.”
Fasting has fought many ailments and the author cites studies showing fasting to be effective against arthritis, hypertension and fibromyalgia, among other afflictions. The medical logic in these cases is that fasting reduces inflammation—the source of multiple maladies—while promoting insulin sensitivity, stimulating DNA repair and generating antioxidants that neutralize a harmful molecule known as reactive oxygen species.
In 1993 a baby started having daily seizures after his first birthday. Neither medications nor brain surgery provided significant relief. Pediatric neurologists told the parents that their son, Charlie, faced a life of mental and physical retardation. But his father discovered an obscure clinic at Johns Hopkins University that offered a treatment that involved brief fasting followed by a high-fat, ketogenic diet. The family’s neurologist dismissed the treatment as unworkable, but the family tried it anyway. On the second day of Charlie’s fast, the seizures stopped. Over time, his physical and mental development returned to normal, and he has grown up to be as healthy as his siblings. Later research has shown that fasting and a high-fat diet is a potent method for reducing seizures in epileptic children.
He cites case after case after case of remarkable cures after fasting!
The diet to return to after a fast should be plant-based. He cites Alan Goldhamer, a physician and fasting pioneer, who asserts that humans evolved to eat simple plants, not the processed foods and animal products that are a staple of the American diet.
The biggest foes of fasting are the medical doctors, many of whom naturally prescribe drugs and medications to fight illness. In fact, the medical community tried to shut down a very successful fasting clinic in California, but it was the unions who came to their rescue.
The Union of Operating Engineers clearly saw how the benefits of fasting not only cured its sick construction union members, but greatly reduced their health care costs because they didn’t have to visit doctors or hospitals. Their power in the electoral arena resulted in a quick call to the Attorney General who quickly called off the investigation, and instead issued a simple fine.
But it was a tough sell to get union members to fast.
“The actuary objected because union members, if they live long enough to retire, get a monthly pension benefit. He said, ‘Dr. Goldhamer, if we do this program and it works, won’t it dramatically increase our costs of retirement payouts by making them live longer?’ I didn’t know what to say, but a guy stood up - I knew he was a crane operator because his neck was twice as big as my thigh - and he said, ‘Listen, little man. You should remember who you work for. You work for us. Why don’t you calculate how much money we’re gonna save when I come back there and break your neck.’ And then they voted to make our (fasting) program a fully covered medical benefit for any member of the union or their family that had high blood pressure or diabetes.”
It wasn’t easy at first to convince these burly construction union guys to fast. The fasting doctor told one engineer said he should consider fasting because he had diabetes and hypertension and he’s obese. ‘You’re gonna die,’ but the engineer replied, “Aren’t we all gonna die?”
So he tried another tact. He told him he was spending $860 a month on medications and if he fasts, he could get off all those medications and save all that money. His burly patient replied, ‘What do I care? The union pays for my drugs.’
He finally convinced him to fast by appealing to his masculinity. ‘Why the hey-ell didn’t you just say so in the first place?’
He didn’t take too kindly to a plant diet, ‘This is not food. I’d rather just die.’ But his patient stayed the course and fasted 26 days, lost 50 pounds and normalized both his blood pressure and blood sugar. The plant-based food eventually started to taste better because his taste buds, which had previously habituated to overly dense foods like meat, cheese, sugar, oil and salft - had been reset by the fast so that that less dense but healthier foods like vegetables and fruits tasted good again. And he was a man again!
“The $1,900 a year the union had previously spent on drugs for each of these beneficiaries fell to $1,000 and the $3,900 it spent annually on doctors’ visits and other medical expenses fell to $2,000. The savings in the first year alone surpassed the cost of treatment at TruNorth (the fasting clinic), and the savings multiplied with each year of improved health.”
Chicago Teachers Union - and all trade unions throughout this fine city, take note!
Hendricks struggled himself with a 20 day fast that he chronicled. The hardest part of the extended fast was from the second day to the fourth, he wrote. A dynamic biological process unfolds during this period, with glycogen, amino acids and glucose interacting with the liver and the brain. The body eventually starts producing highly acidic compounds known as ketone bodies, and they counter the hormone that causes hunger. Once the body reaches this state, known as ketosis, things get easier.
This book is a fascinating suspenseful journey into the world of fasting from ancient times to more acceptance today. I was thoroughly convinced, and try now to limit my eating to about 2 to 3 times a day, no snacking so that my body can rest and repair the cells. It is an incredible cure everyone should try!