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THERAPEUTICFASTING
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View:CitationHTML Full TextTitle:
The benefits of fasting.
, By: Braverman, Eric, Total Health, 02746743, Jun94, Vol. 16, Issue 3
Database:
Academic Search Premier
THE BENEFITS OF FASTING
Section:
BODY, MIND & SPIRITFasting has some very great potential benefits. In America we diet, but in biblicaltimes fasting for spiritual development, changing your life and changing thecourse of your behavior was typical. Today, a revolution in American dieting wasstarted by Dr. Atkins' high protein diet, which also included high fat. Now highprotein diets are low fat, high fiber and are very successful, occurring in severalforms, e.g., Optifast, Medifast, Slim-Fast, Trim-Fast, Nutri-Fast, and Fast-Path. Probably the bestmedically-documented ones are Optifast and Fast-Path. Fasting is important because we need to keepour weight at the optimum. Twenty-five percent of Americans are overweight. This is probably the singlegreatest disease in our society. The primary benefits of high protein, low calorie diets are the rapidweight loss, diuretic effect, lowering of blood pressure, help for idiopathic edema and congestive heartfailure, lowering of blood sugar, etc. High protein diets are toxic however, for patients already in or approaching kidney failure. Blood clotting can also increase with all dieting unless fish oil is given.Dieting or fasting increases need for all nutrients, particularly iron.It should be pointed out that when animals are put on low calorie diets there is an increase in their lifespans of 15 days to 26 days: water fleas have an increased life span of 42 days to 61 days; guppieshave an increased life span of 1550 days compared to 707 days; rats increased life span from 1000days to 1500 days. Many individuals feel that low calorie diets have substantially contributed to theprolongation of their lives. We also believe the approach towards fasting, as long as it is done under medical supervision and is then properly nutritionally supplemented, may actually contribute to longevity.Options for fasting are: the carbohydrate fast or a high protein diet, the carbohydrate and fat fast,daytime fast with one meal at night, total fast with water (in some cases distilled) for a maximum three to21 days under medical supervision.
THERAPEUTIC FASTING
Therapeutic fasting is used to dramatically accelerate the healing process. This occurs under conditionsof complete physiologic rest when the individual abstains from all forms of food or drink except purewater. The resting allows the body to conserve energies that would normally be spent on the activities of daily living, to be used in the healing process. After the third day, fat is burned.Fasting should not be undertaken on your own. It is essential it be supervised by a physician whospecializes in this type of therapy.Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is our consultant in therapeutic fasting. He has supervised hundreds of therapeuticfasts achieving remarkable recoveries, particularly with patients with autoimmune diseases. He is on theboard of governors of the International Association of Professional Hygienists, the physician bodyinvolved in research and training of physicians utilizing this modality. Besides his supervising hundreds
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