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Fasting as a Therapeutic Healing Process

Fasting is the world's most ancient and natural healing mechanism. Fasting triggers a truly wondrous cleansing process that reaches right down to each and every cell and tissue in the body. Abstinence from food for the alleviation of suffering has been practiced for 10,000 years
"The best of all medicines are rest and fasting" Benjamin Franklin


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Fasting as a Natural Cleansing Method

Fasting Can Save Your Life Hippocrates - "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." Hippocrates, Greek physician (460 BC - 377 BC)

Dr. Herbert Shelton MD - "It is estimated that fasting for the alleviation of human suffering has been practiced uninterruptedly for 10,000 years. No doubt it has been employed from the time man first began to get sick. Fasting was part of the methods of healing practiced in the Ancient Asculapian Temples of Toscurd Guido, 1300 years before the time of Jesus. Hippocrates, the mythical Greek "Father of Physic," seems to have prescribed total abstinence from food while a "disease" was on the increase, and especially at the critical period, and a spare diet on other occasions. Tertullian has left us a treatise on fasting written about 200 A.D. Plutarch said: "Instead of using medicine rather fast a day." Avicenna, the great Arab physician often prescribed fasting for three weeks or more."

Benjamin Franklin - "The best of all medicines are rest and fasting"

Patricia Bragg Ph.D.- "Proven throughout history for physical, mental and spiritual rejuvenation, fasting promotes cleansing and healing; helps normalize weight, blood pressure, cholesterol; rebuilds the immune system; and helps reverse the aging process. If we are to get these poisons out of our bodies we must fast. By fasting we give our bodies a physiological rest. This rest builds Vital Force. The more Vital Force we have, the more toxins are going to be eliminated from the body to help keep it clean, pure and healthy."

Fasting triggers a truly wondrous cleansing process
Evart Loomis M.D.

Fasting Therapy Fasting is the world's most ancient and natural healing mechanism. Fasting triggers a truly wondrous cleansing process that reaches right down to each and every cell and tissue in the body. Within 24 hours of curtailing food intake, enzymes stop entering the stomach and travel instead into the intestines and into the bloodstream, where they circulate and gobble up all sorts of waste matter, including dead and damaged cells, unwelcome microbes, metabolic wastes, and pollutants. All organs and glands get a much-needed and well-deserved rest, during which their tissues are purified and rejuvenated and their functions balanced and regulated. The entire alimentary canal is swept clean.

Surely one of the most overlooked and yet most valuable modes of healing that will be rediscovered in the future of the new medicine is the fast. This is because of the increasing interest in looking to oneself for healing powers. For the fast is an inward process and cannot be entered upon only from an outer approach with any expectation of a lasting benefit. The person must invariably be involved with the overall results. This therapeutic encounter is in direct contrast to the usual non-involvement in the physician-directed, disease-oriented medical practice of today.

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Fasting For Your Gut Microbiome Health

A pilot study, led by Dr. Ellen Mowry at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is looking at the impact of intermittent fasting on our microbiomes, the community of trillions of microbes, mainly bacteria, that live in our guts.

Your Intestinal Track is The Origin Of Disease

Home base business opportunity Proponents of fasting offer thousands of testimonials from recovered asthmatics, arthritics, insomniacs, and ex-sufferers of migraines, skin and digestive disorders, and dozens of other ailments. They maintain that - with the exception of serious conditions like tuberculosis, ulcers, diabetes, hypoglycemia, blood, liver, kidney and heart diseases- systematic voluntary abstention from eating is almost always a healthy first response to illness. Dr. Bernard Jensen, author of "Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management" has supervised over 50,000 fasts at his center in Escondido, CA."

"I was overweight, plagued with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high tryglicerides and diabetic. Treatments by some of the "best" physicians (with medication) in Israel and in California resulted in no significant improvement. Three years ago I started to do my own research and got across Dr. Fuhrman's book. Well written to be understood by layman and with scientific evidence. Since applying Dr. Fuhrman's recommendations, I lost 70 pounds in 5 months (the first 40 in 6 weeks). All indicators went back to better than normal after two weeks into the program. I later experienced 20 days fast. It was the best experience in my life. Since then, I bought more than 3 dozens of the book and gave it to everyone I care about. This book is my new bible. It is a great reading material for understanding and reinforcement. If practiced by everyone, physicians' rows will be cut by 90%. Not to be missed if you serious about your health, your well being and those around you."

Fasting for health in The Animal Kingdom

Animals will instinctively go without food, fasting when overcome with sickness or serious injury. "A sick animal retires to a secluded place and fasts until their body is restored to normal. During the fast it partakes only of water and the medicinal herbs which inherited intelligence teaches it instinctively to seek" - Juliette de Bairacli Levy

William Pollak D.V.M. on fasting: "Many experts on canine nutrition recommend occasional fasting, such as one day without solid food per week or month, to simulate the natural conditions in which these animals evolved. Fasting gives the digestive organs an opportunity to rest and helps the body repair itself. In the wild, predators alternate between gorging themselves and going for one or several days without food, so a once-a-week or once-a-month fast is both beneficial and easy for most dogs to adjust to."

Wild HealthIn her marvelous book, "Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn From Them", Cindy Engles, Ph.D. documents how injured and sick animals retreat in an isolated place to rest and fast until healed. When they get sick or injured they will find a safe place to hide, usually near a water source, and do nothing but rest, sleep and drink water. To put it another way, they fast and give their body a chance to heal and repair itself.

"Often the first indication of sickness is that an animal goes off its food - an observation that has led many traditional herbalists to conclude that fasting is a natural and beneficial response to sickness... This lack of appetite can be an effective way of speeding recovery. Bacteria need iron, and the body makes many adjustments to reduce the availability of iron during an infection.

If an animal keeps eating, any iron in its food also feeds the pathogens, so force-feeding a sick animal or patient can be counterproductive. Fever reduces appetite, so if a fever is artificially suppressed with drugs and appetite returns, not only do we lower temperature but the increased iron intake can keep the infection going longer. The traditional dictum 'Starve a fever' is medically sound advice." Cindy Engel Ph.D.

"We are justified in studying every phenomenon which may throw light upon the subject and thus enable us to better apply the fast in our dealings with the sick. The fasting habits of man and animals are all legitimate objects of study. Not alone the fasting practices of sick animals , but fasting in healthy animals, whether voluntary or enforced, will aid us in more clearly understanding this subject. Particularly will such a study aid us in overcoming our cultivated fear of fasting. Hence the following studies."Herbert Macgolfin Shelton, N.D.

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Juice Fasting is a Powerful Healing Therapy

"When you don't feel well, stop eating and go to juices." The first thing an animal does when it is sick is stop eating. They fast themselves. Likewise, the first thing we need to do when we don't feel well is: stop food. There are a lot of reasons for that. Food takes a tremendous amount of energy to digest--and that's blood and energy. Our digestive system, basically the muscles and the tissues, fill with blood. When you stop eating, your digestive system rests, and all that blood and energy can be put somewhere else to heal you.

Juice Fasting and Detoxification Use the Healing Power of Fresh Juice to Feel Young and Look Great : The Fastest Way to Restore Your Health
by Steve Meyerowitz

The human body has an incredible capacity for healing and longevity. Within it is an innate intelligence more powerful than any drugs or a surgeon's knife. Fasting gives your body a well deserved vacation and the potential to repair itself. The power that made the body can heal the body. Fasting and juice therapy revamp your health from the inside out.

This book shows you how to tap that power and how to fit it into a busy lifestyle. It's easier than you think. Even just one fast day per week provides 50 rejuvenating days per year. Give your cells and yourselves the opportunity to cleanse, nourish, rejuvenate and heal. Fasting helps increase energy and improve mental alertness; Heal chronic ailments without drugs; lose weight without the hassle of diets; maintain stamina with absolutely no hunger. Fast at home or at work---it's perfect for a busy lifestyle and all the while enjoy dozens of quick and delicious juice recipes.

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Toxemia and Internal Cleansing

Dr. Mercola - "Every act of every cell in the body produces waste. This waste is poisonous, it is incompatible with the life of the cell..." "The cells throw their waste into the lymph that carries it back to the blood. The blood takes the waste to the excretory organs mentioned above for elimination." "Normal elimination keeps the blood and lymph clean. Toxemia is hence the aftermath of Enervation. Enervation in brief is the sum total of all our expenditures of nerve energy involved in our day to day living. When the sum of our daily expenditure is greater than we can or than we do recuperate daily, we become enervated. When an enervated individual is saturated with toxins, any additional enervating influence that puts an added check to elimination will cause the toxemia to be pushed above the point of toleration, and will precipitate a crisis, a process of compensatory elimination through channels whose main work is not elimination, e.g., en mucous membranes (colds, catarrh, inflammation and skin eruptions)."

What is Toxemia?

toxemia "Natural Hygienists know the cause and they also know how to remove it. Fasting will enable the body to rid itself of toxins and hygienic living will prevent their recurrence." - Doctor Keki Sidhwa

The science of Natural Hygiene is about enhancing physical, emotional and mental well-being through education. It provides us with a simple, straightforward system for regaining and maintaining superb human health and beauty. Hygiene is personally empowering and liberating. It teaches independence and rational action. It banishes fear and ignorance regarding human health and how to keep it. Ultimately it is about freedom.

The Importance of a Clean, Healthy GI Tract

Several factors linked to modern civilization threaten your internal health, including unsafe vaccinations, environmental toxins, pollutants, the overuse of antibiotics (all the foods they contaminate), and even chlorinated and fluoridated water. Add to the list the burgeoning consumption of alcohol and drugs (prescription and recreation) plus poor diets, and you have only a few of the modern-day enemies endangering your gastrointestinal health!

Gastrointestinal Health Autointoxication or "self-poisoning" from the bowel was a recognized cause of disease in the early 1900s. Dr. H. H. Boeker stated in 1928, "It is now universally conceded that auto intoxication is the underlying cause of an exceptionally large group of symptom complexes." Recent research seems to support these earlier conclusions about intestinal toxemia.

Virtually every state of health is affected by the GI tract. In addition to processing nutrients as the principal pathway of the digestive system, the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract.) is a prominent part of the immune system, providing various levels of defense against pathogenic microorganisms and potentially toxic substances throughout the path of digestion. If these waste products are not regularly eliminated, they begin to poison the body and blood. Unchecked, this auto intoxication may ultimately lead to disease and even death.

Sixty to 80 percent of the lymphatic system is in your small intestine. Called the gut-associated lymphoid tissue , it is almost synonymous with the term immune system. The gigantic task of your GALT is to discriminate between nutritious components and possible antigens passing through your bowel.

VelociTea Detox Tea - formulated by Dr. Bill Miller Ph.D. - is a unique herbal blend of safe, all-natural ingredients designed to gently cleanse the digestive tract and detoxify the body. Its name is taken from the traditional name of one of the ingredients, a widely-used medicinal herb known as Holy Thistle, and is not intended to imply any religious significance - although grateful users who experienced remarkable health improvements after drinking Holy Tea often thank God for this gift of healing!

The Ancient Path of Cleansing: The History of Colonic Hydrotherapy

Colon Hydrotherapy (enema) is a gentle internal massage and bath using warm, purified water that can help to eliminate stored fecal matter, gas, mucus and toxic substances from the colon. Death begins in the colon.

The history of Colon Hydrotherapy reaches far into the past. Reports about enemas were found on ancient Egyptian papers dating to 1500 B.C. The Chinese Medicine used Colon Hydrotherapy even earlier than that. Cleaning the colon also plays an important role in Ayurvedic medicine. Until the beginning of the 20th century Colon Hydrotherapy was a well-known therapy. Today's sophisticated technology promotes both the safety and sanitation of this popular cleansing practice.

The historians tell us that the practice colon hydrotherapy, or in its more basic form, the enema, was passed down from the Gods to the Egyptians. There are numerous reports of the frequent use of the enema by the Egyptians, with all of them referencing a papyrus of the 14th century B.C., that is stored in the Royal Museum of Berlin.

Use of the enema was not limited just to Egyptians. Information on the use of enemas was recorded on the cuneiform inscriptions on Babylonian and Assyruan tablets, as early as 600 B.C., and there are references recorded in Hindu medical texts such as the Susruta Smhita, the work of Susruta, the father of Hindu surgery. Susruta describes the use of "syringes and bougies as well as a rectal speculum."

From the eleventh century to the fifteenth century, the early enema syringe was still relatively unknown and was not available to the masses. The preferred and most readily available apparatus remained a tube made of bone, reed or metal connected to a sleeve or animal bladder called the "clyster purse". The bag was emptied by squeezing it between the two hands. Dr. Russell reports that in Spain, the method was called "playing the bagpipes". During the middle ages, information on the enema continued to grow and the use of the enema became the popular vogue of the wealthy and even reached to the highest levels of the royalty. With this growth in popularity, the evolution of the apparatus had to follow.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton MD - "The colon has been accused of being lazy; it has been claimed to be superfluous and its removal advocated; it has been blamed as the source of almost all the so-called diseases with which man suffers. As a consequence of this, it has been goaded and pricked with laxatives, cathartics, and purges, cut with knives, filled by injection, with plain water, soapsuds, molasses, oils,and other substances to force it to act. It has been filled from above withstand, wheat bran, rough, bulky vegetables, psyllium seed, agar-agar, mineral oil, olive oil, etc.

All of these and many more agents have been employed to force the colon to empty itself. They have been employed by those who cannot trust the functions of life to the laws and forces of life, but who feel that they must constantly interfere with the functions of life if life is to continue. They either irritate the bowels and cause them to act vigorously to eject the source of irritation, or fill them so full of bulk that they are forced to "move" to make room for the succeeding load of bulk. This plan works on the same principle as that of the hay bailer. One bail of hay is forced out by the one that comes after. It is a plan of remedying sluggish bowels by giving them more work to perform."

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Fasting With the Right Kind of Water

Drinking quality water is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Your system will flush properly, detox, and a persistent regimen of drinking enough water will hydrate, and maintain good health. Establishing a good source of water would be an excellent beginning point. Please don’t assume that your tap or bottled water meets quality criteria. Now trending are quality water filtration systems that can be purchased at an affordable price, and if your used to buying bottled water, will pay for itself in a short amount of time.

Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D.Although nowadays the common response to illness is usually to "take something," it may be advisable to try the opposite. Therapeutic fasting is an excellent self-healing practice. It induces metabolic changes that are inherently cleansing and repairing. The organs empty and rest, conserving energy, promoting the elimination of waste and accumulated toxins, and making cell regeneration much more efficient. Fasting is mankind's most ancient healing strategy. Many traditional cultures, including Oriental, east Indian, and Native American, have long regarded it a dependable curative and revitalizing personal health measure. Hippocrates prescribed fasting, as did Galen and Paracelsus, and it was practiced by Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and Mahatma Gandhi. In modern Europe, reputable clinics that support therapeutic fasting are quite common. In Sweden it's practically a national sport.