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On the fasting track: foregoing food may help our bodies to heal - includes list of resources

Vegetarian Times, March, 1995 by Amy Rosenbaum Clark, Barbara Rosen

When was the last time you fasted? Maybe it was the day after a holiday feast, or maybe you took nothing but water and broth during a bout with the flu. Perhaps it was on a religious holiday such as Yom Kippur.

At one time or another, most of us have given up food for a day or two. Chances are it wasn't in the context of maintaining overall health or helping the body heal itself from illness. But some doctors use fasting as a natural healing process with good results. As with many alternative treatments, a lot of questions remain about how (and even if) fasting works. It is an individual, not universal treatment, tailored to a patient's particular physiological condition. It's up to you (and your doctor or health practitioner) to decide if fasting is right for you.

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Finding a universal definition of fasting is a challenge. Some physicians, including Elson Haas, M.D., author of Staying Healthy with Nutrition (Celestial Arts Press, 1992) recommend both water and juice fasting. According to Haas, "The potential for developing problems [like excessive weight loss and nutritional deficiencies] is maximized with lengthy, non-caloric or water fasts and minimized with juice fasting of reasonable length, such as one to two weeks."

Others, such as Gregory Haag, M.D., a natural hygienist and proponent of fasting, say that juice fasting is a misnomer because "fasting only occurs in the absence of all nutritional sustenance from outside sources (when pure distilled water is the only substance taken by mouth)." At his treatment centers, GLH Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Mountain Mist in Waynesville, N.C., where he is health director, fasting is incorporated into patients' regimens.

Frank D. Sabatino, D.C., Ph.D., health director of the Regency Health Resort and Spa in Hallandale, Fla., offers patients both complete water fasts (which he believes to be the only true fasting) and what he prefers to call "juice diets." Sabatino is a former president of the International Association of Professional Natural Hygienists, a group that stresses fresh raw foods, exercise, fresh air and fasting as healing tools.

Fasts can range in duration from a few days to help the body heal itself to medically supervised water fasts of 30 days or more to treat serious illnesses like osteo- or rheumatoid arthritis or asthma. All of the physicians consulted stress that fasts of longer than two or three days should not be done without proper medical supervision; Sabatino and Haag both say their water-fasting patients are carefully monitored for electrolytes, blood pressure and other factors that could indicate a problem-safeguards that aren't available to home fasters. Short fasts, however, can be done at home and, according to many physicians, ma be helpful for illnesses like colds and flus.

SHORT-TERM FASTS FACILITATE

HEALING

"Fasting is a way to deal with existing health problems," says Sabatino. "It is a process of rest and regeneration." When the body is not expending energy on taking in, metabolizing and digesting food, it can gather its energy reserves to fight off illness. Both Sabatino and Ronald F. Schmid, N.D. (naturopathic doctor), author of Native Nutrition; Eating According to Ancestral Wisdom (Healing Arts Press, 1987/1994), point to both children and animals who, as a natural response, refuse to eat when sick. "The acutely ill have no appetite," Schmid says. "Food is taken only at the urging of family members, or out of boredom or habit." According to Schmid, "The acutely ill feel no hunger because food in acute illness interferes with natural responses."

How does the body know how to focus on fighting off illness in the absence of food? According to Sabatino, "There is a basic intelligence to [the human body]." Or, as Alan Goldhamer, D.C., co-director of the Center for Conservative Therapy in Penngrove, Calif., says, "The body is always trying to heal itself. It heals itself more efficiently in some circumstances when you are resting and consuming water only. Fasting is just a facilitating process."

Haas recommends mini-fasts as a rejuvenating break for the body. This philosophy of using fasting as a way to make a transition toward a more healthful state is embraced by Sabatino as well. Although he has supervised hundreds of long-term fasts, he views fasting as part of the complete lifestyle overhaul that often must take place in order to bring a person with a chronic illness like arthritis or an autoimmune disorder back to full, lasting health. "Fasting is a powerful tool," he says. "But it is only part of the process."

Goldhamer also views fasting as a good way to get rid of unhealthy food cravings. "If you want to transition away from meat, eggs, dairy, coffee, alcohol or cigarettes, fasting can help you dramatically," he says. "Salty, sugary and some other types of food can be addictive. Fasting can help clear your taste buds, so you no longer need that salty or sugary stimulation. Healthful food starts to taste good again."

Although the duration of individual fasts will vary from person to person, a water fast lasting between three days and five days is usually all that is required to help someone feel "clean" and ready to eat healthy foods again, Goldhamer says.

On the fasting track: foregoing food may help our bodies to heal - includes list of resources

Vegetarian Times, March, 1995 by Amy Rosenbaum Clark, Barbara Rosen

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