"Fasting and natural diet, though essentially unknown [in today's U.S.] as a therapy, should be the first treatment when someone discovers that she or he has a medical problem. It should not be applied only to the most advanced cases, as is present practice. Whether the patient has a cardiac condition, hypertension, autoimmune disease, fibroids, or asthma, he or she must be informed that fasting and natural, plant-based diets are a viable alternative to conventional therapy, and an effective one. The time may come when not offering this substantially more effective nutritional approach will be considered malpractice."--Joel Fuhrman, M.D., from his book, Fasting And Eating For Health: A Medical Doctor's Program for Conquering Disease

Today, every intelligent Cybernaut understands that a greater degree of health, clarity of consciousness, restored vitality, enhanced spirituality, and freedom from premature aging and dis-ease are well worth the effort required to achieve them.

As Michael Rosenbaum, M.D., Director of the California-based Orthomolecular Health Medicine Medical Society, notes: "The hidden cause of many chronic pains, diseases and illnesses may be invisible toxins, chemicals, heavy metals and parasites that invade our bodies. . . .Chances are slim that your doctor will tell you that toxins may be the root cause of your health problems. He or she may not even know about how these toxins are affecting your body. . . .As your cells go, so goes your health. If your cells have been invaded by toxins and dangerous chemicals, your resistance to disease is diminished. Clean and nourish your cells, and you're on the road to better health."

Wonderfully, scientific fasting is both therapeutic or curative, as well as prophylactic or preventive. Therapeutically, according to Otto Buchinger, Sr., M.D., one of my greatest, unmet mentors of therapeutic fasting supervision, it's advisable for many of our modern illnesses, including the following: allergies, cardiovascular disease, chronic diseases of the digestive system, degenerative and painfully inflammatory illnesses of the joints, myriad disturbances in one's eating behavior, glaucoma, initial malfunction of the kidneys, tension and migraine headaches, as well as the skin diseases. Preventively, it's designed to cleanse, and to regenerate, rejuvenate and restore a person's sense of well-being, in body, mind and soul. As Doctor Buchinger would conclude: "When the body fasts, the soul is hungry; when the body becomes lighter, the soul also craves relief." Prophylacticly, fasting also actively guards against physical and mental fatigue or exhaustion.

  "Fasting is, without any doubt, the most effective biological method of treatment. . .it is the 'operation without surgery'. . .it is a cure involving exudation, reattunement, redirection, loosening up and purified relaxation. While fasting, the patient improves her or his physical health and gains much. But he or she will have neglected the most important thing if the hunger for spiritual nourishment that manifests itself during fasting is not satisfied."--Otto Buchinger, Sr., M.D., Germany's great, self-described "fasting therapist," who founded the most famous of several renowned, European Buchinger Kliniks in 1952, serenely overlooking Lake Constance, in his eighth decade. His grandson, Andreas Buchinger, M.D., now directs the Buchinger Klinik in Bad Pyrmont, Germany. (Those requiring a residential facility may contact FCI for information regarding this renowned juice-fasting clinic.)

More specifically, Doctor Buchinger proved that preventive fasting is indicated to reduce risk factors for: hypercholesteraemia (elevated cholesterol level), hypertonia (high blood pressure), hyperlipoidaemia (elevated blood-fat level), cigarette smoking, obesity and gout, as well as hyperuricaemia (elevated uric-acid level), lack of exercise, and both psychological and social stress.

Therapeutically, Buchinger's 100,000-plus fasting "cures" proved the efficacy of scientific, therapeutic fasting for. . .: (1) cardiovascular and circulatory diseases including coronary diseases (arterial sclerosis), infarct prophylaxis and its after-care, circulatory disturbances in the arteries and veins, ulcus cruris (ulcers of the periosteum), migraine and glaucoma; (2) diseases of one's digestive system including gastroenteropathies (disorders of one's stomach and intestines), chronic obstipation (sluggishness of one's bowels and consequent constipation), chronic hepatopathies (diseases of the liver), cholecystopathy (bilary tract diseases), Chron's disease, both chronic colitis and ulcerative colitis (enteritis, intestinal ulcers); (3) all diseases of the locomotory system including articular and non-articular rheumatism, arthroses and the degenerative diseases of the vertebral column, and also tendomyopathies (problems involving muscles and ligaments); (4) skin diseases including allergies of the skin and of the mucus membranes, psoriasiform dermatoses (psoriasis and related skin diseases), and the chronic eczemas; (5) respiratory system diseases including both bronchial asthma and chronic sinusitis bronchitis (diseases of the paranasal sinus and the upper respiratory tracts); (6) psychosomatic disturbances and states of exhaustion including bulimic disturbances of eating habits, and depressive moods with various causes (eg., during menopause), and (7) as the follow-up treatment of malignant diseases (eg., cancer).

In short, prolonged, scientific fasting has proved itself, over millennia, as humanity's oldest, fastest, safest (biochemically), and the most effective weight loss, detoxification, healing and longevity enhancing modality known to our species--both curative, as well as preventive medicine of the very first order--and here are the reasons why:

1. Just as migrating whales and hibernating bears, as well as much smaller beings, including caterpillars, hedgehogs, salamanders, salmon, snakes, spiders, tadpoles, turtles and woodchucks, do live for many months each year without eating, your precious body is brilliantly designed to live on its own stored substances. As just one example of an animal close to many human's size, a boa constrictor, up to 15' in length and 200 lbs., can survive on its own stored substance, if it has to, for up to a year between kills. Similarly, during skillful, scientific, therapeutic and prolonged juice-fasts (and every reputable fasting book on Earth today begins with a warning that no one should ever undertake a prolonged fast without veteran, professional supervision, initially), your body will brilliantly live on its stored substance via autolysis, or autodigestion. Marvelously, it decomposes and burns all the cells and tissue that are aged, damaged, diseased, weakened or dead.
   In other words, your own body will autolyze, or self-digest, its most inferior and impure materials and metabolic wastes, including: fat deposits, abcesses, bumps and protuberances, calluses, damaged tissue, dead and dying cells, furuncles (small skin abscesses, or boils), growths, morbid accumulations, and amazingly, various kinds of neoplasms (abnormal growths of tissue, or tumors). In Fasting And Eating For Health, Joel Fuhrman, M.D., notes, p. 10: "The fast does not merely detoxify; it also breaks down superfluous tissue--fat, abnormal cells, atheromatous plaque, and tumors--and releases diseased tissues and their cellular products into the circulation for elimination. Toxic or unwanted materials circulate in our bloodstream and lymphatic tissues, and are deposited in and released from our fat stores and other tissues. An important element of fasting detoxification is mobilizing the toxins from their storage areas. This process occurs best and most efficiently during total fasting."
   Regarding benign tumors, Doctor Fuhrman adds, p. 176: "Fasting is a safe and effective approach for not only fibroid tumors, but also most of the noncancerous tumors. Nasal polyps, lipomas, benign ovarian tumors, and benign tumors of the breast often respond favorably to therapeutic fasting, especially when the person is not very overweight." At FCI, our 35 years of experience in supervising the world's largest, nonresidential fasting clientele mirrors these findings. For example, read our Website's archieved Fasting Journal article entitled, "Fasting Removes A Client's Jaw Tumor" (www.fasting.com/jawtumor.html).
   
   
2. New cell growth is stimulated and speeded up as the required proteins are logically resynthesized from decomposed cells (during autolysis). Thus, your serum albumin reading, or blood-protein level, remains constant and normal throughout your fast, as your body very wisely uses protein and other stored nutrients where needed. Again, Germany's late Otto Buchinger, M.D., after supervising over 100,000 juice-fasting "cures," eventually concluded what is clearly stated in the book, Fasting: The Buchinger Method, page 22: "The need for protein diminishes during the fast, until in the second week, it has been reduced from 100 grams to from 15-20 grams a day, and this amount is, in fact, quite sufficient while fasting."
   
   
3. Unfortunately today, most Western diets are heavily laden with artificial flavors and chemically-created coloring agents; toxic pesticides and fungicides, herbicides and insecticides; rancid oils, and other indigestible chemicals which overburden our delicate system. As this toxic overload accumulates decade after decade, augmented also by environmental pollution, medications and drugs (which are all toxic), it eventually interferes with normal functioning and our body's elimination becomes impaired. During scientific fasting, large amounts of these accumulated poisons and metabolic wastes are, during autolysis, very quickly eliminated through the greatly enhanced cleansing capacity of all the eliminative organs--kidneys, liver, lungs and skin. Several typical symptoms seen during this process could be darker urine, the possibility of catarrhal elimination of excess mucus (a.k.a. rhinorrhea--a mucous discharge from the nose), continuous discharge through the colon, etc.
   
   
4. For perhaps the first time in your entire life, you afford a physiological rest to the digestive, assimilative and protective organs of your precious body. Fresh fruit and vegetable juices; an alkalinizing vegetable broth scientifically designed both to help rebalance you biochemically, as well as to maintain the electrolyte balance in your brain throughout your fast, plus specific detoxification teas require little digestion, and are quickly assimilated from the upper digestive tract.
   Thus, most of the 10% of bodily energy normally involved in your mastication, digestion, assimilation, and elimination is freed. This is another reason you'll feel more, not less, energy throughout scientific juice-fasting (unlike the physically debilitating weakness water-fasters experience--often forcing them into bed-rest, even in the very heart of their day . . .a situation FCI's global fasting clientele, all intelligent beings fully involved in their normal work, lifestyle, exercise and study routines throughout their skillful juice-fasts, have no time or desire for).
   Additionally, these many fruit and vegetable juices, broth, and herbal detox teas all supply excellent energy, vitamins, minerals, live enzymes, and other nutrients necessary to enhance health during the fast. By providing much of the body's daily caloric needs with easily-absorbed juices, the release of toxins from the fat cells is much more gradual and gentle. In fact, FCI now offers all clients, worldwide, the option of taking liquid multi-vitamin/-mineral supplements to augment this process. Additionally, juice-fasters will be far more likely to continue a healthy diet, once they've broken their fast, because they'll have become naturally accustomed to the taste of raw vegetables and fruits, as well as to vegetable broth. In fact, many, post-fast, lose their appetite entirely for addictive drugs such as caffeine, nicotene and even alcohol--none of which will be taken during FCI Programs--as well as their old addictions to refined sugar, junk foods, and many other deleterious dietary habits (all covered in FCI's 60-pg. "Lifetime Optimum Health Plan^TM," which every client receives).
   
   
5. Part of the heightened clarity of consciousness which scientific fasters experience results from fasting's rejuvenating, regenerating, normalizing and stabilizing effect on all the most vital physiological, nervous and mental functions. As early as 1972, Dr. Yuri Nikolayev, director of the fasting unit of the Moscow Psychiatric Institute, reported on the use of scientific, therapeutic fasting to successfully treat over 7000 patients, all suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and various neuroses, concluding: "The hunger treatment [as Soviet psychiatrists term fasting] gives the entire nervous system and the brain a rest. The body is also cleansed of poisons, and the tissues and the various glands are renovated. Resting of the brain forms the basis for the treatment of various neuropsychiatric disorders. Treatment through fasting is an internal operation, without a scalpel."
   Throughout the past 50 years in Russia, therapeutic fasting has been found to be the most efficacious treatment for schizophrenia. As Allan Cott, M.D., noted in Fasting: The Ultimate Diet, on pp. 34-35: "Seventy percent of those treated by fasting improved so remarkably that they were able to resume an active life." About Doctor Nikolayev, who now has over 30 years' experience fasting over 10,000 patients, fellow psychiatrist Doctor Cott writes, p. 34: "An epochal breakthrough in the treatment of schizophrenia came when Doctor Nikolayev discovered that his patients responded to fasting treatment after all other forms of therapy had failed."
   Many FCI clients arrive each year suffering from various levels of depression, some already on anti-depressant drugs, wanting to get off them, but all wondering how therapeutic fasting will affect this aspect of their body-mind-spirit healing. In his scientific book, Fasting And Eating For Health, Joel Fuhrman, M.D., notes, page 19: "Fasting has been repeatedly observed to alleviate neuroses, anxiety and depression. (Yashiro, N., "Clinico-Psychological & Pathophysiological Studies On Fasting Therapy," The Sapporo Medical Journal/Japan, 1986; 55(2): 125-136.) It appears from these studies that fasting improves our ability to adapt to frustration and external stress. One Japanese clinic fasted 382 patients with psychosomatic disease, with a success rate of 87%."
   Neither depression nor institutionalization are necessary to gain fasting's mental benefits, of course, as UCLA research associate Dr. Amy Mathews attests: "I had absolutely lost all hope of losing weight, especially in my thighs, when I decided to try fasting. On a 40-day FCI Program, I lost 26 lbs.; had more energy than usual; was never hungry; slept very well; felt extremely upbeat; was always calm and exceptionally relaxed, even in very stressful situations; often experienced unusual perception and mental clarity concerning my life's situations and problems, and felt quite peaceful. This is one of the best things I've ever done for myself--not only physically rewarding, but also mentally and spiritually, as well."
   
   
6. Signs of premature aging, loss of one's interest in sex, and a bulging waistline--all obvious signs of insufficiently-functioning endocrine or sex glands, and diminished sex-hormone production--are usually reversed during all the revitalizing effects of scientific juice-fasting. Thus, perhaps you can now understand why all three of our Fathers of Western Medicine fasted and also prescribed it--Hippocrates, Galen and Paracelsus (who diagnosed fasting nearly 500 years ago as "the greatest remedy, the physician within").
   
   
7. Scientific fasting enhances longevity, as Doctor Fuhrman notes in Fasting And Eating For Health, p. 27: "If we restrict the calories an animal can eat, by underfeeding it or periodically fasting it, we can significantly prolong its life. In fact, periodically fasting animals can double their natural life span. (Masoro, E.J., Shimokawa, I., Yu, B.P., "Retardation of the Aging Process In Rats by Food Restriction," Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1990; pp. 337-52; Goodrick, C.L., Ingram, D.K., Reynolds, M.A., Freeman, J.R., Cider, N.L., "Effects of Intermittent Feeding Upon Growth, Activity, and Lifespan In Rats Allowed Voluntary Exercise," Experimental Aging Research, 1983; 9: 1477-94.)"
   
   
8. Finally, both therateutic and preventive fasts have always addressed all aspects of mind-body-spirit medicine, as Doctor Buchinger, who, it's worthwhile repeating, supervised over 100,000 juice-fasting "cures," noted in About Fasting: A Royal Road to Health,on page 10: "During the five-thousand odd years of humankind's history which today we can survey, fasting represented, in all ages and climes, a way of healing and sanctification of far-reaching importance. The religious fast, which we find in all the higher religions of humankind, served at the same time to preserve the health of the body, the temple of the immortal soul. But, greatly to the loss of sick humanity, the healing fast was overlooked by medicine during the many decades of scientific-materialistic thought. Newly discovered at the turn of the 20th century, it has today regained a worthy position as a royal road of healing. . . .We must restore fasting to the place it once occupied in an ancient hierarchy of values 'above medicine'. We must rediscover it and restore it to honor, because it is a necessity," concluded this giant among Europe's finest fasting therapists, Otto Buchinger, M.D.
   
   

FCI is proud to have spent these past 35 years helping to polish the cutting edge of this globally-emerging paradigm shift into Integrative Medicine. . .into the new, preventive, mind-body-spirit Healing Revolution presently sweeping the U.S. and much of our developed world, thanks in no small part to this mighty Internet now connecting our human family as never before. Einstein concluded there are no accidents in our Universe, so we'll take him at his word, and accept that it's no accident that today, FCI is blessed to supervise our world's largest, nonresidential, scientific, therapeutic and preventive fasting clientele, representing 220 nations.

May all our global clients making this possible, year in and decade out, be blessed with the superb health, serene happiness, and enhanced longevity they all so richly deserve, for their courage, discipline and commitment to themselves, which allow 98.5% of all FCI clients, worldwide, to each complete their fasting Programs each year, no matter what length they undertake, keeping in mind the amazing fact that since 1996, FCI's 'average' client has undertaken what has now become our most popular Program--FCI's Total Detoxification--requiring 5 days of transitioning on each end to intelligently enter and skillfully break one's fast, plus one's chronological-age number + 17, in number of actual juice-fasting days!

As FCI's Founder/Director, I find this incredibly humbling, and am constantly filled with admiration and happiness for these extraordinary accomplishments FCI clients achieve in our healing partnerships (see FCI's online Fasting Journal for just a few, representative case histories). Respectfully, Dennis Paulson


P.S. Who should not fast? Prolonged, scientific juice-fasting is contraindicated for children under 18 (still forming bone and teeth); pregnant and lactating mothers (since their own detoxification will toxify their child, through their umbilicus or milk); type I, insulin-dependent diabetics; those with laboratory tests revealing significant liver or kidney disease (including renal failure patients--those who've been hospitalized with kidney failure and placed on dialysis, even if not currently on it; potassium levels can increase, because of the kidneys' ability to move it out, increasing the risk of heart attack, and such patients are often on waiting lists for kidney transplants).

Likewise, fasting is contraindicated for those suffering irreversible wasting diseases such as AIDS (advanced stage), tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases such as advanced SARS and H5N1 Avian influenza or other lethal bird flus; extensive carcinomas and metastatic cancers (when fasting would contribute to their malnourished state, perhaps resulting in an earlier death); alcoholism (advanced stage); atrial fibrillation; cardiovascular diseases such as advanced old age, marked vascular diseases with poor circulation to various parts of the body (eg., smoker's leg), and cerebral degeneration due to arteriosclerosis (a.k.a. organic brain syndrome) or Alzheimer's disease; serious cardiac diseases including heart failure, severe cardiac rhythm disturbances, post-myocardial infarction, and severe cardiomyopathy and valvular heart defects.

Additionally, fasting is contraindicated for those who are severely weak and debilitated, or with diseases caused by undernourishment or malnutrition, severe anemia and porphyria (a hereditary defect of blood pigment metabolism); stomach and intestinal diseases such as liver cirrhosis (cicatrization) of various causes, and bleeding disorders of the stomach and intestines; psychiatric disorders including severe manic-depressive illness (a.k.a bipolar disorder), schizophrenia, severe neuroses, severe anorexia nervosa or severe bulimia, and finally, those with sufficient lack of understanding of the fasting process and/or their perceived inability to do without solid food for a prolonged period.

Similarly, FCI does not accept, as clients, those taking anti-convulsant or anti-epileptic drugs to control grand mal, psychomotor, myoclonic, and focal seizures, nor do we accept clients on diuretics (egs., Furosemide, Lasix or Spironolactone), anticoagulants (eg., Coumadin), or drugs for congestive heart failure (eg., Digoxin). Clients on any of the many other drugs for high cholesterol and high blood-pressure--other than diuretics--may do our Programs, and will be instructed how to take such medications during their fasting days. Finally, no 'diet drugs' may be taken on FCI's Program, nor are they necessary.

P.P.S. What about water-fasting, you ask? In his 1999 instant classic, Radical Healing: Integrating the World's Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine, Rudolph Ballentine, M.D., Founder and Director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in New York City, concludes, pp. 311-314: "Perhaps the most universal of the all-out cleansing techniques is fasting. Its efficacy is probably based on fundamental body rhythms. You are designed to alternate nourishing and cleansing. Like inhalation and exhalation, they work in tandem. When you are taking in and processing nutrients, you are not geared to pulling out and discarding wastes. . . .But, when the input of nutrition is stopped for awhile, then a flurry of cleansing starts up. The rugs are lifted and the dirty dishes are brought out of the cabinet where they were stashed. Cleaning begins in earnest."

Dr. Ballentine does not recommend "water-fasting," which he says "is more correctly termed starvation," adding the following words of warning: "The destruction of starvation, and the cleansing and repair that happen in a well-managed fast, are polar opposites. Unfortunately today, when the average person is overburdened with wastes and environmental toxins, and when reserves of essential nutrients are low because of the ubiquity of 'empty-calorie' foods, what is intended as a fast may well end up as starvation. Your best insurance against such a catastrophe is to do a juice-fast. Juices can eliminate much of the trauma of fasting. . . .

"Freshly-squeezed and extracted fruit juices and vegetable juices contain a wealth of vitamins and organically-complexed minerals. They will also supply the 400 calories or so that is your minimal fuel requirement. Without that, your body begins to break down protein structures to get it. What's more, fresh juices have a cleansing effect of their own and, as an added bonus, if they are taken immediately after being made, they are energizing and exhilarating. A balanced regime of juices should be made from a spectrum of fruits and vegetables."

Dr. Ballentine, who does not recommend juice-fasting more than three days without expert supervision, is supported by the fact that none of the world's best fasting clinics and centers--most all of which have been based in Europe, historically--have done debilitating water-fasting over the past century. Like the world-renowned, self-described "fasting therapist," Otto Buchinger, Sr., M.D., who supervised over 100,000 "fasting cures," they've all done the wiser, more efficient juice-fasting.

Among, for instance, America's few contemporary water-fasting proponents, Joel Furhman is the best known because of his 1995 book, Fasting and Eating For Health. Since scientific fasting has never been taught in any of America's 127 med schools (irononically, in light of the fact that all three Fathers of Western Medicine practiced and prescribed it), Fuhrman is an autodidact who revealingly describes having done only one prolonged fast (he speaks throughout his book of "my fast")--while still a youthful college undergraduate, at the San Antonio, TX, facility of a chiropractor named Herbert Shelton, whose ideas Joel drew from for his book. Because of the unnecessarily debilitating nature of water-fasting, Joel admits that he spent all but 10 of his 46 fasting days in bed.

Compare that with the post-fast comments of the nine physicians currently gracing FCI's home page, nearly all of whom have fasted longer than their fellow physician Fuhrman, including Tom Stempel, who completed FCI's 80-day Program (70 days of actual juice-fasting) without missing a beat during his rounds as chief of surgery of a Phoenix, AZ, medical center, and Kathryn MacKenzie, who completed her 100-day Program (90 days of fasting) while working as an oncologist at her Queens, NY, hospital. Another among those nine who put the lie to Joel's unscienfitic, self-imposed limitations is a psychiatrist about Joel's age who was doing psychiatry all week long at the University of California at San Francisco, throughout his juice-fasting Program at FCI, and on weekends--while Joel's patients were advised, following Shelton's regime, to spend most of their time in bed and not go out in the sun or exercise--trained for 6 hrs. each day, including 2.5-hr. nonstop runs up hilly mountain trails on Mt. Tamilpais north of the City, preparing for the upcoming Western States Ultramarathon, during which participants not only run 100 miles, but climb 32,000 feet over the course of that race. . .just as another world-class athlete, a Stanford University swimmer, trained throughout her juice-fast at FCI and went on to win Olympic Gold, setting an American record! I guess it's not surprising that Furhman's reportedly never done another long fast since, and curiously recommends in his book that no one ever fast longer than. . .you guessed it, 46 days (again, with absolutely no supportive scientific evidence for such an absurd hypothesis).

When Dr. Ballentine states that water-fasting is more correctly termed "starvation," he's not kidding. Several of Shelton's clients died while doing his regime, and a Federal grand jury awarded $873,000 to the family of one who'd expired under this chiropractor's supervision (something which has never happened at Fasting Center International). Strangely, Dr. Fuhrman, who labels scientific juice-fasting as "juice-feasting," reflecting his book's unfortunate mis- and disinformation regarding the far superior juice-fasting methodology, has apparently never had the courage to be his own scientist and actually try juice-fasting. Had he done so, he'd have discovered, it's worth repeating, why literally all our world's best fasting clinics and centers (most all of which are in Europe) have chosen to do the far superior juice-fasting over the past century.

In America, for example, where two-thirds of adults are overweight (one-third, clinically obese), Dr. Ballentine's warning against water-fasting is particularly relevant, as noted in his other classic, Diet & Nutrition: A Holistic Approach, p. 380: "It takes only a moment's thought to realize that putting such a person on a total [water] fast is tantamount to courting disaster. If s/he takes nothing but water, s/he may very well begin to burn up the reserves of fat which have been accumulated. Unfortunately, however, fat stores, especially in such people as this, do not contain the necessary quotas of other important nutrients that are needed for the metabolic activities that will be fueled by the fat.

"If, in defiance of common sense, such a person insists on doing a water-fast, nutrients for vital metabolic processes must be pulled from other tissues. The result will be that strategic organs such as the heart, brain and liver, which were already suffering from a short supply of crucial nutrients [the average intake of refined oils, fats and sugars is about 65% of the 'empty calorie' diet in America today], will become even further depleted. Whether the ourcome is a mental and emotional breakdown, or the development of a grave physical illness will depend on the constitution of the person in question, and which organ systems are most susceptible."

Keeping in mind the admonition among the few still promoting water-fasting, such as Dr. Fuhrman, that clients spend most of their time in bed, and do not exercise nor go out in the sun, Dr. Ballentine explains this weakness of water-fasting: "What's more, fat cannot be converted into the glucose necessary to keep blood sugar up to fuel the nervous system. If a small amount of carbohydrate is not present in the diet, then protein will be broken down for conversion into the needed sugar. The result is not fasting--it is starvation. . . . The ideal technique for successful fasting is the use of fresh, raw fruit and vegetable juices. On such a diet, the full spectrum of nutrients is supplied in an easily assimilated form, so the digestive tract is able to remain essentially at rest."

Just as a number of Dr. Fuhrman's family-practice patients have elected, during the years since he wrote his water-fasting book, to instead do FCI juice-fasting Programs, rather than suffer unnecessarily in bed while being relieved of more than $5000 a month in a drab motel or hotel room near Joel's clinic in America's most toxic State (New Jersey), another FCI physician-client with the courage to scientifically discover the water- vs. juice-fasting difference (just as I did long before Joel ever thought of writing his 1995 book, by doing and supervising others on both juice- and water-fasts, the latter of which I would never do again, nor recommend to anyone), told me the following several years after completing FCI's 73-day Total Detox. Program:

"How blessed we are, Dennis, that we do not have to go hungry. I saw how devastating hunger is in Africa on my first trips there in '80, '81 and '82, but I did not discover, for myself, the meaning of hunger--the true, visceral effect--until I did a water-fast (a la the water-fasting method of Joel Fuhrman, M.D.--one I would not recommend anyone try, and would never do again). It taught me, though, the real pain of hunger--the cramps, and so forth. . .God-awful stuff. We have it so good. Keep on, Dennis. You are a mighty warrior for our planet. God bless you, Sir. As always, it's a privilege to know you, mate. From deep to deep, John Green, M.D."

Further, Dr. Green, living out the true meaning of his Hippocratic Oath by delivering more than 5000 babies in Africa before opening his first clinic in his Australlian homeland, told me in Oct., 2005, that he'd recently visited Dr. Fuhrman at his New Jersey clinic, reporting that Joel no long supervises fasts. I don't blame him, but know that FCI has always supported Dr. Fuhrman's noble efforts to promote more intelligent dietary and lifestyle habits--particularly going directly to the source of nutrients via a plant-based diet, rather than running one's nutrients through the progressively more toxic sort systems of animals. FCI, of course, has been promoting this over our 35 years as the global leader in the field of scientific fasting, giving each of our clients now representing 220 countries our 60-page Lifetime Optimum Health Plan, as the intelligent follow-on to help them maintain the far greater health, happiness and healing power they've been rewarded with, as a result of their exemplary courage and discipline in doing this marvelous, self-improvement technique which so many of our species' greatest thinkers and spiritual teachers have done before us. May God bless Joel in these noble efforts, two of the latest of which are his books available at Amazon.com: Eat To Live and Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right.

P.P.P.S. What about the Master Cleanser? On 10.3.06, I received an email from a U.S. publisher stating: "Hi Dennis, I am the acquisitions editor with (confidential). We're currently searching for an author to write a new book on the Master Cleanse/Lemonade Diet. This cleanse is hugely popular today, but there is little written on the subject, and what is out there is both dated and cursory. In your vast experience with fasting, have you ever practiced or administered the Master Cleanse? . . .If you are interested in this project, we could offer you a $(confidential) advance against royalties and royalty payments of (confidential)% of net receipts. Please let me know your thoughts on this possibility at your first convenience. Best wishes, (confidential)."

My response: "Regarding, (confidential), Stanley Burroughs' outdated, discredited and unscientific "Master Cleanser" DIET (doesn't meet the scientific definition for fasting, which includes NO solids, which both cayenne pepper and maple syrup/blackstrap molasses are, to the stomach)--which has unfortunately been floating around for a half-century (and is only "popular" because it's on the Internet for free, and those using it are clueless about what they're doing to themselves)--FCI does not believe in its efficacy, nor do we recommend it to anyone. Again, the stomach treats both cayenne pepper and maple syrup/blackstrap molasses as SOLIDS, keeping the brain's appestat mechanism clicking in appetite/hunger. Thus, the body is kept in the mode of using nutrients from the OUTSIDE, and with the extraordinary drop in consumed calories, can leave one feeling weak, debilitated, and constantly fatigued and hungry (not to mention the fact that it throws one's system completely out of balance, biochemically). I think you need, (confidential), to rein in your enthusiasm and ask yourself just why there are all these 'holes' regarding this so-called "Master Cleanser" DIET. From my perspective, it's like someone trying to resuscitate the Flat Earth Theory. Respectfully, Dennis Paulson, Founder/Director, FCI, Inc."

Interestingly, I've also been approached by the V.P. and Dir. of Creative Development of one of the world's largest publishers, based in New York, to write "two or three definitive books on fasting." They also had an agent contact me, offering his services. To both, I've said that I'm already an internationally-published author, and have more than enough material for two or three books. However, as the 35-year global leader in our field, FCI hears all the tragedies of people attempting to fast from books, with no idea how to intelligently supervise themselves, essentially flying blindly by the seat of their pants into the virtual unknown on a wing and a prayer, not knowing they can harm themselves without even realizing how. Thus far, I've chosen not to add to that, having taken too many calls from hospital ER teams with patients who've attempted prolonged fasts on their own and wound up hospitalized in "dazed conditions" or even on "life support systems," with alloapths asking FCI: "What do we do?"

P.P.P.P.S. And what about OptiFast and MediFast? Using the word 'fast' in the names of medically sponsored 'diet' programs such as OptiFast and MediFast, is not only an ethical misnomer (as clients are taking solids 5 or 6 times daily, albeit ground into powder), but an incredible sign that allopaths felt insecure enough about their exhorbitantly expensive, failed 'diets' that they've long tried to leverage our ancient and far more successful, completely nonanalagous field of scientific, therapeutic fasting. To enlighten you on precisely why such protein-modified 'diets' are very destructive of your health--plus the fact that they're just 'diets, which have traditionally "failed Americans 99.5% of the time over the past 70 years," according to Washington Post research--FCI will be happy to address such 'diets' at greater length for interested, prospective clients, including the sobering (U.S.) fact revealed by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., that: "Liquid-protein diets, or protein-modified fasts, have caused the death of more than 60 people."

Further, as scientific fasting has never been taught, for example, in any of America's 126 medical schools, allopaths--schooled exclusively to deal with only symptoms, versus the causes which prolonged, scientific fasting more wisely addresses--are completely unqualified to supervise fasts, or even to give qualified opinions one way or the other. In fact, most allopaths appear never to have known, or to have forgotten, that all three Fathers of Western Medicine practiced and prescribed prolonged fasting--Hippocrates, Galen and Paracelsus, who diagnosed fasting as "the greatest remedy, the physician within." As noted on our website, FCI has open-minded, avant garde M.D.s in all specialties, including family physicians, cardiologists, surgeons and psychiatrists, as well as TONS of registered nurses, D.O.s and Ph.D.s in most all major fields doing our Programs year in and decade out, globally, in increasing numbers. . .proactively demonstrating true scientific inquiry.

Any questions, email or phone FCI. Email: FastMaster@fasting.com; phone: 818-590-2536 (know that the best time to catch Founder/Director Dennis Paulson, himself, with the least interruption, is between 10-4, California time). For the Fasting Center International home page, click here: www.fasting.com

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