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. By rebuilding immunity, health is naturally restored and disease disappears.

If health and immunity are thereafter conscientiously maintained, the individual is no longer vulnerable to disease and dieting become unnecessary. 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.

Evart Loomis M.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.

Patricia Bragg Ph.D

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

Almost all diseases begin in the digestive track. This includes diabetes, asthma, cancer, alzheimer's, heart disease, memory loss, fibromyalgia, MS, and too many to even list here. If you are seeking health, and you have not found the answers to your recovery and healing, start here. Your intestinal track is the origin of disease, and it is also the origin of your healing. I cannot emphasize enough how important the cleansing of your digestive system is, to your health

Dr. Joseph Rodrigo M.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.

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.

Therapeutic fasting means taking pure water while ensuring complete physical and emotional rest. This unique process maximizes the healing potential of the body, allowing it to “clean house” and quickly restore a state of higher health.

Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D.

Therapeutic fasting means taking pure water while ensuring complete physical and emotional rest. This unique process maximizes the healing potential of the body, allowing it to “clean house” and quickly restore a state of higher health.

Therapeutic fasting should be supervised by a properly trained hygienic doctor and should be followed by appropriate dietary and lifestyle modifications.

When properly implemented, therapeutic fasting is extremely effective in creating an internal environment in which the body can do what it does best - heal itself.

Dr. Alan Goldhamer

I have used water to cure people who were suffering from "incurable" diseases. I have cured people who suffered for 10 years, 20 years, even 30 years from painful conditions produced by dehydration.

The Mayo Clinic had pronounced Lloyd Palmer, of Minnesota, as incurable. Since 1965 he had suffered from excruciatingly painful arthritis of his spinal column -- ankylosing spondylitis. His spine twisted and lost movement until, he says, he became a "walking comma." He suffered pain for 31 years, until he started to drink water and take salt. He writes: "I continue to be pain-free with my ankylosis spondylitis one year after starting the water/salt regime. My blood pressure is normal as well. I thank God every day for allowing me to finally be pain-free."

Dr Batmanghelidj,

A sick animal retires to a secluded place and fasts until its 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.

Juliet te de Barnacle Levy, a champion for natural health and well being of animals and children.

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.

William Pollack DVM

To this day I do not believe that I have ever discovered a healing technique quite as powerful. I have recommended fasting for 10,000 to 20,000 animals and have seen true miracles over these years of practice." Juliet te de Barnacle Levy says that the two most important aspects of natural animal rearing are: fasting and raw diet." more about holistic animal health & nutrition.

Bill Winter DVM

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 Angles, Ph.D.

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).

Dr. Mercian

Medical science is founded on a false premise. Namely, that disease is caused by extraneous influences.

Dr. Tilde 1926 "Toxemia Explained"

Autogenous self-generated poisoning is what we call Toxaemia."Natural Hygiene holds that the one cause of all disease is the toxic saturation at the cellular level of the bodily tissues, bloodstream, and fluids brought on by the depletion of Nerve Energy reserves through wrong living habits.

This state of self-poisoning is alternately termed "Auto-Intoxication," "Toxicosis," and "Toxemia." 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.

Toxaemia 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 toxaemia 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)."

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

There is really only one disease of the body. It is called Toxemia. Many doctors of natural hygiene have proven this in their work, but common knowledge of the way the body works, along with common sense, will also support this statement. In his book "Toxemia Explained" Dr. John Tilden explains the definition of Toxemia as natures effort to eliminate toxins from the blood.

Paul Nison

Today, our environment is toxic and the foods we eat, even the air we breathe and the water we drink is laden with chemicals foreign to our system. Therefore, everyone is undergoing some type of detoxification to maintain life and health. Although basic detoxification begins with diet, detox programs may include nutritional fortification for the liver, lungs, kidneys, bowels and blood.

Detoxification for the body may refer to the cleansing of the bowels, kidneys, lungs, the liver or the blood, since these are the organs involved in detoxification of chemicals and toxins from the body. The liver acts as an in-line filter for the removal of foreign substances and wastes from the blood. The kidneys filter wastes from the blood into the urine, while the lungs remove volatile gases as we breathe.

Dr. Ted H Spence, DDS, ND, PhD/DSc, MPH

The body naturally manufactures fat in abundance to incarcerate and absorb chemicals and toxins that accumulate over time. As you cleanse the body, one can expect fat and inches to be substantially reduced.

J. K.Paulsen, M.D

Chemicals are polluting the earth's environment faster than the human organism can adapt to them. Toxins are building up and our bodies are becoming filters trapping the pollutants. The current level of chemicals in our air, food and water supply alters us at the most basic level - our enzymes, then spreads throughout every body function to lower our threshold of resistance to disease.

Linda Page P.h.D

The fastest way to restore wellness is to stop putting into the body the things that have caused the physical problem to develop in the first place, and then give the body the nutrients it needs to repair and rebuild itself. The body is self-healing when the infraction is stopped and proper nutrients provided.

Rev. George Malkmus