Fasting, a new therapy

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Fasting, a formidable weapon against diseases of civilization

 For half a century, doctors in Germany, Russia and the United States have been exploring this therapeutic avenue.

Caloric restriction has a therapeutic effect, so can we increase this effect with fasting?

How does fasting work? For which pathologies is it effective?

The results are astonishing, particularly in the treatment of cancer.

It’s a new approach to cancer treatment.

40 years of scientific studies carried out in the former USSR on thousands of patients, totally unknown in the West. This work has given rise to a rigorous method that is put into practice here.

Fasting center 100 km from the shores of Lake Baikal: Goriachinsk sanatorium.

Fasting cures are reimbursed.

Natalia Bataeva Chief Medical Officer: Fasting is a universal method that can be effective against many illnesses.

Osteoarthritis: 15 days fasting followed by 7 days off fasting.

Fasting is scary: no one knows how their body will react to the absence of food.

During fasting, there is no real lack of nutrients. There may be a reduction in the levels of vitamins C, D and E.   But these losses are not critical.

In 15 years, 10,000 patients have undergone a fasting cure here.

For diabetes, asthma, hypertension, rheumatism and allergies.

Nearly two-thirds of them saw their symptoms disappear after one or more fasting cures.

The treatment is biblically simple: drink water and only water for an average of 12 days.  Nothing else is ingested.

Some fasts can last up to three weeks, depending on the severity and length of the illness.

For chronic conditions, medication is discontinued within two or three days.

Patients are placed under medical supervision: this is essential.

No question of embarking on a fasting adventure alone

They all say: “the hardest thing is not going without food”.

The feeling of hunger disappears after 2 or 3 days.

The tricky part is what we call the acidosis crisis: a feeling of weakness, nausea or migraines. This is the price to pay for the body’s adaptation to this radical change: the body must learn to live off its reserves.

The third day is often the most difficult, because it’s on the third day that elimination and detoxification take place. So it’s usually on the third day that you don’t feel very well, but after that, things get better as the body cleans itself. And it gets better.

According to Russian doctors, the onset of this crisis marks an essential step in the healing process. By changing one’s eating habits, the level of acidity in the blood increases. During the crisis, all illnesses worsen. Sometimes patients even experience severe pain, as in the case of migraines or rheumatism. But this does not last very long: no more than 24 or 36 hours.

This crisis is the sign of a profound upheaval in the body. The body has to feed itself.

But how can it provide the fuel it needs to survive?

The body has three fuels:  carbohydrates, lipids and proteins.

The essential fuel is glucose, which the body absolutely needs to function.

The brain can’t do without it.

But after a day of fasting, the glucose supply is depleted. So how will the body adapt?

It will very quickly manufacture glucose from proteins, i.e. mainly from muscles.

It will also draw on its lipid reserves, fats, to create a glucose substitute. This fasting fuel is called ketone bodies. From now on, these ketone bodies will mainly supply the brain. The operation takes place in the liver, the body’s true transformation factory.

After the crisis, the body finds a new equilibrium.

Fasting treatments include intestinal enemas, saunas, wraps and massages.

Russian doctors recommend 2-3 hours of daily exercise.

Everything converges towards the same goal: stimulating the elimination organs. The kidneys, intestines, liver, skin and lungs are all involved. The body must be allowed to eliminate metabolic waste.

But while the body adapts, the head doesn’t always follow suit.

Patients have seen it for themselves: the psyche influences the body to the point of making it believe that

to needs he no longer has. The third day is the hardest: it’s not the stomach that’s crying out, it’s the head! In the head you see chips, coke, meat, lots of meat.

When this psychic hunger disappears, the senses sharpen and a certain euphoria sets in.

Patients experience  a sense of freedom and we feel stronger.

“If I can fast, I can do anything.

But how does fasting work?

Why do two-thirds of patients feel better?

Is it a placebo effect?  an effect of euphoria reaching the brain?

Have we used objective instruments to measure the changes everyone is describing?

To understand, let’s go back 60 years, to a time when the Soviet Union was a fortress, a time when researchers were not allowed to cross the Iron Curtain.

Research was carried out in secret laboratories, far from the West.

An encounter between an original thinker and chance.

Moscow: Korsakov Hospital. Chemical straitjackets replace straitjackets, but the treatment barely gains in humanity.

Confronted one day with a prostrate patient who refused to eat, a psychiatrist, Yuri Nicolaiev, stood out from the crowd: he decided to let the patient’s instincts act, not forcing him to eat as was the rule.

In his notebooks, the psychiatrist notes with surprise: From the fifth day onwards, his negativism began to diminish. The patient began to open his eyes. On the 10th day, he began to walk. But he was still silent. On day 15, he drank a glass of apple juice left on his bedside table. Then he went for a walk, starting to return to social life.

The man finally recovers. A mental patient cured by fasting: a unique case.

Amazed by the treatment’s almost miraculous efficacy, Russian doctor Yuri Nicolaiev continued to experiment and develop it. Success outstripped expectations: the waiting list for patients grew longer and longer. Nicolaiev treats schizophrenia, depression, phobias and obsessional syndromes, for an average fasting duration of 25 to 30 days,  sometimes even 40.

The doctor’s son remembers the growing opposition from the medical world at the time. Doctors were opposed to fasting because they didn’t understand its essence.

People are used to thinking that being hungry is a misfortune.

You have to turn your head upside down to accept that fasting can heal.

And it’s all the more difficult for a doctor than for an ordinary man.

Silencing critics, making scientific history: Nikolayev embarked on an extensive research program. Physiological and biochemical examinations, hormonal parameters and encephalogram tracings were studied during and after fasting in hundreds of cases.

Psychiatrists draw connections between the changes observed in the body during fasting and the patient’s improvement. Fasting has an impact not only on mental illness, but also on the whole personality. Dr. Valery Gurvich, a psychiatrist at the Moscow Psychiatric Institute who worked for Dr. Nikolaiev’s team for 18 years, says: ” Fasting has a stimulating and antidepressant effect. The stimulating effect occurs during the first week of fasting. The antidepressant effect occurs when the patient is fed again. The third type of effect is sedative and calming. It is observed after the acidosis crisis. Nicolaiev treats 8,000 patients with fasting, with a clear improvement in 70% of cases.

Six years later, 47% had maintained this improvement.

Some were able to resume their social lives and start families.

Another surprise: Nicolaiev and his team noticed that not only had the patients’ psyches improved, but so had their somatic illnesses: hypertension, polyarthritis, asthma, diabetes, eczema. He appealed to the authorities. The skeptical Ministry of Health launched a campaign to verify the results. This was in 1973. They commissioned 2 renowned professors to verify the results.

Prof. Alexey Kosokov, pulmonologist at the IP Pavlov Institute in St. Petersburg, says: “Until then, I knew nothing about fasting. So I worked to see if the method worked and to explain why. Professor Valery Maximiv, Professor of Gastroenterology at the Academy of Medical Sciences, says: we had to study the secretion of the stomach, liver, pancreas and intestine, the bacterial landscape, the status of immunity, and the exchange of minerals and vitamins.

Thousands of patients are involved. Researchers confirm Nicolaiev’s findings.

They draw up precise lists of indications and contraindications for fasting treatment.

Indications for fasting treatment: bronchial pathology, cardiovascular pathology, stomach pathology, intestinal pathology, digestive pathology, endocrine pathology, joint pathology, bone pathology, dermatological pathology.

Contraindications to fasting treatment: cancer, tuberculosis, type 1 diabetes, chronic hepatitis, thrombo-phlebitis, anorexia.

But how can we explain the effect of fasting?

Fasting provokes a state of stress,  which reactivates the self-regulatory, sano-genesis mechanisms that usually remain inactive due to our lifestyle. Stress is therefore the central issue. Stress is an adaptive reaction to a change in the environment, if there is food deprivation.

Confronted with this food deprivation, the body goes on alert.

This causes hormonal and neuro-endocrine upheaval. Hormones mobilize the body’s reserves. Some also have an anti-inflammatory effect. For these Russian doctors, it is these self-regulating mechanisms that induce the therapeutic effects. As a result, many blood parameters improve: glycemia, cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin levels.

At the same time, the body’s energy expenditure gradually decreases: breathing, heart rate, blood pressure. Everything lowers and slows down.

The digestive system is also put to rest.

Fasting is said to stimulate the body’s healing powers.

But how do you measure this capacity?

Russian lung specialist Professor Sergeij Osinin has fasted 10,000 asthma patients.

40 years of fasting and not a single accident.

Among the studies he has carried out, this professor points to changes in the cells of the bronchial mucosa.

After 12 days of fasting, there is no histamine left in the cells of the bronchial mucosa.

The cells filled with lipids and the spasms disappeared.

This data is unique because the question has never been asked in this way. And so there is no equivalent in the world. We studied both general changes in the body and local changes. And we’ve seen the materials that cause oedema and inflammation disappear.

Bronchial asthma is a chronic disease which, according to official medicine, cannot be cured, only contained. Many patients are condemned to inhalers or chemical drugs that temporarily alleviate their condition. Osinin’s work shows that it is possible to escape this fate. The pulmonologist has analyzed the long-term effects. The study covers 1000 patients. After 7 years, improvement persisted in 50% of patients, those who adopted good eating habits after the fast. Several cures were sometimes necessary. 10-15% are completely cured.

From the four corners of the Soviet Union, experimental data accumulated, with one ambition: to make fasting part of public health policy.

The Académie des Sciences validated the results and compiled them in imposing compendiums that have never been translated. Despite the unparalleled scope of this work, the wealth of clinical descriptions and the number of diseases studied, there are still a few grey areas.

Yes, lab results show it works. But why does it work?

How does sanogenesis work?

Russian doctors have no answer. Will the answer come from the West?

Here, no government has funded such research. The pharmaceutical industry obviously gives it no credence. However, the growing practice of fasting has recently entered the political and scientific arena.

In Germany, 15-20% of the population claim to have fasted.

The oldest fasting center was founded on the shores of Lake Constance almost 60 years ago.

2,000 people a year stay at this clinic, whose reputation has spread far and wide.

Fasting is used not only to relieve chronic illnesses, but also to prevent and combat risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. Fasting is a way of setting the record straight.

And if we don’t just serve water but light vegetable soups or fruit juices twice a day. These 250 calories a day will soften acidosis attacks and make the first days easier.

Dr. Otto Buchinger, the founder of this cure, was a military doctor who suffered from rheumatic fever and was condemned by official medicine. He recovered thanks to 2 successive fasts. This spectacular recovery prompted him to investigate the therapeutic possibilities of fasting and

to create a care center that has become a benchmark in Germany.

Cures last from one to three weeks.

Dr. Stefan Drinda, rheumatologist at the Buchinger Clinic, says: ” It has been shown that fasting means less need for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. “

Breaking the fast is tricky and should be done gradually.

You have to slowly get used to eating again.

The refeeding period is highly regulated

Dr Francoise Wilhelmi de Toledo, Director of the Buchinger Clinic: ” Today, we have an extremely juicy market in illnesses, especially those that become chronic. We should create a real health market, and fasting would be part of it .

Making fasting a pillar of the healthcare market would be a way of opposing the grip of chemistry on disease and cutting into the margins of pharmaceutical companies, but we’re a long way from that.

In Germany, fasting is gradually becoming an official part of public hospital practice.

Prof. Andreas Michalsen, head of rheumatology at Berlin’ s Charité Hospital , has fasted 500 patientsand conducted studies on the effects of fasting on his patients. Levels of serotonin, often referred to as the happiness hormone, are increased. He observed an improvement in the mood of fasting patients. He noted a reduction in pain and improved sensitivity of insulin receptors. He also showed that fasters were more willing to adopt a healthier lifestyle after fasting, and thus more likely to maintain good health. If I had done these studies with a new drug, and if I had obtained these results, I would be receiving numerous proposals every day, financial aid, money for research. As far as fasting is concerned, we say it’s interesting, but we still don’t really encourage this research.

It’s very easy for skeptics and detractors to say that there aren’t enough studies yet, when we know that no financial aid is being granted to fund these very studies.

We need two or three major studies for rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and hypertension. Three studies to convince. To show that fasting has its place in the therapeutic arsenal, just like medication.

The detractors of fasting are forever brandishing a peremptory argument:  would be dangerous.

No studies have been carried out to establish the limits of fasting in humans.

The study of wildlife helps us to understand the mechanisms of fasting and to define its limits.

Emperor penguins fast spontaneously as soon as they find their colony on the pack ice. When incubating an egg, the male is capable of going without food for four months. An extraordinary faculty,” says Yvon le Maho of the CNRS in Strasbourg, a member of the French Academy of Sciences. The emperor penguin is a professional fastner. Does it have mechanisms that other animals and humans don’t have?

Fasting can be dangerous, as the body draws on its protein reserves (muscle and heart). When half your protein reserves are gone, you’re dead.

During most of the fasting period, protein provides only 4% of daily energy expenditure, the remaining 96% being provided by lipids.

The body adapts perfectly. It saves protein.

Fasting can therefore be divided into three stages.

1/ Within 24 hours, the body uses up its glucose reserves and then manufactures glucose from protein reserves.

2/ A second phase then begins, during which he will save his proteins and give priority to lipids. This phase can last a very long time, depending on the lipid reserves available. In penguins, it can last up to 100 days without any problem.

Reserves gradually depleted

3/ When 80% of the fat stock has disappeared, protein can no longer be saved, and the animal enters phase 3: it must refeed before it’s too late.

Is the mechanism the same in other animals?

How will rats, who are not professional fasters, adapt to fasting?

Could their proteins be depleted faster than those of penguins?

The results are comparable: during phase 2, the rat saves protein in the same way as the penguin.

One of the fundamental mechanisms of fasting, which enables us to survive long periods of food deprivation, is a common one.

This observation opens up an unexpected perspective with far-reaching consequences.

Fasting is therefore an adaptation that has existed since the earliest times of life on Earth and, at least within the limits we have defined, presents no danger.

Scientific studies have shown thata 1m70 adult weighing 70 kg has around 15 kg of fat reserves, enough to last if he’s in good health, 

Throughout human history, periods of fasting have been commonplace.

The situation we have today, regular meals, full fridge, is historically not normal. It’s not surprising that the body encounters difficulties when it doesn’t fast and eats incessantly.

Our genetic make-up seems to be less adapted to this situation than to fasting.

So our bodies seem to be better equipped to cope with a lack of food than an excess.

So fasting simply reactivates atavistic reflexes rooted in the body’s memory?

Could this ability be part of our genetic heritage?

 Researchers have shown that reducing an animal’s diet over a long period of time enables it to live a longer, healthier life.

Fasting may protect the body against all kinds of toxic substances.

Valter D.Longo, researcher and Professor of Biogerontology, University of California (USC)

He takes mice with cancer and separates them into 2 groups:

The first group fed normally, the second fasted for 48 hours.

It’s hard to imagine that you can take away someone’s food and make them stronger.

He then injects the mice with high doses of chemotherapy, three to five times higher than those authorized for humans. These doses are expected to produce devastating side effects. All the mice that fasted were alive, and those that ate died.

Journalists picked up on his research and published:  Fasting may protect against the side effects of chemotherapy.

Official recommendations, on the other hand, recommend increasing calorie and protein intake before chemotherapy.

Public and private funds are pouring in to extend the study, because fasting is no substitute for medication. Thanks to the reduction in side effects, it can even be used to increase chemotherapy doses.

A Los Angeles judge diagnosed with breast cancer and reading Longo’s work decides to fast for five days before her first chemotherapy session.

She feels well and can continue to work:  for the next two sessions, her oncologist persuades her not to fast: she can’t stand chemotherapy and feels so bad that she decides to fast before the last two chemotherapy sessions.

Once again, she feels much better. She says she’s had far fewer side-effects, has been much less tired, and her neurons have been less affected than those of her friends who haven’t fasted. Fatigue, nausea and migraines are much less pronounced in those who have fasted.

How does fasting protect healthy cells?

Fasting causes a change in gene expression. After 2 days of fasting, Longo observes a radical change in gene expression: some genes are over-expressed, others under-expressed. The genes modify cell functions, and the cells go into protective mode. It’s as if this ability had come from a very ancient memory. Normal cells having learned all the lessons of 3 billion years of evolution,  go into protection mode. Cells have to do this because there’s little food, little glucose, they have to protect themselves. And chemotherapy is one of the things they have to protect themselves from.

Cells therefore protect themselves through an atavistic reflex.

After two days of fasting, the genes of the cancer cell are expressed in the opposite way to those of the healthy cell. Cancer cells have undergone genetic mutations: they have lost their evolutionary memory. Protective mechanisms are not in place.

Cancer cells hate this fasting environment, where there is little sugar and few growth factors.

So not only are they unprotected, they become more sensitive to chemotherapy. They may die, or at least their growth is stunted.

Fasting can slow their growth even without chemotherapy.

For cancer cells, fasting is a nightmare.

Fasting with Dr. Trotta to heal.
Summary of the Arte program on fasting, by Dr. Pascal Trotta, to better explain and understand the benefits of fasting.

www.dr-trotta.fr

Tel 05 54 54 44 43