The Gerson Therapy

by Charlotte Gerson and Morton Walker, DPM (2001) ISBN 1-57566-628-6
http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersontherapy.html

Nutritional Cancer Therapy of Max Gerson, M.D.

It has been said that more people live off cancer than die from it. The Gerson Therapy is a book that can put a stop to this travesty. Here is a very practical, highly detailed guide to the intensive nutritional treatment of cancer and other life-threatening diseases that many would consider to have been impossible to obtain. But thanks to the work of Max Gerson, M.D., and his daughter, author Charlotte Gerson, this knowledge is readily available for all who need it.

Max Gerson cured cancer. He did so with a strict fat-free, salt-free, low-protein, essentially vegetarian dietary regimen, based on great quantities of fresh vegetable juice, supplements, and systemic detoxification. Ms. Gerson explains:

"Dr. Gerson found that the underlying problems of all cancer patients are toxicity and deficiency. He had to overcome both these difficulties. He found that one of the important features of his therapy had to be the hourly administration of fresh vegetable juices. These supply ample nutrients, as well as fluids to help flush out the kidneys. When the high levels of nutrients re-enter tissues, toxins accumulated over many years are forced into the blood stream. The toxins are then filtered out by the liver. The liver is easily overburdened by the continuous release of toxins and is unable to release the load. Dr. Gerson found that he could provide help to the liver by the caffeine in coffee, absorbed from the colon via the hemorrhoidal vein, which carries the caffeine to the portal system and then to the liver. The caffeine stimulates the liver/bile ducts to open, releasing the poisons into the intestinal tract for excretion."

The Gerson Therapy book consists of nearly 400 pages of treatment specifics, instruction, hints, cautions, recipes, case histories, and references, all held together with an authority that only experience can bring. Some of the blunt, uncompromising statements Ms. Gerson makes are certain to get up the medical profession's collective nose. Too bad for them, for she is right. Charlotte Gerson's entire life has been immersed in healing people, first learning while assisting her father, and later teaching his method to the world. Co-author Dr. Morton Walker is one of my favorite medical writers, and putting these two talents together in The Gerson Therapy was a master stroke.

I personally have seen what the Gerson program can do for a terminally ill cancer patient. I have been called upon to help in a couple of high-profile but last minute cases. One patient was a well-known sports figure. He was given some months to live and was not happy about it, as he was still in his 50's. He asked what his best shot would be for inoperable, untreatable metastasized cancer. I told him: the Gerson therapy. He did it, not in its entirety, but with enthusiasm. And, he lived considerably longer that he was expected to. But what really impressed me was the dramatic improvement in his energy level. >From fatigue and weakness, he went instantly to a vibrant life, commencing from the very week he started the program. He maintained a more-than-full schedule for so long that even people who knew he was sick forgot that he was sick.

Years later, people that never knew of my involvement in the matter would bring up his name, invariably recalling how active he was and how good he looked until, almost as a surprise, he died.

I saw a similar level of success with a prominent New York businessman, the owner of a chain of stores and afflicted with untreatable liver cancer. He began to do much, but by no means all, of the Gerson program, and was subsequently able to extensively travel the world with his family. He lived years longer than expected, with a high quality of life confirmed by all who saw him.

Looking only at these two patients, wanton critics of Gerson's method might think that, without complete and unequivocal cure, there is little to crow about. Such a view is unproductive, for neither of these patients followed the Gerson program completely. It is a tough sell, even to a person with a terminal diagnosis.

Why is this?

Ignorance and arrogance make a bad combination, and "modern" medicine has been guilty of both for decades. Political physicians did not heed Dr. Gerson. In fact, they publicly condemned him. The news media have been their willing accomplices. The misinformation they spew to this day is fraught with fabricated frights of natural therapies, while in the same breath they spew forth the wonders of pharmaceutical drugs. When is the last time you saw a favorable mention of the Gerson program in the newspaper or on TV? Since pharmacological doctors have no sure-fire cure for cancer (an understatement if there ever was one), they might at least back a winning horse. The Gerson approach has been shown, for over six decades, to significantly improve both quality of life and length of life in the sickest, the most hopeless, of cancer patients. Many people have been completely cured on the Gerson therapy.

And the directions are in this book, which costs $17.

I am especially pleased with the open-minded spirit of cooperation which I detect in reading The Gerson Therapy. The authors' awareness of the realities of individual patient needs is well demonstrated with the inclusion of chapter sections discussing unavoidable modifications of the program. Instructions for home self-care, for patients undergoing chemotherapy, and for the treatment of very advanced cases, are all provided. Chapter 17, discussing treatment of illnesses other than cancer, needs to be greatly expanded. Ms. Gerson informs me that she is currently "preparing a booklet for each disease (including, among others) asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, diabetes, drug addiction, Crohn's disease, and fibromyalgia. They will start with a general description of the disease, then have a basic outline of how the Gerson therapy deals with it, then the specific description of the Therapy, followed by some dozen of recovered cases... I think each booklet will contain some 30-40 pages." I am looking forward to their early publication. (Update, April 2002: Individual booklets about cancer of the breast, ovaries, liver/pancreas/colon, lymphoma and melanoma are now available for purchase from Charlotte Gerson, 355 Greenwood Place, Bonita, CA 91902. Email Lotte@CharlotteGerson.com)

The present book contains explicit instructions for the administration of the Therapy's controversial but nonetheless crucial liver-detoxifying coffee enemas. (Yes, at body temperature.) The use of castor oil, a thorough listing of which foods to eat (and not eat), how to juice, psychological aspects of therapy, and generally favorable mentions of megadose vitamin C supplementation are also presented. The concise chapter (Chapter 6) on melanoma is extraordinary, easily the best I have read anywhere.

Dosage and rationale for the supplements Dr. Gerson prescribed is the focus of Chapter 11. Potassium, iodine, digestive enzymes, niacin and (by prescription) thyroid, liver extract and vitamin B-12 injections are all covered. Both this chapter, and the "Resources" section of the Appendix, are free of any attempt to market such products, a feature I wish to highlight for special praise.

I liked the inclusion of references at the end of each chapter, and the thoroughness of devoting a chapter to appropriate laboratory tests. And everyone will enjoy reading the success stories in Chapter 21.

In the next edition of The Gerson Therapy, I would like to see detailed charts that summarize exactly what a "Gerson Person" needs to do each day. I recall how helpful such charts were in this book's predecessor, A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases. My experience in working with very sick patients and their families is that they are easily overwhelmed with instruction, no matter how vital that instruction may be. Easy-to-read personal itineraries are virtually essential to ensure intelligent compliance with a complex nutritional program. To some extent, this need is met by way of a helpful Summary in the Appendix. However, such information can be presented in greater detail and in a more user-friendly manner, by employing graphics to full advantage.

Some years ago I watched a video tape of a Gerson patients' "reunion." On stage were people from all walks of life, and most were advanced in age. One after the other they spoke of the cancer they were diagnosed with three, ten, or twenty years ago. All were recovered. Dr. Gerson was the reason. You cannot watch such an event and fail to be moved.

A special benefit of The Gerson Therapy is that it is not specifically a cancer treatment. Dr. Gerson saw it as a metabolic treatment, one that cleanses the human organism while strengthening the body's ability to heal itself. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Gerson therapy is effective against all manner of diseases, some 50 of which are listed on page 21.

I am even more interested in the preventive aspects of the Gerson diet. As I write this, I have a cool quart and a half of carrot juice in my tummy. I do not particularly enjoy carrot juice, but I do want to prevent illness. Only time will tell for me personally, but I am going to take a Pascal-like viewpoint: there is no down side to juiced vegetables.

Well, maybe one: some people don't wish to change their diet and lifestyle. Jack Benny, when asked "Your money or your life" made radio comedy history with his answer, "I'm thinking!" To a profoundly sick person, the question might be rephrased, "The Gerson Therapy or your life." Too many persons have died thinking.

Don't be one of them.

"I see in Dr. Max Gerson one of the most eminent geniuses in medical history." Dr. Albert Schweitzer

To learn more about how to do the Gerson Therapy:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersonspeech.html is the transcript of a speech by Dr. Gerson himself. http://www.doctoryourself.com/bib_gerson_therapy.html is a bibliography of published clinical studies showing the demonstrated benefits of the Gerson treatment http://www.doctoryourself.com/bib_gerson.html is a bibliography of all of Dr. Gerson's scientific writings. Review copyright C 2001 by Andrew W. Saul, Number 8 Van Buren Street, Holley, New York 14470 USA Telephone (585) 638-5357

I wanted to look up someone in Charlotte Gerson's book "The Gerson Therapy" who five years ago was found to have esophageal cancer. He did the Gerson Therapy religiously and his cancer shrunk, broke apart, and was eliminated. I was able to find this person through his place of work. I found out he is still going strong. My father died of esophageal cancer. It was wonderful to see that Dr. Gerson's therapy was successful for this man. Kelly kellykebby@yahoo.com

http://www.gerson.org/

The Gerson Therapy Charlotte Gerson is daughter of the late Dr. Max Gerson, M.D. who was well known for his revolutionary nutritional healing therapy for cancer and degenerative diseases. His method is described in his classic book, "A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer ". Dr. Albert Schweitzer called Dr. Gerson "a medical genius who walked among us". Charlotte Gerson is founder of the Gerson Institute and is a consultant for the Gerson therapy.

The Gerson Therapy has been and is still the most basic, the best recognized, the most complete, and the longest existing effective cancer treatment. Patients on the Gerson therapy also know that they have to stick very exactly to the treatment. Everything you must or must not do has a very important reason. The whole Gerson Therapy is aimed at detoxifying the body and putting lots of fresh nutrients into it. The Gerson therapy is not effective with cancer only. With the Gerson Therapy, patients have seen heart disease, high blood pressure, thyroid problems, lupus, colitis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, herniated disks and many other problems disappear. Some have seen Alzheimer's disease improve if it's not too advanced. The importance of pancreatic enzymes in the Gerson TherapyBefore the body can deteriorate into cancer all the body's defense systems have to be depressed and out of balance. If your pancreas is working properly and if you have adequate pancreatic enzymes, you cannot develop cancer.

Pancreatic enzymes , trypsin in particular, disolve the protective protein coating which covers malignant tissue and makes it impossible for the body's natural immune defenses to recognize the cancer cells as foreign.

Fresh juices and vegetarian meals in the Gerson Therapy

Dr. Gerson gave seriously ill patients fresh juice every hour, freshly pressed, organic, free of poisons, rich in the best nutrients, minerals and enzymes. It is all described in Dr. Gerson's book "A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer ". "We give a fresh glass of juice every hour: five glasses of apple-carrot juice, three glasses of plain carrot juice and we give liver capsules with it, four glasses of juice from leafy type greens rich in chlorophyll, iron, nutrients, enzymes, everything the body has been lacking over the years.

We also give three full vegetarian meals and a fruit plate every day. By drinking the juice, you get an enormous flooding of nutrients, minerals, enzymes, and vitamins which start to flush out the kidneys. The nutrients go into the tissues, into the cells and force out the poisons, and all those poisons are released into the blood stream. The liver filters them out. You have to help the liver get rid of them, and there is only one way - by opening the bile ducts", and Dr. Gerson did this with the famous and much joked about coffee enemas which is the key to successful treatment.

Gerson Therapy: Excess protein in the diet is carninogenic

Excess protein causes cancer. Especially when it is cooked. Doctors and nutritionists advise you that animal protein is needed for strength and tissue repair, but that is absolutely the worst advice you can get. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that when any kind of flesh including red meat, poultry, pork and lamb was heated to 212 degrees, whether it was boiled, broiled, fried or baked, the protein in the meat CHANGED into toxic amides that do nothing in your body except provide you with carcinogens.

Cooked meat is strictly a carcinogen. Now if you like meat for the taste, that is a different story, I won't argue about tastes. The latest research done at the University of California at Irvine, showed that children who eat as few as three hotdogs a week had 10 to 12 times higher incidence of leukemia and brain tumors. Sausages are perhaps the worst food. They are chemically treated, dyed and preserved. They have nitrates and nitrosamines.

Potassium versus sodium in the Gerson Therapy

Gerson found that sodium stimulates tumor growth. It interferes with body function. According to Gerson you need high potassium and low sodium, the same ratio which can be found in fresh live foods. All processed foods contain reduced potassium and raised sodium. Sodium is necessary for tumor growth. The Gerson Therapy supplements the body with potassium.

Liver regeneration and the Gerson Therapy

The liver is the most important organ in the body. It is the filtration system for detoxification. I have heard doctors say that if your liver functions up to 35%, you are all right, but when it drops below that, disease develops, whether it is diabetes, cancer, arthritis, lupus or anything else. By the time cancer or chronic disease develops, liver function is below 35%.

So when the tumor, the cancer, arthritis or other disease symptoms are gone, that doesn't mean the body is cured. The body isn't really restored until the liver goes back to its full activity of somewhere between 90 and 100%. We never really know how long it takes to get there, but we can estimate it takes at least 1 1/2 year or 2. If you go back to eating average food right away, the foods you used to eat, candies, ice cream, cheese and meat, the cancer will come back rather quickly because the liver is not able to deal with these things.

Flaxseed oil and the Gerson Therapy

Dr. Gerson found, after observing for a long time, that patients, especially with cancer and also with heart disease, atherosclerosis and so on cannot handle oils and fats, and that is why his book says no oils. Yet he was very much aware that the body needs a certain amount of essential fatty acids and that after deprivation for a year or year and a half, until the tumors disappear, there is a lack of essential fatty acids in the Gerson diet.

He searched and searched and tried every kind of oil he could think of, everything from olive oil, sesame oil, safflower oil to sunflower oil. None of them were usable because in each case the tumors would regrow. Fats stimulate tumor growth. But after the book came out, he came across the work of Dr. Johanna Budwig in Germany who showed that one may use flaxseed oil and that it is well tolerated by cancer patients. It helps to stimulate the immune system, and kills the tumor tissue. He used two tablespoons of flaxseed oil per day - one at lunch and one at dinner, and after a month on the therapy, he cut it down to one tablespoon a day. He advised against cooking with oils. You can't cook with flaxseed oil because if it is heated, it deteriorates and causes problems. So the flaxseed oil must only be used raw and cold.

You can visit the Gerson Institute for more information on the Gerson Therapy.

The Gerson Miracle Cancer Therapy

"I know of one patient who turned to Gerson Therapy having been told she was suffering from terminal cancer and would not survive another course of chemotherapy. Happily, seven years later, she is alive and well. So it is vital that, rather than dismissing such experiences, we should further investigate the beneficial nature of these treatments." (H.R.H. Charles, Prince of Wales)

"I am familiar with the Gerson method and believe that it has a lot of merit. I have always been frustrated that it was not taken seriously and studied intensively as it should be. I think it has a very good track record." (Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.)

"I see in Dr. Max Gerson one of the most eminent geniuses in medical history." (Albert Schweitzer, M.D., Nobel Prize laureate)

The Gerson Miracle

Review by Andrew W. Saul

"The cure for cancer has been discovered. In 1928." These are the opening words of the new one-and-a-half hour documentary movie, The Gerson Miracle. No one that views it can possibly misunderstand its uncompromising assertions that cancer is curable, and that Dr. Max Gerson repeatedly proved it.

When Max Gerson, M.D., testified before the U.S. Senate on July 1, 2, and 3, 1946, he likely had high hopes of acceptance of his work. No such luck. In 1958, he published all the how-to-do-it details in A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases. He died the next year, under suspicious circumstances. http://www.doctoryourself.com/gersonbio.htm

Even today it is necessary for persons seeking Gerson treatment to leave the country to obtain it. As the film's narration says, "Laws in virtually all of the United States prohibit any other treatment of cancer than radiation, chemotherapy and surgery, even though they are usually ineffective at best, and completely ineffective at worst. Chemotherapy, for example, does not cure cancer at all, and usually merely poisons the patient instead of the cancer."

Strong words, those. If Oscar-winning documentarist Michael Moore initially had difficulty obtaining distribution for his Fahrenheit 9/11 movie, you can be sure there will be some hefty opposition to this one.

And yet, the heart of the Gerson therapy is ecological common sense. I think this is why it makes a good subject for film, and why it appealed so to producer/director Steven Kroschel. Kroschel's previous documentary credits include work for the Learning Channel, National Geographic, PBS, and the BBC, as well as contributions to a number of Hollywood features including Straight Up, Vertical Limit, and I Spy. Not surprisingly, Kroschel personally follows the Gerson diet.

The narration continues:

"The soil, and all that grows in it, is not something distant from us, but must be regarded as our external metabolism, which produces the nutrients for our internal metabolism. Therefore, the soil must be cared for properly. It must not be depleted or poisoned Otherwise, changes will result in serious degenerative diseases in animals and humans."

This sounds much like text from any biology textbook that I've taught from.

"Mass-produced, commercially-grown fruits and vegetables are fertilized with only three minerals: nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous," says the narrator. Yet plants "need over 50 more." As a consequence, "the plants are sick, and must be kept on life support with toxic chemicals until market." On the other hand, organic farming methods enable both the plant, and you, to resist disease. This especially includes cancer.

The film states that the two key factors that are "the underlying cause of cancer are deficiency and toxicity." A radical, organic raw vegetable juice-based diet is proposed as the primary remedy. Why juiced? Because "Dr. Gerson discovered early in his research that fruits and vegetables must be juiced to flood the body with nutrients that have been lacking within the human organism for so very long, sometimes for decades. . . When juice is drunk, it can enter the blood stream almost as fast as alcohol. . . Dr. Gerson required his patients to drink one 8 ounce glass of juice 13 times a day." That amounts to some 20 pounds of produce, yielding "an organic medication straight from the table of Mother Nature."

The Gerson therapy calls for an expensive grind and press juicer, such as a Norwalk. On the other hand, the film states, Norman W. Walker, that particular juicer's inventor and namesake, died June 6, 1985 at the age of 117. All of Max Gerson's brothers and sisters died in the Holocaust.

Now for the second aspect of the Gerson therapy. Drinking such enormous quantities of fresh juice every day "dislodges accumulated body poisons, which are absorbed by the liver, somewhat overwhelming it." Therefore, to help out the hard-working liver, the Gerson approach employs an unusual detoxification technique. "Organic body-temperature coffee administered rectally stimulates the liver's bile ducts to then dump those scavenged toxins into the colon for evacuation." This, the film states, ensures that "the immune system will now have the upper hand" and the patient is more likely to recover.

You will not be disappointed to know that the film does indeed provide step by step directions on exactly how to prepare a coffee enema. Boil 1 quart distilled water, add 3 tablespoons drip ground coffee, reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain and add sufficient water to again have 1 quart. Cool to body temperature, and then introduce eight inches into the colon with an enema kit. Retain the enema for 12 to 15 minutes.

The movie's sound track music chosen to accompany the coffee enema recipe preparation sequence is a performance of Beethoven's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major by the City of Magenta, Italy Symphony Orchestra. The violin soloist is Francesca Ettorina Dego, Dr. Gerson's great-granddaughter, age 14. Her rendition is excellent.

There is more to the therapy than juices and coffee enemas. "Table salt is a poison," says the narration. Our "unrelenting" use of sodium "causes displacement of potassium found naturally in human cells, leaving them vulnerable to attack by disease." For this reason, debated to this day, Dr. Gerson gave patients on his already very-low-sodium, potassium-rich diet still more supplemental potassium in the form of equal parts of potassium gluconate, potassium acetate, and mono potassium phosphate. Flaxseed oil was the preferred fatty acid source, and was to be "raw and cold" and not to be used for a cooking oil. Pancreatin, acidophilus, and vitamin B-3 (niacin) were also provided supplementally.

The most common criticisms of the Gerson program are that the diet is restrictive and that the coffee enemas are excessive. It is true that the Gerson therapy is an extreme diet, but then cancer is an extreme disease. One extreme may indeed call for another; it takes a lot of water to put out a burning building. Chemical, radiological and surgical extremes are the oncologist's stock in trade. Why not extreme nutrition?

I enjoyed the section of the movie where the camera follows Dr. Gerson's daughter and successor, Charlotte, as she interviews patients under actual treatment at the Gerson facility in Mexico. There, it is said, patients in "as little as two weeks are free from cancer." 35 years after man first walked on the moon, this remains a revolutionary statement, one that may invite either a physician's ridicule or a cancer patient's serious investigation.

Charlotte Gerson, now 82, practices what her father preached. "I cancelled my health insurance when I was 34 years old," she says. "The reason was that I'm not interested in the kind of hospital or medical treatment that might be covered by insurance, because it's toxic." She says she saved money, plus feels good in the bargain. She is outspoken and emphatic. On camera, she states, "I'm always telling women: 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if you never had to worry about finding a lump in your breast?' But if you eat healthy, that's what happens. Living in this manner, you don't risk cancer."

She is in a position to know, having seen her father's work at close range for so many years. I asked Charlotte about this, and she told me, "My earliest childhood memories of helping my father go back to my playing in our sandbox when I was about five years old. My father's medical office was in the same house where we lived and patients would come to see him there. Many of those were from the agricultural area surrounding the city where we lived, Bielefeld (Westphalia), Germany. The farmers who consulted my father could hardly believe that one could survive in good health without meat and animal proteins. So my father would send for me, a little dirty and full of sand, to show me off. I was sturdy, tall for my age, healthy and rosy-cheeked and presented a good picture of the effectiveness of vegetarian nutrition."

She still does. Filmmaker Steven Kroschel says, "Working with Charlotte Gerson touched me deeply, as she reminded me of my German grandparents and the old fashioned hospitality that went along with it. I have to say that I cannot recall meeting anyone quite as honest, compassionate and giving as she is."

Doctor-vexing patients' testimonials form the backbone of Kroschel's documentary. There are plenty of them. One man with prostate cancer, confirmed by biopsy, decided to go Gerson. After 18 months on the therapy, his PSA was an extraordinarily low 0.06.

Ascites, the abdominal fluid buildup all too commonly accompanying cancer or liver disease, may be reduced by way of the Gerson therapy. One patient interviewed in the film reports a decrease of 8 cm on the first day of the therapy, with 2 cm/day afterwards.

One woman, diagnosed with ovarian cancer and given 6 to 9 months to live, speaks on camera of how she lived not nine months, but nine years and is still in excellent, cancer-free health. Her therapy was the Gerson diet. Three other women she knew, all of whom selected chemotherapy, were, as predicted, dead in nine months or less.

Possibly the most moving testimonial comes from a child, named Stephanie, who was diagnosed with widespread cancer in the kidney, lungs, vena cava and heart before she was even six years old. After conventional treatment had been tried and had failed, she (and her parents as well) embarked on the Gerson program. Asked what she thought of the diet, the girl responded quite frankly: "The food? At first I thought it was kind of weird. But after, like, a week, it started tasting better."

Stephanie, who had been given six months to live, was very much alive over two years later and shown horseback riding. The narration presented her as not fully cured, but "on the road to recovery" to the point that her doctors were "astounded." Stephanie herself described her quality of life improvement as well as it has ever been described: "I've been feeling lots better. I've been having more energy when on the diet. I feel very healthy, and stronger, and much better than I did."

The most skeptical viewer cannot possibly watch the scenes of this lass horseback riding and not be at least a little bit persuaded.

Then there is Pat, a woman with pancreatic cancer which had spread to her liver, gall bladder, and spleen. Throwing up blood, she was diagnosed at age 46, and given 3 months to live. That was in 1986. Pat's bleeding and pain stopped in 10 days of Gerson therapy. After two years of Gerson, a CAT scan showed that the cancer was gone. Pat is now 65.

Hollywood star Michael Landon was similarly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He, too, had been given three months to live, and he likewise tried the Gerson therapy. Landon appeared on the "Tonight" show, looking hale and hearty after only a short time on the Gerson program. Immediately afterwards, the narration says, Landon was warned off of the Gerson diet by his physicians. He abandoned it, and his condition promptly worsened. He later personally telephoned Pat and told her that he "should have stayed with the Gerson therapy." Michael Landon died in 1991.

As a very young man, I made a documentary film about the pollution and proposed reclamation of the Genesee River in Rochester, NY. Excessive camera motion was the byproduct of my limited equipment and poor technique. Although it may be an intentional stylistic tool, I for one would ask that directors of feature documentaries everywhere lose the hand-held camera reality-look and get themselves better tripods than I had.

The Gerson DVD has no menu for chapter selection, and for those wishing to re-study any one of the 30 chapters in this 90 minute feature, a chapter menu would be most helpful.

This film makes no attempt at conciliation nor compromise, with frequent unabashedly in-your-face statements, such as: "The only area of which established orthodox medicine in the US is superlative is in the cost." Another: "The viability of life hinging essentially on what we pour into our cups, and place on our plates, is so simple, and yet profoundly hard to grasp by modern medicine." The film also emphasizes the detrimental effects of all manner of pollution on our internal environment. Mercury-based dental amalgam condemned; Ritalin is ridiculed, as is the Standard American Diet ("SAD"). Even milk-drinking is eschewed by the Gerson approach. "With every meal, we are either digging our own graves with the silverware, or ensuring a healthy and productive life."

There is something in The Gerson Miracle to provoke practically anybody. On the other hand, there is such value in Gerson's therapy to justify the film being seen by everybody.

We have to face the facts: Dr. Gerson saved lives and his methods still do. Here is the very first movie to offer this essential message to a new and ever-widening audience. To say that such a message is somewhat controversial is understatement akin to saying that the Beatles somewhat influenced popular music, or that Citizen Kane was a pretty good flick. Fact is, the Gerson therapy exists. You can say that it doesn't work, but you can also find living, breathing people who will tell you differently. This documentary does exactly that, and this is what documentaries should be doing.

(The Gerson Miracle. 91 minutes; 2004. VHS: 29.95; DVD: $24.95, from Charlotte Gerson, 355 Greenwood Place, Bonita, CA 91902. lg27win@cox.net Shipping is $3, CA residents add 7.5% sales tax.)

Nutritional Therapy for Cancer

Cancer: Food Plan from Physiol. Chem. & Physics 10 (1978)

The Cure Of Advanced Cancer By Diet Therapy:
A Summary Of 30 Years Of Clinical Experimentation

Max Gerson, M.D.
Gerson Institute, Box 535, Imperial Beach, California 92032

(1978 Publisher's Note. This is a lecture given by Dr. Gerson in Escondido, California, in 1956. Dr. Gerson died in 1959. More complete information on his therapy for advanced cancer may be found in his book A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases, by Max Gerson, 3rd edition, 1977, Totality Books, Del Mar, CA or from his daughter Mrs. Charlotte Gerson Straus at the Gerson Institute, Box 535, Imperial Beach, CA 92032. Socioeconomic and political perspectives are discussed in the book Has Dr. Max Gerson a True Cancer Cure? by S. J. Haught, 1976, Major Books, 21335, Roscoe Blvd., Canoga Park, CA 91304.)

Abstract:

Thirty years of clinical experimentation has led to a successful therapy for advanced cancer. This therapy is based on the concepts (1) that cancer patients have low immuno-reactivity and generalized tissue damage, especially of the liver, and (2) that when the cancer is destroyed, toxic degradation products appear in the bloodstream which lead to coma and death from liver failure. The therapy consists of high potassium, low sodium diet, with no fats or oils, and minimal animal proteins. Juices of raw fruits and vegetables and of raw liver provide active oxidizing enzymes which facilitate rehabilitation of the liver. Iodine and niacin supplementation is used. Caffeine enemas cause dilation of bile ducts, which facilitates excretion of toxic cancer breakdown products by the liver and dialysis of toxic products from blood across the colonic wall. The therapy must be used as an integrated whole. Parts of the therapy used in isolation will not be successful. This therapy has cured many cases of advanced cancer.

Ladies and Gentlemen: I came here on vacation; I didn't come here for a lecture. I didn't bring anything. So, I wrote down some things since I was asked to tell you first how I arrived at the cancer treatment. It is a funny story.

When I was a physician for internal diseases in Bielefeld [Germany) in 1928, one day I was called to see a lady. I asked her what was wrong with her but on the telephone she didn't want to tell me. So I went there, a little outside of town. Then I asked her "What's wrong?" She told me she was operated on in a big clinic nearby and they found a cancer of the bile duct. I saw the operation scar. She was running a high fever, was jaundiced. I told her, "Sorry, I can do nothing for you. I don't know how to treat cancer. I have not seen results, especially in such an advanced case where there is no longer the possibility of operation." So, she said, "No, doctor, I called because I saw the results in your treatment of tuberculosis and arthritis in various cases. Now, here is a pad and you write down a treatment. On that table over there, there is a book, and in that book, you will be good enough to read to me aloud the chapter called The Healing of Cancer."

It was a big book of about 1,200 pages on folk medicine and in the middle there was that chapter. I started to read. That book was edited by three schoolteachers and one physician. None of them practiced medicine. So they put together that book. I read that chapter. In it there was something about Hippocrates who gave these patients a special soup. I should like to tell you, we use that soup at the present time! That soup from that book, out of the practice of Hippocrates - 550 years before Christ! He was the greatest physician at that time, and I even think the greatest physician of all time. He had the idea that the patient has to be detoxified with the soup and with some enemas and so on.

I read and read but finally I told the lady, "Look, because of my tuberculosis treatment physicians are opposed to me. Therefore I'd like not to treat you." Again she insisted, "I'll give you in writing that you are not responsible for the outcome of the treatment and that I insisted that you do so." So with that signed statement, I thought, all right, let's try. I wrote down the treatment. It was almost the same which I used for tuberculosis patients (1-7) which I had worked out and used at the University Clinic in Munich with Prof. Sauerbruch. After the work at the University Clinic the treatment had been established and had been found effective. (8, 9). I thought that maybe it will be effective in cancer too. It is always written in scientific books that tuberculosis and cancer are both degenerative diseases where the body has to be detoxified. But this latter thought was written only by Hippocrates.

I tried - and the patient was cured! Six months later she was up and around in the best condition. Then she sent me two other cancer cases. One of her family with a stomach cancer where it had been found during an attempted operation that there were metastasized glands around the stomach-also cured! And I had to cure then, against my will, a third case. I expected to have still more opposition from the medical profession. The third case was also a stomach cancer. It was also cured. Three cases were tried and all three cases were cured!

I have to tell you that up to this day, I don't know how this happened, how I stumbled into that, how this was achieved. At that time I always said that I didn't know why they were cured. I didn't know enough about cancer and it was such a difficult problem to go into. But once it was in my head and in my hands and in my heart, I could no longer separate myself from that problem.

Some time later I was in Vienna. I had left Germany due to the political upheaval at the time of Hitler. There in Vienna I tried six cases and in all six cases, no results-all failures. That was shocking. The sanatorium where I treated my patients was not so well organized for dietary treatments. They treated other diseases by other methods and didn't pay much attention to diet. So, I attributed the failures to that.

Then I came to Paris. In Paris, I tried seven cases and I had three results. One of the cases was an older man. He had a cancer of the cecum where the colon starts, 70 years old. Another case was a lady from Armenia. This was a very interesting case. I had to work against the whole family. There were many physicians in the family, and I had plenty of trouble. But, anyway, I came through in that case. She had cancer of the breast which regrew. Every time the family insisted that she was "so much down." She weighed only 78 pounds. She was skin and bones and they wanted me to give her egg yolks. I gave her small amounts of egg yolks-the cancer regrew. Then they insisted that I give her meat, raw chopped meat. I gave her this and the cancer regrew. The third time, they wanted me to give her some oil. I gave her that oil and the third time the cancer regrew. But, anyway, three times I could eliminate the cancer again and cure. And still I had no idea what cancer was. If somebody asked me about the theory, just what it was I was doing, I had to answer, "I don't really know myself."

Some time later I came to this country. I couldn't get the cancer problem and the cure of the first three cases out of my mind. I kept thinking "It must be possible, it would a crime not to do it." But is wasn't so easy. When I came here, I had no clinic. I didn't even have a license to practice medicine. When I had taken the exams and could take patients, I had to treat them at home and that was hard work. The patients didn't like to obey the diet, to do it at home. They were accustomed to save kitchen time and not to work hard to make all the juices necessary for the treatment as it had been worked out.

Now the treatment for tuberculosis was a saltless diet, mostly fruit and vegetables, vegetables cooked without added water, steamed in their own juices, with a heavy pot, no aluminum. The cover had to be heavy and fit well so that the steam could not escape. Then they had to have most of the food raw, finely grated. They had to drink orange juice, grapefruit juice, and apple and carrot juice. This had to be produced in a special machine-a grinder and a separate press-because I found that in centrifugal juicers or liquefiers, I couldn't obtain the kind of juice which cured patients.

At first, I had thought that liquefiers would be the most wonderful thing. All the material was there, nothing was lost. But it didn't work. Then I found out through a physicist that in the liquefier, in the center, there is positive electricity and in the fluid there is negative electricity. This electricity kills the oxidizing enzymes. And that is also true for the centrifugal juicer and the other apparatus. The juice must therefore be made by a grinder and a separate press - if possible, made of stainless steel. (Editor's note: a masticating juicer, such as a Champion, might also work.)

The patients must drink a lot of those juices. They have to have the Hippocrates soup. I can't go into all the details. The evening would not be long enough for that. But very important for the detoxification are enemas. I felt that the detoxification as suggested in the book of Hippocrates was a most important part.

Finally, I had a clinic. The patients saw that also the more advanced cases and even some terminal cases, very far advanced cases, could be saved. They brought me more and more of these terminal cases. I was forced into that. On the one side, the knife of the AMA was at my throat and on my back. I had only terminal cases. If I had not saved them, my clinic would have been a death house. Some of the cases were brought on stretchers. They couldn't walk. They could no longer eat. It was very, very difficult. So, I really had to work out a treatment that could help these far advanced cases.(10,11) Again, I was forced into it.

On the need of where to put the emphasis: reading all the literature, I saw that all the scientists treat the symptoms. These, I thought, are only symptoms. There must be something basic behind them. It has to be impossible that there are symptoms in the brain, others in the lungs, in the bones, it the abdomen and in the liver. There must be something basic, or else this is impossible.

Already, through my work with tuberculosis, I learned that in tuberculosis and in all other degenerative diseases, one must not trcat the symptoms. The body-the whole body-has to be treated. But that is easily said. How will you do it? Little by little I came to the conclusion that the most important part of our body is the digestive tract. For all our intake to be properly digested, and for the other organs of the digestive tract to function right and help in the digestion to the end product-and at the same time eliminate all the waste products-all the toxins and poisons which must be eliminated so that nothing will accumulate in our system, I thought that this was the most important thing in the tuberculosis treatment. It must be the same in all the other degenerative diseases, too. And still, up to the present, I am convinced that cancer does not need a "specific" treatment.

Cancer is a so-called degenerative disease, and all the degenerative diseases have to be treated so that the whole body at first is detoxified. In my tuberculosis work again, I saw that the liver plays the important role. It eliminates the toxins from the body, prepares them so they can enter into the bile ducts, and can thus be eliminated with the bile-that is not an easy job. In addition, the liver helps to prepare the stomach juice with the help of the visceral nervous system. The liver helps to prepare the pancreas, trypsin, pepsin, lipase, the digestive enzymes-all that is regulated with the help of the visceral nervous system. The liver has many, many more very important functions. One of them is the reactivation of the oxidizing enzymes as we know through Rudolf Schoenheimer. He did the work along these lines. It would go too far to go into that at this time. It is very important to note that oxidizing enzymes are at a low level of function in cancer patients.

Now let us anticipate the theory. During these years the idea occurred to me that there are two components in cancer which are of particular importance. One is the whole body, the general component. The other is a local one, the symptom. The treatment has to be applied to the general component. When we are able to bring this into balance, the local one disappears.

What is the general component and what does the treatment have to do to bring it into balance? I should like to devote this evening mostly to that question. The general component is the digestive tract and the liver. The digestive tract is very much poisoned in cancer. How can we handle that? Detoxification is an easy word, but it is very difficult to do in cancer patients. These cases, when they are far advanced, can hardly eat. They have no stomach juice, the liver doesn't function, the pancreas doesn't function, nothing is active.

Where do we begin?. The most important first step is the detoxification. So let us go into that. First, we gave some different enemas. I found out that the best enema is the coffee enema as it was first used by Prof. 0. A. Meyer in Goettingen. This idea occurred to him when together with Prof.Heubner he gave caffeine solution into the rectum of animals. He observed that the bile ducts were opened and more bile could flow. I felt that this was very important and I worked out coffee enemas. We took three heaping tablespoons of ground coffee for one quart of water, let it boil for three minutes, then simmer 10 to 20 minutes, and then gave it at body temperature.

The patients reported that this was doing them good. The pain disappeared even though in order to carry through the detoxification, we had to take away all sedation. I realized that it is impossible to detoxify the body on the one hand and put in drugs and poisons on the other, such as sedation medication - demerol, codeine, morphine, scopolamine, etc. So, we had to put the medication aside which again was a very difficult problem. One patient told me that he had one grain of codeine every two hours and he got morphine injections . . . how can you take these away? I told him that the best sedation is a coffee enema. After a very short time he had to agree with that. Some of the patients who had been in severe pain didn't take coffee enemas every four hours as I prescribed - they took one every two hours. But no more sedation.

After just a few days there was very little pain, almost none. I can give you an example. A lady came to me not so long ago. She had cancer of the cervix and then two large tumor masses around the uterus. The cervix was a large crater, necrotic, producing blood and pus, and the poor lady couldn't sit any more. The condition was inoperable. She had been given X-rays and vomited any food she took in. She couldn't lie down anymore. She could not sit. She walked around day and night. When she came to my clinic the manager told me, "Doctor, you can't keep her here. This moaning and walking day and night is keeping the other patients from sleeping." After four days she was able to sleep with no sedative whatsoever - which had not helped her much anyway. The sedation had worked for perhaps half an hour or so. After 8 to 10 days, she asked me for just one thing: let her omit that night enema at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. These patients who absorb the big tumor masses are awakened with an alarm clock every night because they are otherwise poisoned by the absorption of these masses. If I give them only one or two or three enemas, they die of poisoning.

I did not have the right as a physician to cause the body to absorb all the cancer masses and then not to detoxify enough. With two or three enemas they were not detoxified enough. They went into a coma hepaticum (liver coma). Autopsies showed that the liver was poisoned. I learned from these disasters that you can't give these patients too much detoxification. So I told this lady that for one night she could sleep for seven hours-but only for one night. I wouldn't risk more! When I didn't give these patients the night enemas, they were drowsy and almost semi-conscious in the morning. The nurses confirmed this and told me that it takes a couple of enemas till they are free of this toxic state again. I cannot stress the detoxification enough. Even so with all these enemas, this was not enough! I had to give them also castor oil by mouth and by enema every other day, at least for the first two weeks or so. After these two weeks you wouldn't recognize these patients any more! They had arrived on a stretcher and now they walked around. They had appetite. They gained weight and the tumors went down.

You will ask, "How can such a cancerous tumor go down?" That was a difficult question for me to understand. I had learned in my treatment of tuberculosis patients that I had to add potassium, iodine, and liver injections to help the liver and the whole body to restore the potassium. Now as far as I can see this is the situation. At first we give the patient the most salt-free diet possible.(12) So, as much salt (sodium) is removed from the body as can be. During the first days, 3 grams, 5 grams, up to 8 grams a day of sodium are eliminated while the patients receive only about one half gram of sodium content in the diet and no sodium is added.

The patients are given thyroid and lugol solution (lugol's solution is iodine plus potassium iodide) I learned first through the so-called Gudenath tadpole experiment that iodine is necessary to increase and help the oxidation ability. Then we gave the patients large amount of potassium.(12) It took about 300 experiments until I found the right potassium combination. It is a 10% solution of potassium gluconate, potassium phosphate (monobasic), and potassium acetate. From that solution the patient is given four teaspoonsful 10 times a day in juices. That large amount of potassium is introduced into the body.(12) At the same time 5 times one grain of thyroid and 6 times three drops of lugol solution, ½ strength. That's 18 drops of lugol which is a large dose. Nobody was observed to develop heart palpitations from that, even if some patients told me that they could previously not take thyroid because they would develop heart palpitation. And all allergies disappeared! Some patients claimed that they could previously not take one teaspoonful of lemon juice or orange juice - they were allergic. But when they are well detoxified and have plenty of potassium, they are not allergic. Allergies and other hypersensitivities are eliminated.

When introduced into the system, thyroid and lugol solution go immediately into the cancer mass. These ripe cells take it up fast and they perhaps grow a little faster but they soak in more with great greed - as much as they can - together with a little bit of sodium, probably. But then there isn't much sodium left. So then these cells pick up potassium and the oxidizing enzymes and die by themselves. You have to realize that cancer cells live essentially on fermentation but potassium and oxidizing enzymes introduce oxidation. And that is the point at which we can kill cancer cells because we take away the conditions which they need to continue to live.

But now we have to deal with a mass of dead cells in the body, in the blood stream -and they have to be eliminated wherever they may be. And that is not so easy! The ripe cells, the mature cells are very abnormal. These are much more easily killed than the other cells which are unripe, not yet mature, and not so well developed. And there are other cancer cells in lymph vessels. These are clogged at both ends by cancer cells. No blood and no lymph can reach them. There are cancer cells in the glands. They are hidden there, protected from regular circulation. So it isn't easy to reach these. At first it is only the big mass which killed. But this dead mass now has to be absorbed wherever it is - perhaps in the uterus, perhaps in the kidney, or in the lung, or in the brain - this has to be absorbed. This absorption is only possible through the blood stream. I call this "parenteral digestion." Enteral digestion is in the intestinal tract. Parenteral digestion takes place outside of the digestive tract, through the blood stream. It becomes important then to continually carry on detoxification day and night in order to bring the parenteral digestion to the highest point, even to a "hyperfunction." How can this be done?

I found that in order to bring the parenteral digestion to the highest function, it is necessary to start with the soil. Our soil must be normal, no artificial fertilizers should be used, no poisons, no sprays which go into the soil and poison it. Whatever grows on a poisoned soil carries poison too. And that is our food, our fruit and vegetables. I am convinced that the soil is our external metab6lism. It is not really far removed from our bodies. We depend on it. But our modern food, the "normal" food people eat is bottled, poisoned, canned, color added, powdered, frozen, dipped in acids, sprayed-no longer normal. We no longer have living, normal food, our food and drink is a mass of dead, poisoned material, and one cannot cure very sick people by adding poisons to their systems. We cannot detoxify our bodies when we add poisons through our food which is one of the reasons why cancer is so much on the increase. Saving time in the kitchen is fine but the consequences are terrible. Thirty or fifty years ago (this speech was delivered in 1956) cancer was a disease of old age. Only elderly people whose liver was no longer working well - was worn out-became sick. They contracted cancer when they were 60 to 70 years old and cancer was a rare disease. Everybody knows that. And now four, even going on one out of three dies of cancer. Now in the second generation it is even worse. The poor children get leukemias more and more. There is no country which has so much leukemia as this country (USA), no country in the world. That is our fault. Ice cream is made with invert sugar. Coca-Cola contains phosphoric acid. Is it surprising that children get degenerative disease? These things constitute our external metabolism.

Now let us consider our digestive tract. As part of the digestive tract, the most important thing is that we restore the function of the liver - the tissue and the function of the liver. That is very hard work. We give the patients (including also the tuberculosis patients) liver injections, and since most of these patients need an increase in the red blood cells, we add some vitamin B12. They receive 3 cc of crude liver extract together with 100 mcg of B12. In addition when I found that our fruit and vegetables no longer have the normal content of potassium and not enough of the oxidizing enzymes, I looked for the best source of potassium in the best composition and the best supply of oxidizing enzymes. I found that to be calves liver. But we cannot give the patient calves liver because it contains too much fat and cholesterol. As you know, fat and oils cannot be given Therefore we give these patients freshly pressed calves liver juice, which is made in a special way with equal parts of carrots. Liver alone cannot be pressed. We take ½ pound fresh calves liver (not frozen) and ½ pound of carrots to make one glass of 200 cc (approx. 8 oz.) of fresh juice. The patients, the far advanced cases, get two glasses a day, even three glasses, and they like it!

All this is done in the effort to restore the enteral digestion. When that functions, we add stomach juice (Acidol Pepsin) and we add pancreatin not coated. The cancer patients cannot digest the coated pancreatin. The pancreatin is given five times a day, three tablets each time. So they always have plenty of trypsin, pepsin, lipase and diastase in their systems. The blood can carry this around and digest the tumor masses wherever they may be.

Now, since I am running out of time, I should like to tell you what we do to prove that this treatment really does work on cancer.(13,14) Number one, the results. I think I can claim that I have, even in these far advanced cases, 50% results. The real problem arises when we cannot restore the liver. Then there is no hope. The liver-the restoration of the liver and its functions-are so important that some of the patients whose livers cannot be restored die some six months to 2½ years later from cirrhosis. Autopsies show no cancer cells in the body. They did not die from cancer. They died from a shrunken liver. Since I give more liver juice and I give more for promoting the parenteral digestion, these cases of a shrunken liver are rare.

I think I could do a lot to improve the results. I do not want to go into the problems that patients face when they go home and the family physician tells them that they need not "eat that cow fodder." Or the family thinks they cannot carry through this treatment because it is too much work as it takes one to one and a half years to restore the liver. The liver cells are renewed in four to five weeks, five to six weeks in older patients. To restore such a liver, you would need 12 to 15 new generations of liver cells. That is 1½ years. But the most important part of the treatment, I have learned, is to give the patients a new functioning liver.

Now, for the proof of this theory. I had the idea to make an animal experiment in which we connected two rats - one cancerous rat and one healthy one. We cut them open along the side and connected a blood vessel, then sewed them together: The blood from the healthy rat circulated in the sick one day and night and cleared up the sick body. Thus we showed that with a healthy normal metabolism you can cure cancer. You can cure the cancerous rat with the healthy body of the normal rat. But we are in the early stages of this type of experiment. There was one patient whose husband wanted to be connected to his wife because of her very poor condition. But she said no, she didn't want to have him immobilized so long, next to her, with extensive nursing day and night. When she was first brought in to me, she had a very bad liver with probably hundreds of metastases, also in the rest of the body. I had told them that I didn't believe I could do anything for her, so the husband had offered his healthy body. But, even as it is, she is still living and improving. At any rate, with this type of experiment we have had no experience on human beings, only on rats.

Our next step to prove the theory was by taking tiny tissue samples from the liver by liver punctures. When time goes on and the patient recovers, the liver shows microscopically and chemically that recovery has taken place. This is done by micro-chemistry. There is an increase of the potassium content and iron, and now we can even trace the content of cobalt.

For ten years, I examined the potassium content in the serum of human beings and I made about 200 curves. But these are not characteristic. On the other hand, if we take a little tissue - a little mucous membrane or muscle tissue with the improvement of the patient, the tissue also shows a return to the normal potassium content. (12) This is of tremendous importance.

Two months ago when I planned to come here for my vacation, the parents of this little boy wrote me and asked me for treatment for leukemia. Here is the little boy. He was treated with blood transfusions, had been 50 and 60,000 white blood count and his red blood count was down to 1,400,000. He lost eight pounds in one week, couldn't eat or drink. I started the treatment about six weeks ago. Since that time, the boy is up and around, he can ride his bicycle, he is active and gained a total of five pounds. The blood count is normal. Lymphocytes are 6,500; hemoglobin is 73; 4,500,000 red blood cells - from 1,400,000! And here is the little boy. (The mother adds: "I want to tell you doctor, he really likes the liver juice, he doesn't want to eat chocolate!") You see, the liver juice, the children really like it and ask for more. In the clinic where the parents had taken the child, they were told that nothing could be done for him but I feel that now we can save this child. (Applause)

I have here another patient: Mr. Eyerly. Could you come here? Mr. Eyerly came here to see me. He lives in Salem, Oregon. The man had cancer of the prostate and it had grown into the urine bladder. He went to the University Clinic at Portland, Oregon, to a famous urologist. He diagnosed the metastasis into the urinary bladder and said that they could do nothing. Besides, the cancer had grown into the pelvic bones. This was two years ago. The physicians, including the family doctor, all told him that he could live only 4 to 6 weeks, especially since all bones of the pelvis were full of cancer. He looked terribly ill when he came to me. His wife brought him with a nurse. He had made his last will and did not expect to live. Now we cured that. It was especially difficult. I should like to thank his wife. She prepared the treatment with the greatest devotion. She was wonderful and we could rely on her. In a family where there is real devotion in the application of this treatment, we can even save these far advanced cases. Of course, we cannot save all of them but we can save more than we sometimes even consider possible. (Question from the audience: "How long did it take?") In the urinary bladder, it didn't take but a few weeks and there was no longer any blood and pus, nor in the stools either. But in the pelvis there were hundreds of spots, and that takes a long time because the body transforms this cancer first into so-called osteoplastic areas, not an osteolytic process which is bone reducing. With my treatment more bone is produced. The body produces more bone, and then the hypertrophic bone is transformed into normal bone tissue. Then there is no more pain. Now the patient can get around and is even the manager of a company.

By chance I had these two patients here and could show them to you.

Post-Lecture Questions and Answers

Q. Can fibroid tumors be dissolved in the same manner?

A. Fibroid tumors are mostly benign. Benign tumors take 10 to 20 times as much time to absorb as malignant tumors. This goes for adhesions and scars. Fibroid and benign tumors are dissolved only very slowly because they are not abnormal. It is difficult for the parenteral system to bring its digestive powers to bear on these benign tumors. But when they turn malignant, then they are quickly dissolved.

Q. (from a doctor) Dr. Gerson, when I visited your hospital in 1946 your housekeeper was drinking fresh carrot juice. She had had an inoperable cancer of the pancreas. Please tell us about her. She was doing very well for such a bad condition. A. She is living and in good condition now, 10 years later. Q. Is cancer a state of reaction of unrestrained excessive factors of certain hormones working on various degenerated organs or tissues? A. No, I don't think so. There is much more and to answer that question, I have to go deeper into the problem. We have to separate the state of pre-cancerous condition from the state where the cancer appears. In the pre-cancerous condition, all is prepared. The liver is sufficiently damaged and the other organs of the intestinal tract are damaged enough and then later the symptoms appear. Until then we have the pre-cancerous condition and this condition cannot be cured with hormones and enzymes, etc. We can to a certain degree stimulate the liver with hormones. We can stimulate the liver with cortisone. We can stimulate the liver with adrenalin etc., but then we take out the last reserves. We empty the liver instead of refilling it. What we have to do in cancer -a degenerative, deficiency disease- is to refill the organs which are empty and poisoned. Therefore it is almost a crime to give cortisone and the other stimulants which will take away the last reserves and improve the condition for a short while only. Q. Why are all berries prohibited?

A. Some of the patients are hypersensitive, especially in the beginning, against berries which are a little difficult to digest. Therefore I cut them out.

Q. Are tomatoes OK?

A. Tomatoes are OK.

Q. Soy products and soy beans are forbidden. But is lecithin forbidden, which is made from soy beans?

A. Since soy beans contain fats, I had to forbid them. Cancer patients are not able for a long time to digest fats to the end products. When some intermediate substances are left in the body, they work as carcinogenic substances. Therefore we had to cut out fats, oil, and goods containing them for a long time.

Q. What metabolic tests do you do before and after to further prove recovery systematically as well as clinically?

A. I examine in all these case the urine, the complete blood count, basal metabolism or protein-bound iodine, and potassium in serum and tissue. To see how the liver functions, I found it best to examine the end product of the protein metabolism, urea nitrogen and uric acid. When these are normal and stay normal, then I assume that the patient is all right. But potassium in serum does not give a characteristic picture and makes it difficult to judge. The patient can be cured yet the serum potassium still shows low because the tissues take it away. In some of the cancer patients when they arrive as terminal cases, potassium is above normal! One of the physicians asked me once, "Are you crazy? With the potassium above normal, you give such big doses of potassium?" And I said, "Yes, sir, I am not crazy. The patient is losing the potassium. (12) That is how it is increased in the serum."

Q. Is fat-free lecithin OK?

A. Yes. But not in the beginning. After six weeks, fat-free lecithin is OK.

Q. How harmful is coffee as a drink?

A. Coffee as a drink can be used by the patients only when they take the castor oil because coffee increases the motility of the stomach so the castor oil moves more quickly out of the stomach. But otherwise, coffee as a drink disturbs the function of the capillaries and therefore it has to be cut out.

Q. Would not detoxification be advisable in the majority of illnesses? Is this not comparable to what is called "a cleansing program?"

A. We have to detoxify the body in all degenerative diseases, in acute diseases too. But not to the extent as is required in cancer. Even most of the arthritis cases are not so toxic. I found that almost all of the arthritis cases have a weak liver or damaged liver. This is also true of coronary disease.

Q. Are (synthetic) vitamin and mineral supplements OK?

A. No, they are wrong because calcium and many other minerals cannot be added so easily. They bring the system out of harmony. With calcium you can produce cancer. I was forced in three cases of hemophilia to give calcium to bring the blood to coagulate. I did it but the cancer regrew and I lost all three cases. No calcium, no magnesium, no other minerals. I tried it. There must be harmony in our body under the law of totality. One should not change the mineral metabolism, especially not in cancer. Only the two most important minerals potassium and sodium must be balanced. This is the need of the cancer patient.

Q. In John Gunther's book, Death Be Not Proud, mention is made of your treatment as used on John Gunther's son. Spectacular results were obtained at first but then there was a relapse and the patient died. Could you have cured this case without the regular MD's interference?

A. I will tell you why this poor boy died. He had a terrible brain tumor growing out of the skull, larger than my fist. I cured that. It's written in the book. But after that, the boy had an eczema and this eczema was of a special type which can usually be cured by giving the anterior lobe pituitary extract, a hormone. The family doctor, Dr. Traeger, said, "Why don't you give it to him?" But I told him that this is a terrible risk and I don't like to take such a risk with the life of that boy. When we give the pituitary, like many other hormones we may kill. But finally I gave in and it was my fault. And for a long time after that I couldn't sleep nights. I gave him the hormone and the tumor regrew. I can add to that, that more than 12 years ago now, there appeared an article by a professor in Chicago that cancer patients benefit from administration of sex hormones. I gave it first to three patients, then to five. They reacted well for the first two to three months. Then I gave it to 25 more. They all reacted well for three to four months but after five months they went downhill. I lost 25 of my best cancer cases. Only six I could save again. That was the disaster from the hormone treatment. The Gunther boy was another disaster. That was not necessary. I want to reemphasize that we must not give the cancer patient "a little something" for temporary relief. I learned that the hard way.

Q. Your treatment worked in advanced cases of cancer of the liver?

A. If more than half to three-quarters of the liver is gone, you can't restore its function enough to save the patient. You may save them for half a year to a year, but then the liver may shrink and the patients die of a shrunken liver, cirrhosis of the liver. The liver is such an important organ that when it has to eliminate its own cancer, this has to be done by the healthy liver tissue. But the process of elimination can damage the healthy liver tissue if we don't detoxify constantly day and night, especially in these cases.

Now about three or four months ago a case came to me from Philadelphia. She told me when her son and. brother brought her in that she had suffered from cancer of the rectum. At first the doctors didn't want to operate, then they couldn't. It was too late. Then she spent a half year at the Hoxey Clinic, and then she came home with a liver full of cancer, and hard as a board. I told her son and brother that this was too much, it wouldn't go. Take her home and make her comfortable. But they insisted I must try. And I did. And she is doing well! She can eat and drink, and the anterior part of her liver is a scar, hard as though it were calcified. Probably there is enough liver left. The son asked when they took her home after eight weeks, "You see, why didn't you want to take her?" At least for four weeks, every two hours and sometimes even every hour, she took coffee enema and castor oil enemas twice a day! She had so much gas and eliminated such large amounts of evil-smelling masses. When she left, we had to paint the room. It couldn't be washed off the paint.

(Comment by M.C.: "I may say that I have looked through a lot of these places in a general way. I have been through Dr. Gerson's sanatorium on three different occasions and spent each time eight or ten days. I saw cases come in there by ambulance, on stretchers - just like Dr. Gerson said -hopeless metastatic cancers of the liver, the intestines, with obstructions, getting morphine every three to four hours. To my amazement within ten days these same patients would be walking around, free from pain. I was so amazed I couldn't understand it. It was so incredible that I made my son who was a senior in medical school come back with me to see these things. But it was not only cancer. I saw cases there of other degenerative diseases of all types.")

Q. Is folic acid treatment contra-indicated during treatment of cancer?

A. Yes, (synthetic) folic acid did damage.

Q. Can arthritis be cured by the same treatment which you use for cancer?

A. Yes. The treatment is not specific. It is not a specific treatment for cancer.

Q. How do you account for the fact that many skin cancers and some other cancers can be surgically removed and they never regrow or recur, even though no metabolic changes have been made?

A. Some patients have only temporary damage of the liver and the liver is then able to restore itself. But that is not in a majority of the cases. Sometimes if you remove, say a breast cancer, the removal of these toxins and poisons which the cancer itself generates is sufficient in some cases to relieve the temporary damage from the liver. Then the liver can recover. But these are the exceptions. And it is not basic. Also some of these patients get recurrences later. Many of my patients, after an initial operation, had stayed well for three or sometimes even five years. Then the cancer recurred. They were inoperable and orthodox medicine was helpless. Q. Would it not be advantageous for the cancer patients to remain permanently on a vegetarian diet for the rest of their lives?

A. That depends on how far the liver can be restored. If it can be restored entirely, after say 1½ years, we tell the patients only to avoid fats and salt. Otherwise they are free. Many of them lead normal lives. But I'd like to say that about 75% like to stay more or less on the diet, and some even convince the other members of their families to stay on it with them. For instance, we have a photograph here in Escondido of Mr. Walter Wagg. He had a 100% incurable disease, progressive muscular dystrophy. He had been in the best clinics and could get no help. I cured him. Then his wife wanted to have another baby and they were able to have one. Later he came to where I was spending my vacation and showed me his wife and the baby. He told me that the whole family sticks to the diet and said he would stay with it as long as he lived since he is in such fine condition.

Q. What can be done for impaired lymph circulation following surgery in one arm for what was diagnosed as cancer?

A. It is very difficult to absorb these scars so that the lymph circulation can be restored, a very difficult task. It takes years.

Q. What is your conception of a prolonged fast or periodical three-day fast?

A. You can't let the cancer patient fast. In the cancer patient the body is so depleted, if you let them fast they go downhill terribly.

Q. What would you consider more important, diet or balanced emotions?

A. The balanced emotional condition is very important but without the diet and the detoxification you cannot heal.

Q. Would Parkinson's disease respond to a treatment similar as that for cancer?

A. What is destroyed in the central nervous system - and Parkinson's disease is a disease of the basal centers - is destroyed forever. But you are able to help the arteries in the brain with the treatment, and you can stop the progression, and you can restore what is not yet entirely destroyed.

Q. Does anemia contribute to cancer?

A. Sometimes it is a pre-condition to cancer, especially a certain type of anemia, not the so-called secondary anemia.

Q. Can too much vegetable juice cause alkalinity?

A. No.

Q. Dr. Otto Warburg advises increased intake of oxygen.

A. Oxygen would not go into the system so easily. You must have oxidizing enzymes, you must have more potassium, you must have the conditions under which oxygen can function.

Q. What vitamins are OK to take with your treatment?

A. With the vitamins we have a similar situation as we saw with the hormones. I damaged patients with vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin B and B6. Patients get really damaged. Vitamin A and D is picked up by the cancer cells immediately. Niacin we can use, that is B-3. (Editor's Note: the Gerson Diet is extremely high in natural vitamins. Cancer patients are probably very sensitive to overdosage with synthetic vitamin preparations.)

Q. What do you think of deep manipulation?

A. Cancer patients should not be massaged. Rubbing of the skin to open the capillaries and to help the body to stimulate the circulation is very valuable. We give the patient a rub two or three times a day before meals with a solution of ½ glass water with two tablespoons rubbing alcohol and two tablespoons of wine vinegar. To rub the whole body is very refreshing and helps the circulation.

Q. Can a person with a colostomy take the same type of coffee enema as a regular patient?

A. Yes.

Q. What are the principles of the coffee enema?

A. It opens the bile ducts. This is the principle.

Q. How can we prevent cancer?

A. Cancer must be prevented by preventing damage to the liver. The basic measure of prevention is not to eat the damaged, dead, poisoned food which we bring into our bodies. Every day, day by day, we poison our bodies. The older people still have a better liver and resistance from the food they had when they were young. The younger people get worse and the babies, now the second generation on canned baby foods, are still worse. They get leukemias. First of all, eat as much as you can of raw food, keep the potassium level up, and take some iodine.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. F. Sauerbruch, A. Herrmannsdorfer and M. Gerson, "Ueber Versuche, schwere Formen der Tuberkulose durch dietetische Behandlungen zu becinflussen," Muench. Med. Wochenschr., 2, 1(1926).

2. M. Gerson, ibid, 77, 967 (1930).

3. M. Gerson, "Phosphorlebertran und die Gerson-Herrrnannsdorfersche Diat zur Heilung der Tuberkulose," Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr., 12, 1(1930).

4. F. Sauerbruch, A. Herrmannsdorfer and M. Gerson, Muench. Med. Wochenschr, 23 (1930).

5. M. Gerson, "Wiederherstellung der verschiedenen Gefuchiqualitaeten bei der Lupushei. lung," Verli. Disch. Ge:. Inn. Med., 43, 77 (1931).

6. M. Gerson, Diattherapie der Lungentuberkulose, Deuticke, Vienne, 1934.

7. M. Gerson, "Einiges ucher die kochsalzarme Diat," Hyppokokrates Z. Einheitsbestr. Gegenwarismed., 12, 627 (1931).

8. F. Sauerbruch, Das War Mein Leben, Kindler und Schiermeyer Verlag, Bad Woerischofen, 1951, pp 363-371. This contains an account of how the author learned of Gerson's work by an accidental conversation on the train with one of Gerson's cured TB patients, which led to a large scale successful trial of the Gerson TB therapy at the Sauerbruch clinic.

9. E. Urbach and E. B. Le Winn, Skin Diseases, Nutrition, and Metabolism. Grune and Stratton, New York, 1946, pp 4, 65-67, 530-537. This contains a comprehensive review (in English) of the successful use of the Gerson therapy to cure tuberculosis of the skin.

10. M. Gerson, "Dietary considerations in malignant neoplastic disease. A preliminary report," Rev. GastroenteroL, 12, 419 (1945).

11. "Effects of a combined dietary regime on patients with malignant tumors," Exp. Med. Surg., 7, 299 (1949).

12. F. W. Cope, "A medical application of the Ling association-induction hypothesis: The high potassium, low sodium diet of the Gerson cancer therapy," Physiol. Chem. Phys., 10, 465 (1978).

13. M. Gerson, "Diattherapie boesartiger Erkrankungen (Krebs)," in Handbuch der Diatetik. Scala, Ed., Deuticke, Vienna, 1954, pp 123-169.

14. M. Gerson, A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases, Third Ed., Totality Books, Box 1035, Del Mar, California, 1977. This is comprehensive description of the Gerson method of cancer treatment written both for the physician and for the layman.

GERSON THERAPY: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

by Tony Jackson

Diagnosed with advanced cancer in February 2002, I was told that I would probably not have as long as five weeks to live unless I followed the orthodox methods. I did not altogether reject conventional treatment, eventually having surgery for which I was extremely grateful. The biopsy was Dukes C3 staging meant the tumour had burst the colon and had been found extensively in my lymph. My situation was further complicated when blood tests showed I was also Hepatitis B & C positive.

The devastating effects of chemotherapy on friends as well as my sister's suffering as she was subjected to one session after another of experimental chemotherapy to no avail following spread of breast cancer, was instrumental in me choosing against all the pressure, to take an holistic approach combining Gerson treatment with high dose supplementation designed to boost the immune system and create an internal bio-environment detrimental to cancer. Treatment included detoxification procedures such as three coffee enemas a day.

This was an informed choice based on well-documented developments in nutrition and Orthomolecular Oncology, which provides ample evidence and clinical records of people being cured of even late stage cancers by alternative, if controversial methods. I have lost, as I am sure we all have, only too many good friends and family to cancer to realize that conventional answers are not forthcoming. Tumours may be shrunk but Metastasis is the killer. If conventional treatment were so successful why on earth should I and others like me seek elsewhere?

In response to some of the comments made by the medical profession, I would like to set the record straight. The American Cancer Society tells us that there is no reason for coffee enemas to work, that they are dangerous and in extreme circumstances can cause death. Does that mean that cancer is less dangerous and that chemotherapy is a benign treatment, which is always 100% efficacious? As for why they work; coffee contains choleretics, substances that increase the flow of toxin-rich bile from the gall bladder. The coffee enema is among the only pharmaceutically effective cholorectics noted in medical literature that can be safely used many times without toxic effects. Coffee enemas are no less bizarre that mustard gas, which is the origination of chemotherapy.

Costs of the Gerson treatment, we are told, can be high. How much does conventional treatment cost the taxpayer and groaning NHS per patient per annum? According to the Wall St. Journal, 16 October, 2002, over $2 trillion has been spent on cancer research and treatments. Numbers dying from the disease are soaring to plague proportions with one in two projected within the next twenty years. In the developed world it is already one in three. Yet we are constantly being informed that 'the magic bullet is just around the corner.'

"Rather than narrow the research spectrum we have a duty to humanity to throw the door open and explore every single avenue yet alternative treatments are continuously vilified without any honest research into their efficacy. Moves are afoot through current EU
http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v3n21.txt
and Codex Alimentarius directives http://www.doctoryourself.com/supplement_limit.html
and http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v2n12.txt,
eventually intended for global implementation, to ban every nutrient that I and others take to deal with cancer as well as many other degenerative conditions on the basis of being 'unproven,' even though these same supplements have papers published in respectable scientific journals for peer review showing much to recommend them. It is a scandal that this choice is to be removed from mature adults by legislation. Good nutrition is our Common Wealth but modern, chemically saturated, farming techniques, has stripped the soil of essential nutrients, which can only be replaced by nutritional supplementation. Cancer kills its host and the plundering of the earth's resources by the few will do the same.

Dr. Max Gerson was, as Albert Schweitzer said, a genius. As a fellow human being Prince Charles has every right to state an opinion as much as the next man. If his detractors have the answer, then where is it?"

(Doctor Yourself editor's note: Another article by Mr. Jackson on the benefits of the Gerson therapy appeared in the UK newspaper The Guardian, and is posted at
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1115514,00.html
His email is tjaxon@bigfoot.com.

A search for "Gerson" at http://www.doctoryourself.com will bring you much more information on this important therapy.

Gerson Therapy

Max Gerson, M.D., was a refugee from Nazi Germany who immigrated to the U.S. in 1936 where he practiced the dietary and detoxification therapies he had developed during his distinguished medical career in Germany. He came under severe persecution for his methods by the New York State Medical Society. His methods still are listed under the "Unproven Therapies" blacklist of the ACS, even though his diet for cancer has an uncanny resemblance to the ACS diet, adopted in 1984, which is recommended to prevent cancer — 48 years after Gerson first applied these principles to the treatment of cancer in the U.S.

Gerson Therapy emphasizes fresh, organically grown, raw vegetables and fresh juices made from same. The primary detoxification method is the coffee enema, which allows the liver to relax its drainage system and discharge accumulated toxins. All types of cancers are said to respond and, during his lifetime, Gerson reported a thirty-percent, five-year survival rate for the "incurable" cancers in advanced stages. Gerson Therapy is most effective in lymphoma and melanoma and least effective with leukemia.

I have been researching alternative healing for cancer for two years now. I've learned about great books, and great websites. My email is kellykebby@yahoo.com and you can email me any time.

As never before, there is a wealth of information at our fingertips on the Internet and in books. In my search for a natural cure to my own illness, lupus, I have come across a common theme, which is go back to nature. The body doesn't want to be sick. It has wonderful mechanisms to heal itself.

Dr. Max Gerson is a hero to me. In the early 1900's, he suffered from migraines. He tried dietary changes, which successfully treated these migraines. Later he applied his dietary regimen to lupus patients in his practice, with great results. Dr. Gerson reasoned that a high intake of potassium-rich foods allowed toxins to pass out of cells much easier. Consequently, a diet high in salt would keep those toxins in. When toxins are in the cell, healing enzymes have trouble getting in. Soon, he was treating cancer patients with his diet, often with remarkable results. This occurred in the 1950s when today's current technology was not available to him. To have achieved what he did at that time makes him brilliant and a true visionary.

My first recommendation is that you start consuming pure organic juices, especially carrot, spinach, and apple, as well as barley juice (green) powder (barley grass), and wheat grass juice.

These are the things that heal. They flood the body with potassium. They boost the immune system. They send healing enzymes where cells need them most. Cancer cannot survive in a well-oxygenated environment and an alkaline body means that it is well-oxygenated. Foods that produce acid in the body are meats, dairy products, grains, processed and cooked foods, and refined sugar. You alkalize your body by eating raw or only slightly cooked vegetables and fruits. A cancer specialist here told me that vitamin A (like in spinach and carrot juice) can reverse the mutations that lead to cancer (p53 gene), so it would seem that antioxidants might be able to actually "right" your cells.

This info correlates to the Gerson therapy and other raw veggie and fruit juice regimen successes. One would be Rev. Malkmus of Hallelujah acres. He had a big tumor in his colon. He began drinking nothing but carrot juice and barley grass powder drinks and it reversed itself. The tumor was absorbed by the body. I have learned that once people stop putting so much nutrient depleted foods in their bodies with excess hormones and protein, the body starts to digest what is most foreign to it (cancer).

Read books by Max Gerson MD or his daughter Charlotte, they are a must.

A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer by Dr. Gerson. These are 50 cases of cancer which were reversed by diet. This book was written some fifty years ago, but details well how the body must receive more potassium than salt to detoxify and heal. Doctor Gerson, who wrote the book in the 50's, used raw calf liver as his only animal food, while today it may be prudent to take fresh flax seed oil supplements or cod liver oil supplements instead. Though it was written 50 years ago it could be the most valuable book you ever buy.

Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer lists doctors who have been successful using diet and supplements, some intravenous. It lists their actual protocol and results and tells you how to get in touch with their clinics. The people who wrote and took part in this book believe that cancer is a reversible condition.

A Cancer Battle Plan: Six Strategies for Beating Cancer, from a Recovered "Hopeless Case" and A Cancer Battle Plan Sourcebook: A Step-by-Step Health Program to Give Your Body a Fighting Chance, and The Gerson Therapy, by Carlotte Gerson published in 2000. A Cancer Battle Plan is a great beginning book, because it is explains in layman's terms why you need to do all these things, so it is a great companion to Dr. Gerson's book.

To facilitate detoxification and cleansing, most naturopaths would recommend water or coffee enemas given at least twice a day to open up the bile ducts and stimulate the liver. This prevents the contents of the colon from being reabsorbed into the blood stream, with more toxins for the liver to try to eliminate.

While doing these things mentioned above, you can look into these:

pancreatic enzymes (digestive enzymes like lipase, protease, and amylase)
ellagic acid (Raspberry seed)
Graviola powder
Pau d'Arco tea
shark cartilage (Tamahi Calcium is better)
selenium
Essiac tea
The Johanna Budwig diet
Vitamin B17 (nitrilosides)

Vitamin B17, also called nitrilosides, have not really been consumed regularly in America for a long while. In areas where they are consumed year round, the cancer rates are extremely low. Nitrilosides are found in:

High: wild blackberry, choke cherry, wild crabapple, cranberry, apple seeds, apricot seeds, cherry seed, nectarine seed, peach seed, plum seed, prune seed, bitter almond, broad beans, cassava, alfalfa

Medium to high: elderberry, gooseberry, macadamia nuts, mung beans

Medium: boysenberry, currant, loganberry, mulberry, raspberry, buckwheat, linseed, millet, squash seeds, lentils, Burma butter (lima) beans, alfalfa sprouts, broad bean sprouts, chick pea sprouts, mung bean sprouts

Low to medium: black-eyed beans, chick peas, kidney beans

Low: domestic blackberry, market crabapple, black beans, green peas, U.S. butter beans (lima), shell beans, cashews, beet tops, spinach, watercress, sweet potato, yams and they are found in other foods too... like grapeseeds.

People just don't eat like they used to, seeds and things like that. I recommend that you juice apples and leave the seeds in them. (I am doing this. I have lupus and have a familial predisposition to cancer. Already I have noticed less arthritis when I drink fresh juices and avoid wheat and meat). Vitamin B17 "eats the shield" around cancer cells exposing them to other enzymes that kill these cells. These enzymes are produced in the pancreas. They digest protein that we eat. If we eat excessive animal protein these valuable digestive enzymes are used for those, but if you eat veggie proteins and fast a bit, there will be more pancreatic enzymes in the blood stream to eat up foreign proteins like cancer cells. You can start taking supplements with your food. After the age of 35, people's enzyme production goes down, but you can also get these types of enzymes naturally from raw fruits and vegetables.

There is an ingredient in Essiac tea that is said to cause the cancer cell to commit apoptosis or suicide. Essiac tea can be taken during chemotherapy to make you stronger. Graviola tree powder and ellagic acid from raspberries are said to have this property of causing cancer cell death as well while sparing normal cells. I haven't done much research on Pau d'Arco but I have heard wonderful things about it. It may be even more potent against cancer than Essiac tea.

The Johanna Budwig diet. She was nominated for Nobel Prize 7 times for her discoveries about fats and healing. She has been very successful with cancer. It is also called the flax seed oil - cottage cheese diet. The sulphur compounds in the cottage cheese (or yogurt) bind with the Omega 3 fatty acids and send them all over the body, spreading healing oxygen. These Omega 3 fatty acids are necessary for basic living, hormone production, etc. The American diet is highly deficient in them. Make sure you buy a flax oil product that is bottled under the best conditions.

Six Must Dos, from a speech given by Dr. William D. Kelley. The examples are mine (not a part of Dr. Kelley's speech).

1. Detoxification (juice fasting, enemas, antioxidants, barley juice powder, much more)
2. Nutrition and Oxygenation (flax seed oil, cod liver oil, juice fasting, veggies, fruits, barley juice (green) powder, much more)
3. Immune system building (Essiac tea, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, shark cartilage, maitake, reishi, shitake mushrooms, juice fasting, much more)
4. Enzymatic Therapy (barley juice powder, greens, more)
5. Mental healing, meditation, prayer
6. Non-toxic natural chemotherapy (ellagic acid, graviola tree powder, Pau d'Arco tea, Essiac tea, more)

I will condense here my suggestions for what is most necessary:

• freshly made juices, vegetable and fruit, throughout the day
• no meat, no dairy products (except cottage cheese or yogurt), no processed foods, no refined sugar
• supplementation with pancreatic enzymes
• raw foods that contain vitamin B17
• enemas
• Pau d' Arco tea
• flax seed oil

I hope I have helped you with this information. There are cancer survivors who have followed the above protocols and are cancer free. In the most recent book "The Gerson Therapy" there are pictures of actual people, their names and their advice for people who are suffering from cancer. It is not a money-making tool, to teach people how to eat to heal. It is a sad sad thing that has happened to the medical industry in America. There is a Gerson clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. Most of these clinics have been forced out of the U.S. but there are complementary physicians, some possibly in your area who believe wholeheartedly in the natural treatment of cancer coinciding with some traditional treatments. These doctors are found in the Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer , across the U.S., the book gives their locations and phone numbers.

Here are websites with information related to what I have written above. I wish you all the best. Please email me if you have any questions. Thank you, Kelly in PA.

http://www.healthquarters.org/
http://www.cancer-prevention.net/
http://www.drkelley.com/CANLIVER55.html#_Toc434239836
http://www.anticancerinfo.co.uk/prevention.htm#foods
http://www.plantmiracle.com/indexeng.php
http://www.holistichealthline.com/
http://www3.mailordercentral.com/hacres/
http://www.pau-d-arco.com/Patent.html
http://www.alternative-treatments.com/alternative-cancer-treatment-medicines.htm

Disclaimer: In our regulated society we are not permitted to make claims to consumers in support of health benefits derived from foods. This means we cannot make specific statements as to how food-based, non-drug products may help prevent or treat diseases. If we were to succeed, our government would attempt to re-classify that food as a drug! Eating any food or a concentrated natural product should be a decision based on your personal research and understanding. Food-derived antioxidants, minerals and enzymes play an important role in your health. The information we provide in this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for advice from a health care professional. It should not be used for diagnosis or treatment of any health problem or construed as a prescription of a medication or other treatment. We cannot and do not claim that the products we offer will prevent, cure, treat or diagnose a disease in humans or animals. Natural healing is inherently unpredictable, and results will vary widely.