I recently did an elective rotation at TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, CA to learn about water-only fasting for disease reversal. Could these recovery stories I’d been hearing be true? TrueNorth is a residential facility founded in the 1980’s where patients come for days to months to address a variety of chronic conditions. Those eligible undergo a water-only fast that can last up to 40 days, though the average fast is more like 10 days. Other patients who cannot fast because of a particular medical condition or medication come to TrueNorth simply to eat.
The food is vegan and unprocessed. Creative and satisfying dishes are made without oil, sugar, or salt. Imagine colorful buffet tubs piled with greens, cucumber tomato salads, edamame or chickpea salads, wild rice or quinoa, black eyed peas or lentils with root vegetables, steamed chard or brussel sprouts, eggplant curry, baked potatoes, and tropical fruit salad. There is much more, but you get the idea.
I knew a whole plant food style of eating could reverse the majority of chronic diseases, but was still blown away by its efficiency. During my four-week stay I saw dozens of patients safely come off their blood pressure medications. I watched their excess weight dissolve at around one pound per day. Diabetes medications were routinely de-prescribed. And many cardiac arrhythmias reverted to regular rhythms for the first time in years. These were people eating unrestricted amounts of delicious food three times per day.
Fasting patients were another story. One middle-aged man lost 35 pounds while I was there, after losing 50 pounds this summer on whole plant foods. When I left he was on track to break into the 200’s, a size he hadn’t been since his twenties. A former patient presented his story weekly. He had been severely obese and disabled, but underwent a fast which jumpstarted his adopting healthy habits. He would ultimately lose 190 pounds. Beyond the normal BMI and metabolic biomarkers, he now exuded vitality and appreciation.
A woman with lupus had her facial rash, ballooned knees, and debilitating wrist and finger pain disappear within days. Meanwhile a man with rheumatoid arthritis was finally able to stop his anti-rheumatic drugs. Seemingly intractable skin conditions like severe psoriasis resolved in the fasting state. Perhaps most bewildering were the lymphoma patients, several of whom underwent fasts during my stay. Medical imaging will determine any changes in their tumors, but lymphoma has been shown to be susceptible to water-only fasting.
How could not eating food have such dramatic effects? First, most of our medical conditions result from the food we have been eating. It would make sense that taking a break from inflammatory animal products and other processed foods, along with alcohol and tobacco, is a requisite first step. Next, after a couple days without food, the body switches from burning carbohydrates to burning fat. This is ketosis, a physiologic state associated with numerous metabolic benefits (note the crucial difference between ketosis achieved via sporadic fasting, versus ketosis achieved via an indefinite diet high in protein and fat). Finally, fasting promotes autophagy in which impaired cells are destroyed and their components recycled to develop robust new cells. This is an important mechanism behind the prevention and treatment of disease from diabetes to inflammatory bowel disease to lung cancer.
Fasting may seem radical, but that word comes from root, and healing occurs when we confront the root cause.
Note: fasting requires medical clearance and supervision.
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