[seekay]

dear susi,

you may want to investigate/research the role of liver function in the body and ways to improve bile flow, remove possible obstructions to bile ducts, and to support liver function in general through nutrition and certain herbs like burdock root, dandelion, milk thistle. i think you are astute to consider the possible connection between constipation and cancer. when the body is unable to excrete toxins at an adequate rate, the build-up of them in the body can screw up the immune system, cellular functions, a lot of things.

laxatives aren’t the answer, i think, because they don’t address the root of the problem.

[seekay]

Dear California Mom,

If you go to http://www.vidaza.com and click on the professional’s information site, there you can read all the clinical trials that were done before the drug was approved (or was in the process of being approved) by the FDA.

There are long term studies there.

Best,

Christine

[seekay]

Marla mentioned CSAs. Here’s one that delivers to Los Angeles.

http://www.tierramiguelfarm.org/csa.htm

I talked to them a couple of weeks ago, and they were supposed to email a reg form, but so far nothing.

The cost is not bad. I recall it was $180 or so, for a delivery every other week per quarter (is that three months?). $300 for a delivery each week. They deliver to a location near you. They’re just starting delivery in my neighborhood (Studio City).

You can see a selection of a sample box on their website.

Christine

[seekay]

Hi Chuck,

I would only juice organic produce. Don’t worry too much about what it looks like, unless it is slimy. Organic produce is not supposed to look perfect and beautiful the way conventional does.

If you juice conventional produce, you are getting high concentrations of whatever pesticide residues are left on the produce. That is very harmful.

Also organic produce is far more nutrient dense than conventional.

Have you looked at the other juicing thread that you started? I described carrot-apple juice and a green lettuce-apple juice recipes that are the mainstays I use at home.

Hope this helps.

Christine

[seekay]

You could mix the prunes with the watery oatmeal as well. That might be really good. Could add some slippery elm to that while you’re at it.

Sheep’s yoghurt? Interesting. I’ve heard of goat milk products. Might be careful with dairy proteins though, espec while his system is so sensitive.

Glad to hear something’s working! I agree with Marla about focusing on the liver. It is the key organ in all of this.

C

[seekay]

One more thing, and then I’ll call it a night–

If you want to try some juice, the green juices may not be the best choice for now. They are the most difficult for a sick person to tolerate.

You might try just a little carrot-apple juice. All organic, skins on. Washed in distilled water. I usually juice 4 regular size carrots and one organic apple, like a Granny Smith, in the morning. I think it’s the right proportion. This and the green juice are the mainstays of the Gerson juices. They are combined with the coffee enemas, which allows one to drink large amounts of juice without fear of the quick detoxing effect that they have on the body.

If drinking juice only–without the coffee enema, one is advised to start slow and to stay with small quantites of juice (depending on which juicer is being used, the strength of the juice will vary).

That is a detoxifying drink that will stimulate some bowel movement, HIGHLY nourishing as well. Apparently, babies who can’t tolerate dairy or soy have been known to live and thrive on just carrot juice.

Carrots are a “wunder” food (if you read my previous post).

[seekay]

Sorry about the typos. I hope everything is clear.

Once the body detoxes enough, I would think the headache will go away. That’s been my experience.

Christine

[seekay]

Dear Marlene,

Very sorry to hear of John’s situation right now. I think you pinpoint the problem, though: headache, nausea, and vomiting means (to me) that his sytem has high levels of toxins in it, from the drugs, that the liver is having a hard time getting rid of. The toxin level is high in his blood stream right now, and throughout his body, hence headache–and his liver can’t cleanse the body fast enough, hence vomiting and nausea (because of irritation to the digestive tract and also to prevent added stress on the digestive/elimination system).

For nausea and vomiting, Dr. Gerson recommends copious amounts of peppermint tea, gruel with tea, gruel with juices, or just plain gruel (recipe follows).

IMPORTANT: USE DISTILLED WATER ONLY, make sure there’s no chlorine or fluoride in it, storebought spring water (like Poland Spring, or Arrowhead out here in CA, is not necessarily safe to use [I know for ex, that Arrowhead spring water has lots of fluoride in it; their drinking water, which is distilled with minerals added back in, does not]–try to get the freshest distilled water you can–I’m a little suspicious of those gallon jugs in the opaque plastic that one buys at the supermarket, although at least with hard plastic baby bottles opaque plastic is safer than the clear,

To help sooth irritated stomach: gruel (liquid oatmeal)
–5 parts distilled water to 1 part organic rolled oats. Place in saucepan and bring to a boi. Let simmer approx 5-10 minutes (depending on type of oats). Cool and pass through a fine strainer, pushing the oats through the fine mesh so you can obtain a semi-liquid, viscous, drinkable mix.

2 ozs of gruel can be added to 6 ounces of juice or peppermint tea.

If the peppermint tea and gruel helps to soothe the stomach, then you might try adding a little of a liver detoxing agent. I’m not sure what the best oral agent is for stimulating/helping the liver. There is burdock root, which is a bile-stimulating herb. Dandelion, which you could also try juicing a bit (if you can find organic dandelion leaf), and mixing with the very watery oatmeal gruel to help keep it down.

Nature’s Sunshine makes an Essiac capsule, which at least one person on this website (Sugarwhale’s mom?) has had great success with. The Essiac also stimulates bile flow. If he can’t take a capsule, perhaps trying the tea version, but quality is very important here. Perhaps the Flora brand might be worth trying.
I guess might try the Essiac capsule, opened up and dumped in some watery organic oatmeal gruel. Also, some high quality milk thistle might be a good thing to start taking. It is primarily liver protective, but also has a mild bile-stimulating effect on the liver.

If it were my husband, I would keep all drugs away from him (including OTC aspirin, acetaminophen, etc.). This will give his body a chance to get rid of what’s there right now, without adding to the burdens.

You didn’t mention diarrhea. There are other guidelines for that.

Also, even a small amount of juice, if he can keep it down long enough to get abosrbed, will also help his body detox. Here’s a lovely, informative quote from The Little Juicing Book compiled by Rysia Ziendalski for the Gerson Support Group copyright 1999:

“Why Juice?

Why not simply eat the whole fruit or vegetable?

It is impossible to eat in solid form that large amount of apples, carrots, and greens needed to be consumed daily.

Many fruits and vegetables are about 90% water and nutrients in solution, the remaining 10% being solids – fibrous and cell-wall materials. Within the gaps of these fibres are atoms and molecules in solution which are the essential nutritional elements needed by the human body. In order to extract this fluid and these nutrients, it is essential to first break up all the cell walls completely to allow all the water and nutrients to separate themselves from the solids.

It is these atoms and molecules and their respective enzymes in the fresh, raw juices which aid the speedy nourishment of the cells that constitute the tissues, glands, organs and all other parts of the body. When we extract and drink the juices of vegetables and fruit, these are very quickly digested and assimilated by the body. Solid food, on the other hand, has to be digested over many hours before the nourishment becomes available to the cells and tissues of the body. Fruit and vegetable juices, however, only take a matter of minutes to be digested, with minimum effort and exertion on the part of the digestive tract.

Juices consist of living matter with active ferments, fast neutralizing oxidizing enzymes, which are very necessary for the sick body. The body needs a continuous supply of active oxidizing enzumes supplied at regular intervals throughout the day. These cannot be kept active, except by drinking freshly pressed juices, given at hourly intervals.

Juices aren’t concentrated food, they are a very liquid food, mostly organic water of the finest quality with the nourishing atoms and molescules in comparatively microscopic volume. It is these nourishing atoms and molecules of which the cells and tissues are starved!

Juices should be drunk immediately, especially the green juice, as the enzymes begin to deteriorate rapidly within 20 minutes. The oxidation enzymes of these juices, once pressed out of the cells and activated, are easily destroyed by oxygen from the air as well as from changes in light and temperature. They may lose 60% of their active oxidation power within half an hour.

–Another instructional Gerson point, if you are juicing regularly, don’t give too much water because it interferes with the absorption/assimilation of the juices and other nutrients (I think it has to do with diluting the hydrochloric acid which in the cancer patient already is compromised). There is plenty of high quality water in the juice. On the Gerson diet, there are guidelines about drinking plain water, although I would imagine these are loosened when vomiting or diarrhea are present.

Hope these suggestions are useful…

Christine

[seekay]

Dear Marlene and Marla,

I should clarify that Gerson does advocate eating celery (it is recommended to substitute celery for the celeriac root in the Hippocrates soup, if celeriac can’t be found), and also that the elements of the diet, and the proscription against juicing certain items, are all tailored to aid in the body’s healing from chronic degenerative diseases.

It may well be that for a relatively healthy person, juicing some celery does provide benefits that are not outweighed by the comparatively high amounts of sodium (compared to other veggies) that one gets in celery juice.

The K+ vs. Na+ issue to which I referred earlier is described by Dr. Freeman Cope and is called tissue damage syndrome. It is, briefly, a state in the body in which cell proteins lose their preference for association with K+ (potassium ions), in favor of Na+ (sodium ions) and the cells swell with too much water. This is recognized outwardly is edema, which is a problem because it interferes with the manufacture of ATP. If cells don’t have ATP, they die, then tissue/organs can die, etc.

Dr. Gerson found that putting such people on a salt free/potassium rich diet, and supplementing with a potassium solution of 33 g each of potassium acetate, monoposphate and gluconate, diluted in 32 grams distilled water which is added to certain of the daily juices in 1-4 tsp amounts resulted in restoring normal sodium-potassium ratios and stopping tissue damage syndrome.

Hope this helps!

Christine

[seekay]

Re–celery and sodium

There is at least one chapter in Gerson’s A Cancer Therapy that discusses the potassium-sodium balance intracellularly and extracellularly. My layperson’s understanding of the Gerson position is that in chronically diseased persons, one often finds excess sodium and low potassium in the cells. In the healthy individual (and also in infants), there are higher amounts of potassium intra-cellularly.

What Dr. Gerson found was that putting such persons on a salt-free diet (which means removing any added salt from the diet), and providing much more potassium, in food and certain potassium supplements (but not potassium chloride, which apparently is what one gets in the hospital) helped to restore a healthy potassium/sodium ratio and resulted in many edema kind of problems associated with cancer going away.

He also found that re-starting a diet that included adding salt and sodium rich foods often re-ignited the cancer.

Charlotte maintains that one can get all the sodium we need from eating vegetables, that there is no need to supplement with added salt or added sodium. The body holds onto what it needs and excretes what it doesn’t need, which is why perspiration is salty. Potassium, on the other hand, is not something the body “holds onto” like sodium.

Eventually, if one stays on the salt-free diet and does not consume excess sodium, one’s perspiration (and saliva) will no longer be salty, according to Charlotte Gerson.

I did not fully understand the Na, K ions biochemical discussion in the book on this topic, but there is much more there. I also know that Bernard Jensen “likes” sodium too (although he is not an MD). So go figure.

I don’t know what Gerson says about juicing cucumbers. I think the reason it’s on the “do not eat” list is because they have found that cancer patients (who often have compromised digestive systems) have difficulty digesting them. It may be that juicing cucumbers and berries eliminates that issue.

Christine

[seekay]

Dear Marlene,

I am not sure that juicing celery is a good idea; it contains “too much sodium” according to the Gerson juicing booklet I have. Also, not good to juice (according to that book) are: beetroot (too much sugar, though 2-3 small inner leaves of beetroot tops can be used when available), spinach (too much oxalic acid), and alfalfa sprouts or any other sprouting seed (all are rich in an amino acid called L-canavanine which can be very toxic to humans as well as to animals when taken in quantity)

L-canavanine is particularly problematic for auto-immune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or any other inflammatory condition, creating toxic reactions in susceptible persons when ingested in large amounts.

Also, you mentioned berries and a whey protein shake in the morning? I don’t know about whey protein (is that a wheat product? wheat is problematic), but most berries are on the forbidden list of Gerson foods because they are difficult for cancer patients to digest. Perhaps juicing remedies this issue, perhaps not– I don’t know.

The green juice recipe in the juicing booklet I have is the following:

mostly lettuce (preferably Cos, which I think means Romaine–this book was written by a Brit)
2-3 small inner leaves of Swiss chard (when avail)
2-3 small inner leaves of beeet root TOPS (when avail)
endive (escarole, chicory)
no more than 6 leaves well washed watercress
a quarter of a small/medium green pepper
1-2 leaves of red cabbage
1 medium apple (like a Granny Smith or similar low sugar apple)

–Taken from “The Little Juicing Book, complied by Rysia Ziendalski for the Gerson Support Group, c 1999

Basically, you mix 8 ozs of the greens, with 8 ozs of apple, then drink immediately, do not wait. For example, you can use mostly Romaine lettuce, and then add a little red cabbage and some organic green pepper, and a granny smith apple–that’s what we’ve been making recently at our house, since I have all that stuff in the fridge anyway. It tastes good.

A word about the apples, they are GREAT to mix with carrots, or with the greens, because the malic acid in the apple has the effect of releasing even more of the phytochemicals from the vegetable being juiced. So I alternate when I put them in the juicer: a little carrot, a little apple, a little carrot, etc.

Or the same for the green juice.

[seekay]

Hi Marla,

Yes, I’ll email you privately. One thing I want to say though, in response to the Gerson Q&A you saw (I saw that too) is that I think I read somewhere an explanation for that response. I think I read that once one reaches the acute stage of any of the leukemias, it is difficult to correct the imbalances in the body through the Gerson therapy. I believe I also read that this is one instance in which Charlotte felt it might be appropriate to have some chemo, in order to halt the proliferation of the disease to give the nutrition and detox therapy the chance to do its work.

Christine

[seekay]

Does Dr. Day include the need for coffee enemas? That seems to be a signature element of the Gerson therapy.

[seekay]

Hi Marla,

Yes, I recall your thoughts on vegetarianism and “the dark side.” Very edifying.

I read something online about Dr. Day having started with the Gerson therapy; I think it was her starting point and perhaps she has modified it and created something with a more personal stamp on it since then. [As an aside, I also received the impression, from Dr. Day’s website, that she is interested in making money from sharing her experience and work–not that there’s something wrong with that–but that perhaps also may account for the desire to frame her practice in its own individual light.]

I skimmed some Weston Price material online and am familiar with the inclusion of meat in the traditional diets he observed. I raised this question with Charlotte Gerson, who also obviously was familiar with his work, and I did not get a clear answer. I think for herself, she still favors the vegetarian diet, perhaps because it is more difficult to control for toxins and contaminants once you start eating higher up on the food chain. She did note that the Gerson therapy does allow for animal proteins at a certain point and that the therapy is tailored to the individual based on extensive lab work conducted on a regular basis.

Also, the issue about B12 deficiency in blood related cancers is a very important one, one that Carmen Wheatley uncovered in her work as well. She helped to start two studies that are now underway to see whether B12 deficiency could be at the root of MGUS (which I think means blood disorders of unknown origin, like multiple myeloma and perhaps myelodysplastic syndrome, and aplastic anemia). Also, she is looking into whether B12 can help prevent septicemia–you can read all about this on the http://www.canceraction.org website.

I do not know specifics about Prof Gearin-Tosh’s white counts. I do recall reading that it was believed he had, for quite some time before his death, a more advanced form of MM (the word “smoldering” comes to my mind, I think I read that on the canceraction website). He was severely immunologically compromised, although the Gerson diet and supplements he took made it possible for his immune system to function somewhat, halfway, if you will.

What is Hallelujah Acres? I do know of a newsletter called ACRES and a very knowledgeable agriculture expert who self treated a blood-related cancer with nutrition therapy. Can’t recall his name at the moment.

Christine

[seekay]

I should qualify. That means one is eating the equivalent of 20 lbs of produce a day. 20 lbs–you need two refrigerators to do the therapy properly.

It is a great therapy, and I can see the benefits of it even for someone who is not suffering chronic degenerative disease. On the other hand, I think it would be hard to have my body be that “pure” in this contaminated world in which we live. I ate the diet –including the Hippocrates soup (which is pretty good)–for the three days while I was in San Diego. On the second day, I started having a healing reaction (after drinking three glasses of the carrot-apple juice during the day) and could not eat the restaurant food that evening while out with my aunt.

I had unusual energy, though, throughout the weekend, and my head was so clear the next day. I attribute it all to the diet and was amazed at how powerful that little glass of carrot-apple juice was. It detoxed my body in a matter of hours! I know it was breaking down toxins because I got a bad headache and nausea that only went away several hours after a number of visits to the bathroom.

I was not the only one who experienced the healing reaction–there were many of us. When I told Charlotte about it on Sunday, she laughed a bit and relayed similar stories of physicians having experienced it from the juices.

C

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