are two methods of calorie reduction: continuous and intermittent (on and off). A frequent drawback to continuous calorie restriction is hunger. Another drawback is social occasions. Both of these make calorie restriction difficult. So, intermittent calorie restriction gives the advantage that you can eat anything you want the next day, making it easier.
One study of intermittent calorie reduction found that over a year, mice fed three weeks on and three weeks off a 50% restricted diet with optimum nutrition had eight times less tumors than mice that ate all they wanted!31 More relevantly, a study of humans who fasted one day a month showed they were 39% less likely to have heart disease.32
Fasting for more than three days, however, has the advantage that after the first two or three days hunger generally disappears, and fasting as a means of calorie restriction offers the same health benefits.
One hundred seventy-four people with high blood pressure were treated with a water-only fast for ten to eleven days under medical supervision, and then approximately six days on a low-fat, low-salt, vegan diet. All those who were on medication for high blood pressure were able to discontinue their medication after this treatment.33
This last study was repeated a year later on sixty-eight patients with borderline high blood pressure.34 (Borderline high blood pressure is higher than normal, but not so alarming that medications are immediately essential.) This study also found that water-only fasting reduced blood pressure in the overwhelming majority of cases. More interesting, however, was the finding that drug treatment for high blood pressure on average only lowered it by twelve points; a low-sodium, low-fat, vegan diet with exercise on average lowered it by sixteen points; and the previous water-only fasting study showed it was lowered by thirty-nine points! Perhaps natural treatment is better.
An interesting measure of rejuvenation not mentioned by modern researchers is sexual potency, fertility and drive. Although modern researchers have not mentioned it, it is well documented in the work of Herbert Shelton, who used fasting to treat 35,000 patients at his
Natural Hygiene School.35 He says in The Science and Fine Art of Fasting that although it is not a hard and fast rule, sexual desire and potency usually disappear during the fast and return at the end of it.36 Then he cites several cases of men and women who regained potency and fertility as a result of the fast. (By the way, I have received emails from two women who were unable to conceive before the Master Cleanse, who conceived within a few months of completing it.)
There is another experiment in life extension that is seldom mentioned, but it reveals another reason that calorie restriction works to extend life. Besides, it is a great story.
The Chicken Heart that Lived Forever
On January 17, 1912, a Nobel-prize-winning surgeon, Alexis Carrel, extracted a tiny piece of heart muscle from a chicken embryo and placed it in fresh nutrient solution. In order to remove the metabolic wastes constantly being generated by it, every forty-eight hours he would transfer it to a new flask with a fresh, clean bath of nutrients. Because it grew, the heart muscle had to be regularly trimmed before being moved to its next flask. Thirty years later the tissue was still growing! Keep in mind that the average chicken lives for five to seven years, twenty years being the longest.
When Carrel died in 1944, the tissue was still living. It continued to live until April 1946, when the experiment was deliberately ended.37 Later scientists have not been able to repeat this experiment with the same results, but no one argues that the chicken heart lived for thirty-four years.
This experiment points out the importance of eliminating metabolic wastes, which are by-products of digestion and other normal body functions. They are toxic and must be eliminated; for example, digestion of animal protein produces uric acid which must be eliminated in the urine. Shelton even gives laboratory reports of the amount of toxins eliminated on fasts in The Science and Fine Art of Fasting.38
I have heard people say there is no need for cleansing because the body’s elimination systems normally handle that. That may be true for someone who always exercises, drinks plenty of water, eats plenty of vegetables every day and never smokes, drinks, eats junk food nor over-eats. However, I have never met such a person.
Most people have a backlog of waste that the body’s elimination systems will handle if given the chance. Giving it that chance means a regular period of restricting the quantity and type of food (no junk food, for instance), and can include water fasting, juice fasting or living on a restricted diet of healthy food only.
My Experience with the Master Cleanse
I always feel younger when I am on the Master Cleanse and I frequently hear from people doing the Master Cleanse that their friends say they look ten years younger. A few years ago while I was on the Master Cleanse, I took my grandson, who was probably seven at the time, to the park and we played tag. I was running all around and having a good time. Two somewhat older children watched us for a while and then joined us in the game and we all had a good time. Afterward, my grandson said something to me and called me by his nickname for me, “Pepa,” pronounced “Pee-Pa.” The other boys asked what that was and I told them it meant “Grandfather.” They refused to believe it. They said grandparents just do not run around and play tag. I guess their grandparents did not know about the Master Cleanse.
My point is that the Master Cleanse done three or four times a year as recommended by Stanley Burroughs, the developer of the Master Cleanse, acts as intermittent fasting. In between cleanses, he recommends a vegetarian diet that excludes meat, dairy, fish and processed foods.39 Such a diet, especially one that includes lots of green leafy vegetables, would resupply the body with the alkaline minerals necessary to neutralize the acidic toxins that are first mobilized from the fat cells and connective tissue, then neutralized in the liver and finally eliminated.
What About Protein, Vitamins and Minerals?
Allan Cott, M.D., wrote a million-copy, bestselling book in 1975 called Fasting: The Ultimate Diet. He followed it two years later with Fasting as a Way of Life. Because of the feedback he had received from his first book, he wrote, “If disparaging doctors would take the time to examine the evidence […], they would finally stop warning of ‘dangers’ that simply do not exist for most people.”40
The average person has enough nutritional reserves of all kinds to fast (water only) for at least a month.41,42,43,44,45 So, doing a Master Cleanse for ten days or more is no problem for most people.
The need for protein is greatly exaggerated in our society. How many people do you know personally with the following symptoms of protein deficiency: apathy, a swollen belly (not fat, just swollen), swollen legs, stunted growth, flaky skin and mental retardation? Have you seen many people around you that have those symptoms?
More likely, you have seen people with mental fogginess, headaches, dehydration, and a higher risk of osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer. Would you