Cleanse Your Body
Treat Your Body to a Spring Cleanse.
By Kim Erickson
March/April 2004
Feeling sluggish? Not quite up to par? Maybe it’s time to give your body a spring cleaning.
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Regardless of how conscientious we are about health and fitness, our bodies are under constant assault from pollutants in our air and water. If that isn’t enough, many toxins can be as close as our dinner tables. Food routinely harbors any number of an estimated 3,000 additives, preservatives and pesticides. The personal choices we make, including the use of sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and even prescription drugs, can add to our toxic load.
While it’s true that our bodies are designed to eliminate toxins, the sheer volume of pollutants we are exposed to can overwhelm this natural detoxification system. The result is a buildup of wastes and poisons that can weaken our immune system and cause frequent headaches, fatigue, joint pain, PMS, skin problems, digestive symptoms, bad breath and a general feeling of malaise.
Fortunately, you can give your body’s natural detoxification system a helping hand through fasting.
Give Your Body a Break
The desire to clean and purge the body is age old. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, believed fasting enabled the body to heal itself. Indeed, fasting has been used in almost every culture throughout history to improve spiritual and physical well-being.
“Fasting is the quickest way to detoxify your body and promote healing,” Bruce Fife, N.D., author of The Detox Book (Piccadilly Books, 2001), says. In fact, he notes that “Eating nothing could be the healthiest thing you ever did for yourself.”
While purists like Fife prefer consuming only water during a fast, Elson Haas, M.D., director of the Preventive Medical Center of Marin in San Rafael, California, favors a juice fast. “Fresh juices are easily assimilated and require minimum digestion while they supply many nutrients and stimulate our body to clear its waste,” Haas says. “Juice fasting also is safer than water fasting because it supports the body nutritionally while cleansing and probably even produces a better detoxification and quicker recovery.”
Regardless of the method, fasting is a process of rest and regeneration. Proponents believe that when the body isn’t expending energy digesting and metabolizing food, it can harness its resources to fight off disease.
Favorable Findings
A number of studies show that fasting can have a positive impact on health. In one study, conducted at the Center for Conservative Therapy in Penngrove, California, 174 patients suffering from hypertension participated in an 11-day water-only fast. By the end of the study, about 90 percent of the participants achieved blood pressure below 140/90 mm Hg, with the greatest decrease in those suffering from the most severe hypertension. In fact, the subjects whose systolic blood pressure was initially greater than 180 mm Hg reduced their systolic pressure by more than 60 points — enough to stop taking their blood pressure medication. Follow-ups with 42 of the patients suggested these effects were sustainable.
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