Fwd: Cancer: Food Plan: MAX GERSON, M.D.

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alternative_medicine_forum From: Frank Sun, 29 Aug 2004 04:11:25 -0700 (PDT) Cancer: Food Plan: MAX GERSON, M.D.http://doctoryourself.com/gersonspeech.htmlNutritional Therapy for CancerCancer: Food Planfrom Physiol. Chem. & Physics 10 (1978)THE CURE OF ADVANCED CANCER BY DIET THERAPY:A SUMMARY OF 30 YEARS OF CLINICAL EXPERIMENTATIONMAX GERSON, M.D.Gerson Institute, Box 535, Imperial Beach, California92032(1978 Publisher's Note. This is a lecture given by Dr.Gerson in Escondido, California, in 1956. Dr. Gersondied in 1959. More complete information on his therapyfor advanced cancer may be found in his book A CancerTherapy: Results ol 50 Cases, by Max Gerson, 3rdedition, 1977, Totality Books, Del Mar, CA

or from hisdaughter Mrs. Charlotte Gerson Straus at the GersonInstitute, Box 535, Imperial Beach, CA 92032.Socioeconomic and political perspectives are discussedin the book Has Dr. Max Gerson a True Cancer Cure? byS. J. Haught, 1976, Major Books, 21335, Roscoe Blvd.,Canoga Park, CA 91304.)Abstract:Thirty years of clinical experimentation has led to asuccessful therapy for advanced cancer. This therapyis based on the concepts (1) that cancer patients havelow immuno-reactivity and generalized tissue damage,especially of the liver, and (2) that when the canceris destroyed, toxic degradation products appear in thebloodstream which lead to coma and death from liverfailure. The therapy consists of high potassium, lowsodium diet, with no fats or oils, and minimal animalproteins. Juices of raw fruits and vegetables and ofraw liver provide active oxidizing enzymes whichfacilitate rehabilitation of the liver.

Iodine andniacin supplementation is used. Caffeine enemas causedilation of bile ducts, which facilitates excretion oftoxic cancer breakdown products by the liver anddialysis of toxic products from blood across thecolonic wall. The therapy must be used as anintegrated whole. Parts of the therapy used inisolation will not be successful. This therapy hascured many cases of advanced cancer.Ladies and Gentlemen:I came here on vacation; I didn't come here for alecture. I didn't bring anything. So, I wrote downsome things since I was asked to tell you first how Iarrived at the cancer treatment. It is a funny story.When I was a physician for internal diseases inBielefeld [Germany) in 1928, one day I was called tosee a lady. I asked her what was wrong with her but onthe telephone she didn't want to tell me. So I wentthere, a little outside of town. Then I asked her"What's wrong?" She told me she was operated

on in abig clinic nearby and they found a cancer of the bileduct. I saw the operation scar. She was running a highfever, was jaundiced. I told her, "Sorry, I can donothing for you. I don't know how to treat cancer. Ihave not seen results, especially in such an advancedcase where there is no longer the possibility ofoperation." So, she said, "No, doctor, I calledbecause I saw the results in your treatment oftuberculosis and arthritis in various cases. Now, hereis a pad and you write down a treatment. On that tableover there, there is a book, and in that book, youwill be good enough to read to me aloud the chaptercalled The Healing of Cancer.”It was a big book of about 1,200 pages on folkmedicine and in the middle there was that chapter. Istarted to read. That book was edited by threeschoolteachers and one physician. None of thempracticed medicine. So they put together that book. Iread that chapter. In it

there was something aboutHippocrates who gave these patients a special soup. Ishould like to tell you, we use that soup at thepresent time! That soup from that book, out of thepractice of Hippocrates - 550 years before Christ! Hewas the greatest physician at that time, and I eventhink the greatest physician of all time. He had theidea that the patient has to be detoxified with thesoup and with some enemas and so on.I read and read but finally I told the lady, "Look,because of my tuberculosis treatment physicians areopposed to me. Therefore I'd like not to treat you."Again she insisted, "I'll give you in writing that youare not responsible for the outcome of the treatmentand that I insisted that you do so." So with thatsigned statement, I thought, all right, let's try. Iwrote down the treatment. It was almost the same whichI used for tuberculosis patients (1-7) which I hadworked out and used at the University

Clinic in Munichwith Prof. Sauerbruch. After the work at theUniversity Clinic the treatment had been establishedand had been found effective. (8, 9). I thought thatmaybe it will be effective in cancer too. It is alwayswritten in scientific books that tuberculosis andcancer are both degenerative diseases where the bodyhas to be detoxified. But this latter thought waswritten only by Hippocrates.I tried - and the patient was cured! Six months latershe was up and around in the best condition. Then shesent me two other cancer cases. One of her family witha stomach cancer where it had been found during anattempted operation that there were metastasizedglands around the stomach-also cured! And I had tocure then, against my will, a third case. I expectedto have still more opposition from the medicalprofession. The third case was also a stomach cancer.It was also cured. Three cases were tried and allthree cases

were cured!I have to tell you that up to this day, I don't knowhow this happened, how I stumbled into that, how thiswas achieved. At that time I always said that I didn'tknow why they were cured. I didn't know enough aboutcancer and it was such a difficult problem to go into.But once it was in my head and in my hands and in myheart, I could no longer separate myself from thatproblem.Some time later I was in Vienna. I had left Germanydue to the political upheaval at the time of Hitler.There in Vienna I tried six cases and in all sixcases, no results-all failures. That was shocking. Thesanatorium where I treated my patients was not so wellorganized for dietary treatments. They treated otherdiseases by other methods and didn't pay muchattention to diet. So, I attributed the failures tothat.Then I came to Paris. In Paris, I tried seven casesand I had three results. One of the cases was an

olderman. He had a cancer of the cecum where the colonstarts, 70 years old. Another case was a lady fromArmenia. This was a very interesting case. I had towork against the whole family. There were manyphysicians in the family, and I had plenty of trouble.But, anyway, I came through in that case. She hadcancer of the breast which regrew. Every time thefamily insisted that she was "so much down." Sheweighed only 78 pounds. She was skin and bones andthey wanted me to give her egg yolks. I gave her smallamounts of egg yolks-the cancer regrew. Then theyinsisted that I give her meat, raw chopped meat. Igave her this and the cancer regrew. The third time,they wanted me to give her some oil. I gave her thatoil and the third time the cancer regrew. But, anyway,three times I could eliminate the cancer again andcure. And still I had no idea what cancer was. Ifsomebody asked me about the theory, just what it was Iwas

doing, I had to answer, "I don't really knowmyself."Some time later I came to this country. I couldn't getthe cancer problem and the cure of the first threecases out of my mind. I kept thinking "It must bepossible, it would a crime not to do it." But iswasn't so easy. When I came here, I had no clinic. Ididn't even have a license to practice medicine. WhenI had taken the exams and could take patients, I hadto treat them at home and that was hard work. Thepatients didn't like to obey the diet, to do it athome. They were accustomed to save kitchen time andnot to work hard to make all the juices necessary forthe treatment as it had been worked out.Now the treatment for tuberculosis was a saltlessdiet, mostly fruit and vegetables, vegetables cookedwithout added water, steamed in their own juices, witha heavy pot, no aluminum. The cover had to be heavyand fit well so that the steam could not escape.

Thenthey had to have most of the food raw, finely grated.They had to drink orange juice, grapefruit juice, andapple and carrot juice. This had to be produced in aspecial machine-a grinder and a separate press-becauseI found that in centrifugal juicers or liquefiers, Icouldn't obtain the kind of juice which curedpatients.At first, I had thought that liquefiers would be themost wonderful thing. All the material was there,nothing was lost. But it didn't work. Then I found outthrough a physicist that in the liquefier, in thecenter, there is positive electricity and in the fluidthere is negative electricity. This electricity killsthe oxidizing enzymes. And that is also true for thecentrifugal juicer and the other apparatus. The juicemust therefore be made by a grinder and a separatepress - if possible, made of stainless steel.(Editor's note: a masticating juicer, such as aChampion, might also

work.)The patients must drink a lot of those juices. Theyhave to have the Hippocrates soup. I can't go into allthe details. The evening would not be long enough forthat. But very important for the detoxification areenemas. I felt that the detoxification as suggested inthe book of Hippocrates was a most important part.Finally, I had a clinic. The patients saw that alsothe more advanced cases and even some terminal cases,very far advanced cases, could be saved. They broughtme more and more of these terminal cases. I was forcedinto that. On the one side, the knife of the AMA wasat my throat and on my back. I had only terminalcases. If I had not saved them, my clinic would havebeen a death house. Some of the cases were brought onstretchers. They couldn't walk. They could no longereat. It was very, very difficult. So, I really had towork out a treatment that could help these faradvanced cases.(10,11) Again, I

was forced into it.On the need of where to put the emphasis: reading allthe literature, I saw that all the scientists treatthe symptoms. These, I thought, are only symptoms.There must be something basic behind them. It has tobe impossible that there are symptoms in the brain,others in the lungs, in the bones, it the abdomen andin the liver. There must be something basic, or elsethis is impossible.Already, through my work with tuberculosis, I learnedthat in tuberculosis and in all other degenerativediseases, one must not trcat the symptoms. Thebody-the whole body-has to be treated. But that iseasily said. How will you do it? Little by little Icame to the conclusion that the most important part ofour body is the digestive tract. For all our intake tobe properly digested, and for the other organs of thedigestive tract to function right and help in thedigestion to the end product-and at the same

timeeliminate all the waste products-all the toxins andpoisons which must be eliminated so that nothing willaccumulate in our system, I thought that this was themost important thing in the tuberculosis treatment. Itmust be the same in all the other degenerativediseases, too. And still, up to the present, I amconvinced that cancer does not need a "specific"treatment.Cancer is a so-called degenerative disease, and allthe degenerative diseases have to be treated so thatthe whole body at first is detoxified. In mytuberculosis work again, I saw that the liver playsthe important role. It eliminates the toxins from thebody, prepares them so they can enter into the bileducts, and can thus be eliminated with the bile-thatis not an easy job. In addition, the liver helps toprepare the stomach juice with the help of thevisceral nervous system. The liver helps to preparethe pancreas, trypsin, pepsin, lipase, the

digestiveenzymes-all that is regulated with the help of thevisceral nervous system. The liver has many, many morevery important functions. One of them is thereactivation of the oxidizing enzymes as we knowthrough Rudolf Schoenheimer. He did the work alongthese lines. It would go too far to go into that atthis time. It is very important to note that oxidizingenzymes are at a low level of function in cancerpatients.Now let us anticipate the theory. During these yearsthe idea occurred to me that there are two componentsin cancer which are of particular importance. One isthe whole body, the general component. The other is alocal one, the symptom. The treatment has to beapplied to the general component. When we are able tobring this into balance, the local one disappears.What is the general component and what does thetreatment have to do to bring it into balance? Ishould like to devote this evening mostly

to thatquestion. The general component is the digestive tractand the liver. The digestive tract is very muchpoisoned in cancer. How can we handle that?Detoxification is an easy word, but it is verydifficult to do in cancer patients. These cases, whenthey are far advanced, can hardly eat. They have nostomach juice, the liver doesn't function, thepancreas doesn't function, nothing is active.Where do we begin?. The most important first step isthe detoxification. So let us go into that. First, wegave some different enemas. I found out that the bestenema is the coffee enema as it was first used byProf. 0. A. Meyer in Goettingen. This idea occurred tohim when together with Prof.Heubner he gave caffeinesolution into the rectum of animals. He observed thatthe bile ducts were opened and more bile could flow. Ifelt that this was very important and I worked outcoffee enemas. We took three heaping tablespoons

ofground coffee for one quart of water, let it boil forthree minutes, then simmer 10 to 20 minutes, and thengave it at body temperature.The patients reported that this was doing them good.The pain disappeared even though in order to carrythrough the detoxification, we had to take away allsedation. I realized that it is impossible to detoxifythe body on the one hand and put in drugs and poisonson the other, such as sedation medication - demerol,codeine, morphine, scopolamine, etc. So, we had to putthe medication aside which again was a very difficultproblem. One patient told me that he had one grain ofcodeine every two hours and he got morphine injections. . . how can you take these away? I told him that thebest sedation is a coffee enema. After a very shorttime he had to agree with that. Some of the patientswho had been in severe pain didn't take coffee enemasevery four hours as I prescribed - they took one

everytwo 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 tome not so long ago. She had cancer of the cervix andthen two large tumor masses around the uterus. Thecervix was a large crater, necrotic, producing bloodand pus, and the poor lady couldn't sit any more. Thecondition was inoperable. She had been given X-raysand vomited any food she took in. She couldn't liedown anymore. She could not sit. She walked around dayand night. When she came to my clinic the manager toldme, "Doctor, you can't keep her here. This moaning andwalking day and night is keeping the other patientsfrom sleeping." After four days she was able to sleepwith no sedative whatsoever - which had not helped hermuch anyway. The sedation had worked for perhaps halfan hour or so. After 8 to 10 days, she asked me forjust one thing: let her omit that night enema at

3 or4 o'clock in the morning. These patients who absorbthe big tumor masses are awakened with an alarm clockevery night because they are otherwise poisoned by theabsorption of these masses. If I give them only one ortwo or three enemas, they die of poisoning.I did not have the right as a physician to cause thebody to absorb all the cancer masses and then not todetoxify enough. With two or three enemas they werenot detoxified enough. They went into a coma hepaticum(liver coma). Autopsies showed that the liver waspoisoned. I learned from these disasters that youcan't give these patients too much detoxification. SoI told this lady that for one night she could sleepfor seven hours-but only for one night. I wouldn'trisk more! When I didn't give these patients the nightenemas, they were drowsy and almost semi-conscious inthe morning. The nurses confirmed this and told methat it takes a couple of enemas till they

are free ofthis toxic state again. I cannot stress thedetoxification enough. Even so with all these enemas,this was not enough! I had to give them also castoroil by mouth and by enema every other day, at leastfor the first two weeks or so. After these two weeksyou wouldn't recognize these patients any more! Theyhad arrived on a stretcher and now they walked around.They had appetite. They gained weight and the tumorswent down.You will ask, "How can such a cancerous tumor godown?" That was a difficult question for me tounderstand. I had learned in my treatment oftuberculosis patients that I had to add potassium,iodine, and liver injections to help the liver and thewhole body to restore the potassium. Now as far as Ican see this is the situation. At first we give thepatient the most salt-free diet possible.(12) So, asmuch salt (sodium) is removed from the body as can be.During the first days, 3 grams, 5

grams, up to 8 gramsa day of sodium are eliminated while the patientsreceive only about one half gram of sodium content inthe diet and no sodium is added.The patients are given thyroid and lugol solution(lugol's solution is iodine plus potassium iodide) Ilearned first through the so-called Gudenath tadpoleexperiment that iodine is necessary to increase andhelp the oxidation ability. Then we gave the patientslarge amount of potassium.(12) It took about 300experiments until I found the right potassiumcombination. It is a 10% solution of potassiumgluconate, potassium phosphate (monobasic), andpotassium acetate. From that solution the patient isgiven four teaspoonsful 10 times a day in juices. Thatlarge amount of potassium is introduced into thebody.(12) At the same time 5 times one grain ofthyroid and 6 times three drops of lugol solution, ½strength. That's 18 drops of lugol which is a largedose. Nobody was

observed to develop heartpalpitations from that, even if some patients told methat they could previously not take thyroid becausethey would develop heart palpitation. And allallergies disappeared! Some patients claimed that theycould previously not take one teaspoonful of lemonjuice or orange juice - they were allergic. But whenthey are well detoxified and have plenty of potassium,they are not allergic. Allergies and otherhypersensitivities are eliminated.When introduced into the system, thyroid and lugolsolution go immediately into the cancer mass. Theseripe cells take it up fast and they perhaps grow alittle faster but they soak in more with great greed -as much as they can - together with a little bit ofsodium, probably. But then there isn't much sodiumleft. So then these cells pick up potassium and theoxidizing enzymes and die by themselves. You have torealize that cancer cells live essentially

onfermentation but potassium and oxidizing enzymesintroduce oxidation. And that is the point at which wecan kill cancer cells because we take away theconditions which they need to continue to live.But now we have to deal with a mass of dead cells inthe body, in the blood stream -and they have to beeliminated wherever they may be. And that is not soeasy! The ripe cells, the mature cells are veryabnormal. These are much more easily killed than theother cells which are unripe, not yet mature, and notso well developed. And there are other cancer cells inlymph vessels. These are clogged at both ends bycancer cells. No blood and no lymph can reach them.There are cancer cells in the glands. They are hiddenthere, protected from regular circulation. So it isn'teasy to reach these. At first it is only the big masswhich killed. But this dead mass now has to beabsorbed 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 onlypossible through the blood stream. I call this"parenteral digestion." Enteral digestion is in theintestinal tract. Parenteral digestion takes placeoutside of the digestive tract, through the bloodstream. It becomes important then to continually carryon detoxification day and night in order to bring theparenteral digestion to the highest point, even to a"hyperfunction." How can this be done?I found that in order to bring the parenteraldigestion to the highest function, it is necessary tostart with the soil. Our soil must be normal, noartificial fertilizers should be used, no poisons, nosprays which go into the soil and poison it. Whatevergrows on a poisoned soil carries poison too. And thatis our food, our fruit and vegetables. I am convincedthat the soil is our external metab6lism. It is notreally far removed from

our bodies. We depend on it.But our modern food, the "normal" food people eat isbottled, poisoned, canned, color added, powdered,frozen, dipped in acids, sprayed-no longer normal. Weno longer have living, normal food, our food and drinkis a mass of dead, poisoned material, and one cannotcure very sick people by adding poisons to theirsystems. We cannot detoxify our bodies when we addpoisons through our food which is one of the reasonswhy cancer is so much on the increase. Saving time inthe kitchen is fine but the consequences are terrible.Thirty or fifty years ago (this speech was deliveredin 1956) cancer was a disease of old age. Only elderlypeople whose liver was no longer working well - wasworn out-became sick. They contracted cancer when theywere 60 to 70 years old and cancer was a rare disease.Everybody knows that. And now four, even going on oneout of three dies of cancer. Now in the secondgeneration it is

even worse. The poor children getleukemias more and more. There is no country which hasso much leukemia as this country (USA), no country inthe world. That is our fault. Ice cream is made withinvert sugar. Coca-Cola contains phosphoric acid. Isit surprising that children get degenerative disease?These things constitute our external metabolism.Now let us consider our digestive tract. As part ofthe digestive tract, the most important thing is thatwe restore the function of the liver - the tissue andthe function of the liver. That is very hard work. Wegive the patients (including also the tuberculosispatients) liver injections, and since most of thesepatients need an increase in the red blood cells, weadd some vitamin B12. They receive 3 cc of crude liverextract together with 100 mcg of B12. In addition whenI found that our fruit and vegetables no longer havethe normal content of potassium and not enough of

theoxidizing enzymes, I looked for the best source ofpotassium in the best composition and the best supplyof oxidizing enyymes. I found that to be calves liver.But we cannot give the patient calves liver because itcontains too much fat and cholesterol. As you know,fat and oils cannot be given Therefore we give thesepatients freshly pressed calves liver juice, which ismade in a special way with equal parts of carrots.Liver alone cannot be pressed. We take ½ pound freshcalves liver (not frozen) and ½ pound of carrots tomake one glass of 200 cc (approx. 8 oz.) of freshjuice. The patients, the far advanced cases, get twoglasses a day, even three glasses, and they like it!All this is done in the effort to restore the enteraldigestion. When that functions, we add stomach juice(Acidol Pepsin) and we add pancreatin not coated. Thecancer patients cannot digest the coated pancreatin.The pancreatin is given five times

a day, threetablets each time. So they always have plenty oftrypsin, pepsin, lipase and diastase in their systems.The blood can carry this around and digest the tumormasses wherever they may be.Now, since I am running out of time, I should like totell you what we do to prove that this treatmentreally does work on cancer.(13,14) Number one, theresults. I think I can claim that I have, even inthese far advanced cases, 50% results. The realproblem arises when we cannot restore the liver. Thenthere is no hope. The liver-the restoration of theliver and its functions-are so important that some ofthe patients whose livers cannot be restored die somesix months to 2½ years later from cirrhosis. Autopsiesshow no cancer cells in the body. They did not diefrom cancer. They died from a shrunken liver. Since Igive more liver juice and I give more for promotingthe parenteral digestion, these cases of a shrunkenliver

are rare.I think I could do a lot to improve the results. I donot want to go into the problems that patients facewhen they go home and the family physician tells themthat they need not "eat that cow fodder." Or thefamily thinks they cannot carry through this treatmentbecause it is too much work as it takes one to one anda half years to restore the liver. The liver cells arerenewed in four to five weeks, five to six weeks inolder patients. To restore such a liver, you wouldneed 12 to 15 new generations of liver cells. That is1½ years. But the most important part of thetreatment, I have learned, is to give the patients anew functioning liver.Now, for the proof of this theory. I had the idea tomake an animal experiment in which we connected tworats - one cancerous rat and one healthy one. We cutthem open along the side and connected a blood vessel,then sewed them together: The blood from the healthyrat

circulated in the sick one day and night andcleared up the sick body. Thus we showed that with ahealthy normal metabolism you can cure cancer. You cancure the cancerous rat with the healthy body of thenormal rat. But we are in the early stages of thistype of experiment. There was one patient whosehusband wanted to be connected to his wife because ofher very poor condition. But she said no, she didn'twant to have him immobilized so long, next to her,with extensive nursing day and night. When she wasfirst brought in to me, she had a very bad liver withprobably hundreds of metastases, also in the rest ofthe body. I had told them that I didn't believe Icould do anything for her, so the husband had offeredhis healthy body. But, even as it is, she is stillliving and improving. At any rate, with this type ofexperiment we have had no experience on human beings,only on rats.Our next step to prove the theory was by

taking tinytissue samples from the liver by liver punctures. Whentime goes on and the patient recovers, the liver showsmicroscopically and chemically that recovery has takenplace. This is done by micro-chemistry. There is anincrease of the potassium content and iron, and now wecan even trace the content of cobalt.For ten years, I examined the potassium content in theserum of human beings and I made about 200 curves. Butthese are not characteristic. On the other hand, if wetake a little tissue - a little mucous membrane ormuscle tissue with the improvement of the patient, thetissue also shows a return to the normal potassiumcontent. (12) This is of tremendous importance.Two months ago when I planned to come here for myvacation, the parents of this little boy wrote me andasked me for treatment for leukemia. Here is thelittle boy. He was treated with blood transfusions,had been 50 and 60,000 white blood

count and his redblood count was down to 1,400,000. He lost eightpounds in one week, couldn't eat or drink. I startedthe treatment about six weeks ago. Since that time,the boy is up and around, he can ride his bicycle, heis active and gained a total of five pounds. The bloodcount is normal. Lymphocytes are 6,500; hemoglobin is73; 4,500,000 red blood cells - from 1,400,000! Andhere is the little boy. (The mother adds: “I want totell you doctor, he really likes the liver juice, hedoesn't want to eat chocolate!”) You see, the liverjuice, 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 butI feel that now we can save this child. (Applause)I have here another patient: Mr. Eyerly. Could youcome here? Mr. Eyerly came here to see me. He lives inSalem, Oregon. The man had cancer of the prostate andit had grown into

the urine bladder. He went to theUniversity Clinic at Portland, Oregon, to a famousurologist. He diagnosed the metastasis into theurinary 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 thefamily doctor, all told him that he could live only 4to 6 weeks, especially since all bones of the pelviswere full of cancer. He looked terribly ill when hecame to me. His wife brought him with a nurse. He hadmade his last will and did not expect to live. Now wecured that. It was especially difficult. I should liketo thank his wife. She prepared the treatment with thegreatest devotion. She was wonderful and we could relyon her. In a family where there is real devotion inthe application of this treatment, we can even savethese far advanced cases. Of course, we cannot saveall of them but we can save more than we sometimeseven

consider possible. (Question from the audience:“How long did it take?”) In the urinary bladder, itdidn't take but a few weeks and there was no longerany blood and pus, nor in the stools either. But inthe pelvis there were hundreds of spots, and thattakes a long time because the body transforms thiscancer first into so-called osteoplastic areas, not anosteolytic process which is bone reducing. With mytreatment more bone is produced. The body producesmore bone, and then the hypertrophic bone istransformed into normal bone tissue. Then there is nomore pain. Now the patient can get around and is eventhe manager of a company.By chance I had these two patients here and could showthem to you.Post-Lecture Questions and AnswersQ. Can fibroid tumors be dissolved in the same manner?A. Fibroid tumors are mostly benign. Benign tumorstake 10 to 20 times as much time to absorb asmalignant tumors. This goes for

adhesions and scars.Fibroid and benign tumors are dissolved only veryslowly because they are not abnormal. It is difficultfor the parenteral system to bring its digestivepowers to bear on these benign tumors. But when theyturn malignant, then they are quickly dissolved.Q. (from a doctor) Dr. Gerson, when I visited yourhospital in 1946 your housekeeper was drinking freshcarrot juice. She had had an inoperable cancer of thepancreas. Please tell us about her. She was doing verywell for such a bad condition.A. She is living and in good condition now, 10 yearslater.Q. Is cancer a state of reaction of unrestrainedexcessive factors of certain hormones working onvarious degenerated organs or tissues?A. No, I don't think so. There is much more and toanswer that question, I have to go deeper into theproblem. We have to separate the state ofpre-cancerous condition from the state where thecancer

appears. In the pre-cancerous condition, all isprepared. The liver is sufficiently damaged and theother organs of the intestinal tract are damagedenough and then later the symptoms appear. Until thenwe have the pre-cancerous condition and this conditioncannot be cured with hormones and enzymes, etc. We canto a certain degree stimulate the liver with hormones.We can stimulate the liver with cortisone. We canstimulate the liver with adrenalin etc., but then wetake out the last reserves. We empty the liver insteadof refilling it. What we have to do in cancer -adegenerative, deficiency disease- is to refill theorgans which are empty and poisoned. Therefore it isalmost a crime to give cortisone and the otherstimulants which will take away the last reserves andimprove 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 area little difficult to digest. Therefore I cut themout.Q. Are tomatoes OK? A. Tomatoes are OK.Q. Soy products and soy beans are forbidden. But islecithin 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 digestfats to the end products. When some intermediatesubstances are left in the body, they work ascarcinogenic substances. Therefore we had to cut outfats, oil, and goods containing them for a long time.Q. What metabolic tests do you do before and after tofurther prove recovery systematically as well asclinically?A. I examine in all these case the urine, thecomplete blood count, basal metabolism orprotein-bound iodine, and potassium in serum andtissue. To see how the liver functions, I found itbest to examine the end product of the proteinmetabolism, urea

nitrogen and uric acid. When theseare normal and stay normal, then I assume that thepatient is all right. But potassium in serum does notgive a characteristic picture and makes it difficultto judge. The patient can be cured yet the serumpotassium still shows low because the tissues take itaway. In some of the cancer patients when they arriveas terminal cases, potassium is above normal! One ofthe physicians asked me once, "Are you crazy? With thepotassium above normal, you give such big doses ofpotassium?" And I said, “Yes, sir, I am not crazy. Thepatient is losing the potassium. (12) That is how itis 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 onlywhen they take the castor oil because coffee increasesthe motility of the stomach so

the castor oil movesmore quickly out of the stomach. But otherwise, coffeeas a drink disturbs the function of the capillariesand therefore it has to be cut out.Q. Would not detoxification be advisable in themajority of illnesses? Is this not comparable to whatis called "a cleansing program?"A. We have to detoxify the body in all degenerativediseases, in acute diseases too. But not to the extentas is required in cancer. Even most of the arthritiscases are not so toxic. I found that almost all of thearthritis cases have a weak liver or damaged liver.This is also true of coronary disease.Q. Are (synthetic) vitamin and mineral supplementsOK?A. No, they are wrong because calcium and many otherminerals cannot be added so easily. They bring thesystem out of harmony. With calcium you can producecancer. I was forced in three cases of hemophilia togive calcium to bring the blood to coagulate. I did

itbut the cancer regrew and I lost all three cases. Nocalcium, no magnesium, no other minerals. I tried it.There must be harmony in our body under the law oftotality. One should not change the mineralmetabolism, especially not in cancer. Only the twomost important minerals potassium and sodium must bebalanced. 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 JohnGunther's son. Spectacular results were obtained atfirst but then there was a relapse and the patientdied. Could you have cured this case without theregular MD's interference?A. I will tell you why this poor boy died. He had aterrible brain tumor growing out of the skull, largerthan my fist. I cured that. It's written in the book.But after that, the boy had an eczema and this eczemawas of a special type which can usually be cured bygiving the anterior lobe

pituitary extract, a hormone.The family doctor, Dr. Traeger, said, "Why don't yougive it to him?" But I told him that this is aterrible risk and I don't like to take such a riskwith the life of that boy. When we give the pituitary,like many other hormones we may kill. But finally Igave in and it was my fault. And for a long time afterthat I couldn't sleep nights. I gave him the hormoneand the tumor regrew. I can add to that, that morethan 12 years ago now, there appeared an article by aprofessor in Chicago that cancer patients benefit fromadministration of sex hormones. I gave it first tothree patients, then to five. They reacted well forthe first two to three months. Then I gave it to 25more. They all reacted well for three to four monthsbut after five months they went downhill. I lost 25 ofmy best cancer cases. Only six I could save again.That was the disaster from the hormone treatment. TheGunther boy was

another disaster. That was notnecessary. I want to reemphasize that we must not givethe cancer patient "a little something" for temporaryrelief. I learned that the hard way.Q. Your treatment worked in advanced cases of cancerof the liver?A. If more than half to three-quarters of the liveris gone, you can't restore its function enough to savethe patient. You may save them for half a year to ayear, but then the liver may shrink and the patientsdie of a shrunken liver, cirrhosis of the liver. Theliver is such an important organ that when it has toeliminate its own cancer, this has to be done by thehealthy liver tissue. But the process of eliminationcan damage the healthy liver tissue if we don'tdetoxify constantly day and night, especially in thesecases. Now about three or four months ago a case came to mefrom Philadelphia. She told me when her son and.brother brought her in that she had suffered

fromcancer of the rectum. At first the doctors didn't wantto operate, then they couldn't. It was too late. Thenshe spent a half year at the Hoxey Clinic, and thenshe came home with a liver full of cancer, and hard asa board. I told her son and brother that this was toomuch, it wouldn't go. Take her home and make hercomfortable. But they insisted I must try. And I did.And she is doing well! She can eat and drink, and theanterior part of her liver is a scar, hard as thoughit were calcified. Probably there is enough liverleft. The son asked when they took her home aftereight weeks, "You see, why didn't you want to takeher?" At least for four weeks, every two hours andsometimes even every hour, she took coffee enema andcastor oil enemas twice a day! She had so much gas andeliminated such large amounts of evil-smelling masses.When she left, we had to paint the room. It couldn'tbe washed off the paint.(Comment

by M.C.: “I may say that I have lookedthrough a lot of these places in a general way. I havebeen through Dr. Gerson's sanatorium on threedifferent occasions and spent each time eight or tendays. I saw cases come in there by ambulance, onstretchers - just like Dr. Gerson said -hopelessmetastatic cancers of the liver, the intestines, withobstructions, getting morphine every three to fourhours. To my amazement within ten days these samepatients would be walking around, free from pain. Iwas so amazed I couldn't understand it. It was soincredible that I made my son who was a senior inmedical school come back with me to see these things.But it was not only cancer. I saw cases there of otherdegenerative diseases of all types.”)Q. Is folic acid treatment contra-indicated duringtreatment of cancer?A. Yes, (synthetic) folic acid did damage.Q. Can arthritis be cured by the same treatment whichyou use for

cancer?A. Yes. The treatment is not specific. It is not aspecific treatment for cancer.Q. How do you account for the fact that many skincancers and some other cancers can be surgicallyremoved and they never regrow or recur, even though nometabolic changes have been made?A. Some patients have only temporary damage of theliver and the liver is then able to restore itself.But that is not in a majority of the cases. Sometimesif you remove, say a breast cancer, the removal ofthese toxins and poisons which the cancer itselfgenerates is sufficient in some cases to relieve thetemporary damage from the liver. Then the liver canrecover. But these are the exceptions. And it is notbasic. Also some of these patients get recurrenceslater. Many of my patients, after an initialoperation, had stayed well for three or sometimes evenfive years. Then the cancer recurred. They wereinoperable and orthodox medicine was

helpless.Q. Would it not be advantageous for the cancerpatients 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, wetell the patients only to avoid fats and salt.Otherwise they are free. Many of them lead normallives. But I'd like to say that about 75% like to staymore or less on the diet, and some even convince theother members of their families to stay on it withthem. For instance, we have a photograph here inEscondido of Mr. Walter Wagg. He had a 100% incurabledisease, progressive muscular dystrophy. He had beenin the best clinics and could get no help. I curedhim. Then his wife wanted to have another baby andthey were able to have one. Later he came to where Iwas spending my vacation and showed me his wife andthe baby. He told me that the whole family sticks tothe diet and

said he would stay with it as long as helived since he is in such fine condition.Q. What can be done for impaired lymph circulationfollowing surgery in one arm for what was diagnosed ascancer?A. It is very difficult to absorb these scars so thatthe lymph circulation can be restored, a verydifficult task. It takes years.Q. What is your conception of a prolonged fast orperiodical three-day fast?A. You can't let the cancer patient fast. In thecancer patient the body is so depleted, if you letthem fast they go downhill terribly.Q. What would you consider more important, diet orbalanced emotions?A. The balanced emotional condition is very importantbut without the diet and the detoxification you cannot heal.Q. Would Parkinson's disease respond to a treatmentsimilar as that for cancer?A. What is destroyed in the central nervous system -and Parkinson's disease is a disease of

the basalcenters - is destroyed forever. But you are able tohelp the arteries in the brain with the treatment, andyou can stop the progression, and you can restore whatis 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-calledsecondary anemia.Q. Can too much vegetable juice cause alkalinity?A. No.Q. Dr. Otto Warburg advises increased intake ofoxygen.A. Oxygen would not go into the system so easily. Youmust have oxidizing enzymes, you must have morepotassium, you must have the conditions under whichoxygen can function.Q. What vitamins are OK to take with your treatment?A. With the vitamins we have a similar situation as wesaw with the hormones. I damaged patients with vitaminA, vitamin E, vitamin B and B6. Patients get reallydamaged. Vitamin A and D is picked up by

the cancercells immediately. Niacin we can use, that is B-3.(Editor’s Note: the Gerson Diet is extremely high innatural vitamins. Cancer patients are probably verysensitive to overdosage with synthetic vitaminpreparations.)Q. What do you think of deep manipulation?A. Cancer patients should not be massaged. Rubbing ofthe skin to open the capillaries and to help the bodyto stimulate the circulation is very valuable. We givethe patient a rub two or three times a day beforemeals with a solution of ½ glass water with twotablespoons rubbing alcohol and two tablespoons ofwine vinegar. To rub the whole body is very refreshingand helps the circulation.Q. Can a person with a colostomy take the same typeof 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 tothe liver. The basic measure of prevention is not toeat the damaged, dead, poisoned food which we bringinto our bodies. Every day, day by day, we poison ourbodies. The older people still have a better liver andresistance from the food they had when they wereyoung. The younger people get worse and the babies,now the second generation on canned baby foods, arestill worse. They get leukemias. First of all, eat asmuch as you can of raw food, keep the potassium levelup, and take some iodine.NOTES AND REFERENCES1. F. Sauerbruch, A. Herrmannsdorfer and M. Gerson,“Ueber Versuche, schwere Formen der Tuberkulose durchdietetische Behandlungen zu becinflussen," Muench.Med. Wochenschr., 2, 1(1926).2. M. Gerson, ibid, 77, 967 (1930).3. M. Gerson, "Phosphorlebertran und dieGerson-Herrrnannsdorfersche Diat zur Heilung derTuberkulose," Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr., 12,

1(1930).4. F. Sauerbruch, A. Herrmannsdorfer and M. Gerson,Muench. Med. Wochenschr, 23 (1930).5. M. Gerson, "Wiederherstellung der verschiedenenGefuchiqualitaeten 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 undSchiermeyer Verlag, Bad Woerischofen, 1951, pp363-371. This contains an account of how the authorlearned of Gerson's work by an accidental conversationon the train with one of Gerson's cured TB patients,which led to a large scale successful trial of theGerson TB therapy at the Sauerbruch clinic.9. E. Urbach and E. B. Le Winn, Skin Diseases,Nutrition, and Metabolism. Grune and Stratton, NewYork, 1946, pp 4, 65-67, 530-537.

This contains acomprehensive review (in English) of the successfuluse of the Gerson therapy to cure tuberculosis of theskin.10. M. Gerson, "Dietary considerations in malignantneoplastic disease. A preliminary report," Rev.GastroenteroL, 12, 419 (1945).11. "Effects of a combined dietary regime on patientswith malignant tumors," Exp. Med. Surg., 7, 299(1949).12. F. W. Cope, "A medical application of the Lingassociation-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 FiftyCases, Third Ed., Totality Books, Box 1035, Del Mar,California, 1977. This is comprehensive description ofthe Gerson method of cancer treatment written both forthe

physician and for the layman.