Detoxification and Chronic Degenerative Disease

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Detoxification and Chronic Degenerative Disease

A chapter preview from **Nutritional Healing: A Patient Management Manual**

_http://www.getalife.net.au/mag/detoxCDD_html_

(http://www.getalife.net.au/mag/detoxCDD_html)

by Kathryn Alexander

 

We are seeing an escalation in chronic degenerative disease in Western

societies of almost epidemic proportions - this means a higher percentage of

the

population being affected than would be considered normal. Which brings me to

a few recent statistics: 10% of our children world-wide now suffer from

asthma (this figure is 30% in Australia and parts of Europe); a 27% increase in

the incidence of breast cancer in Australia over 5 years in the 1990s (7,500

new cases rising to 9,500 new cases); in the UK, 1,200 children under 5 now

suffer from insulin- dependent diabetes; non-insulin dependent diabetes now

affects 1 in 20 (used to be 1:50,000) - the list goes on - auto-immune disease,

heart disease, cancer (highest cause of death amongst children under 17

years), all on the increase. Additionally, our infertility stands at 25% and

sperm count down by 30%. The WHO have already forecast that drugs for mental

illness and depression will be the most widely prescribed by the year 2020

(currently a large percent of our children being prescribed amphetamine-type

drugs

for ADHD).

 

We are told not to worry - it*s all in our genes and it can be fixed. We are

now getting stuck into our genetic make-up and have discovered that carriers

of specific gene codes predispose to certain diseases, particularly certain

cancers and auto-immune disease. To the lay person this means that these

genes, when they become aberrant, are the cause of the disease. So if we change

the gene, or the expression of the gene, then the disease will not manifest.

The truth is that our gene pool has been around for a long time and does not

radically change within a couple of generations; the truth is that a similar

gene pool 50 years ago did not show the same prevalence of disease as now.

 

If we turn to the work of Pottenger and Price in the mid 20th century, we

will find corroboration of the negative effects of dietary change on

populations. Pottenger found that, within three generations, cats fed on a

cooked meat

and milk diet produced infertility, sexual dysfunction, joint problems,

osteoporosis, allergies and low resistance to disease. When the diet was

restored

to a raw meat, raw milk diet then, depending which generation-deficiency

level the cat belonged to (the lower the generation/deficiency, the deeper the

health problems), the slower the reversal process. In the healthy generation,

these cats could maintain health on their altered diet, but the offspring

(first generation deficiency) could not sustain health on such a diet but only

remained healthy on the raw diet. They had little constitutional resistance and

needed to support their health with the diet. With subsequent

generation-deficiency litters, the situation became more critical. It took

several

generations to reverse the damage in the constitution of each line.

 

Weston Price studied the dietary habits of many indigenous populations,

comparing populations on their traditional diet living in close proximity with

the same racial stock on a Westernised diet. His common findings among all the

populations world-wide were: skeletal changes to the face and dental arch

(narrowing and overcrowding of teeth), dental caries, lowered resistance to

disease (TB affecting populations on Western food but unseen in neighbouring

tribes on traditional food), changes in intellect and behaviour along with

social

and moral decay.

 

Weston Price could not find a common diet or even common elements in the

varied diets that would give him a definitive *healthy diet*. Some tribes in

Africa only drank blood and milk (fresh); the Swiss ate bread and cheese and

hardly any vegetables; some aboriginal tribes ate dried locusts for their

protein; the Maori ate large amounts of sea food; the Melanesians shared

produce

with their warring neighbours (those living on the coast left sea food for the

tribes of the interior who would bring fresh vegetables - no messenger

carrying food ever got killed!); no tribe was purely vegetarian. The only common

denominator was that food was fresh, and unpasteurized. Local preserving methods

(such as drying/fermentation) were used that would not chemically interfere

with the food but enhance its value, refined products were not used (whole

grain/seed), and sugar was not available. Additionally, the animals were fed on

appropriate food and rich pastures leading to animal products high in

nutritional value.

 

The most fundamental changes in our society over the last 80 years, running

parallel with the increase in disease, have been the devastation of the food

chain and soil, toxic pollution from the environment and the onslaught of

medical drugs. As far as I am concerned, the causes of disease are these

environmental factors. An environmental factor is any external factor that

enters

the body, whether it be food, chemicals, drugs or bacterial/viral agents.

Additionally, nutritional deficiencies and the toxic burden are handed down

through each generation, with successive generations becoming constitutionally

weaker. Hence diseases that were not even common amongst our old people, two

generations ago, are now becoming common amongst our young. So disease is

creeping forward by probably 20 years in every generation.

 

I note that scientists in the UK are now blaming the rise in asthma and

insulin-dependent diabetes on junk food diets which don't provide the

nourishment

to build resistance. The effect of vaccinations and antibiotics on the

immune system is also being questioned - far from improving the immune system,

there is a strong possibility that they make it dysfunctional. A correlation

has

been found between vaccinated groups and the later onset of chronic

degenerative disease and cancer. It would appear that the maturation of the

immune

system through natural exposure to the childhood illnesses generates a greater

protective effect, critical for overall health. Likewise, antibiotics not

only absolve the requirement for an immune response, but also depress the

immune

system. You never allow the body a full-blown fight, which is critical to

activate and program the immune system. With a dysfunctional immune system viral

attacks can trigger autoimmune disease.

 

We cannot isolate one environmental cause from another - it is

multi-factorial: but the one outstanding factor has to be that deficiencies in

the food

chain and toxicity in the environment break down human resistance. Science has

always wanted to take up the challenge to do better and conquer nature. How

far has science brought us, or should I re-phrase this - how far back has

science taken us in terms of the general health of the population? We must not

confuse the issue here - the task of science, or the interpretation of its

discoveries, is not necessarily to point out the cause of ill-health and

reverse

it, but to deliver a scientifically-based remedy or genetic solution. In

industry, decision-making is based primarily on economic advantage, and it will

not be until the balance shifts, when those decisions become uneconomical that

the criteria will change.

 

I have been working with patients undergoing detoxification and nutritional

healing for 17 years and I can confidently say that most diseases (other than

genetically inherited disorders of metabolism), respond to detoxification.

 

The detoxification process will shift fatty and calcium deposits from the

arteries, joints and soft tissues, enabling better function of the organs; it

will reduce cholesterol, heavy metals (extraordinary results seen on heavy

metals in hair analysis, probably due to the effect of pectin as a chelator of

heavy metals), it will restore cell membrane integrity and the control of

inflammatory responses. It is particularly effective with autoimmune disease,

often taking the patient into complete remission. It will resolve skin

diseases

and breathing disorders such as asthma, and help resolve mental disorders

and depression.

 

This simple approach of **one treatment for many diseases** flies in the

face of exponents of a medical practice which advocates a myriad drug

treatments for the many and diverse ranges of symptoms/diseases. The difference

between the simple approach and the sophisticated one is that in the former the

patient is healed by the therapy, and in the latter the patient may suffer

side-effects from the drugs and most certainly is threatened by a return of the

symptoms if he or she stops the medication which only suppresses symptoms.

 

As a society, we can either become locked into the complexities and

variabilities of disease mechanisms which are infinite and can keep science

busy for

years; or we can address the one, unchangeable, inflexible law of nature,

that healing cannot take place in a toxic, nutritionally deficient environment.

If this is principle is ignored, which it usually is, then there can be no

cure. One thing is certain, chronic degenerative disease can never be

controlled, it always worsens and on a generational basis, disease will

manifest

earlier with each successive generation.

 

When we try to look at disease from the outside, we use remedies and

treatments either to suppress the process or to try and stimulate healing. But

if we

look from the inside, we begin to recognise that even the best holistic

treatments will be thwarted by a toxic environment, because it is the local

environment that governs the cure. For example, in a toxic, polluted lake all

the

life forms die, but when the lake is cleaned, life starts to regenerate. As

we become more toxic, the capacity of the healing mechanism to respond is

dampened. When we detoxify and re-fill the cells with nutrients (from food), we

change that internal environment to the point where we initiate and support

the healing response.

 

There are many thousands of disease mechanisms, but only one healing

mechanism. Every practitioner knows that regardless of the disease, the healing

mechanism is the same - inflammation. Through inflammation we break down and

remove dead/abnormal tissue and regenerate new healthy tissue. It is very

simple,

but its absolute requirement is a healthy, clean environment. Once we start

to release toxicity at cell level (and this is dependent primarily on diet -

not products), the cell vitality is restored and a process of healing

inflammation occurs. Any previous tissue trauma will be revisited to establish a

complete healing.

 

Infections, if they do present during this process, can be positive and

assist healing if the vitality is strengthening. We do not create a healing

inflammation to our own toxicity, but bacteria and viruses can act as a

catalyst

to a generalised immune response, which will create a fever, thin the lymph,

and generate not only an attack against the infectious pathogen but, in the

process, shift huge amounts of toxicity from the cells. When this occurs

without suppressive treatment (which paralyses the movement of the toxic load to

the outside), then overall vitality is increased.

 

As we know, the detoxification diet must meet specific criteria in order to

release toxicity and replenish the cells. It is only when you have secured an

environment which will support healing that the healing metabolism kicks in,

and when the healing metabolism begins, the disease metabolism stops.

 

Scratching the surface with a sort of detoxification diet is not enough to

make the significant changes required. The consequence of years of buffering

acidity produces a hardening and weakening of the body. Many of the toxins

from the environment are non-biodegradable, so the body packs these away (such

as DDT) in fat cells; heavy metals migrate to the nerve cells (you've all

heard of the Mad Hatter's tea party - this was caused by mercury poisoning from

the felting industry), and the list goes on. Detoxification has to reach a

point where the vitality of the tissues can overcome the forces which are

holding

the toxicity in the cells, and this requires time, momentum and absolute

adherence to the diet. It is only then that you will start to release that

toxicity.

 

You will receive many patients in your practice with chronic degenerative

disease. It is important that the patient understands that their disease has

not arrived out of the blue but has taken several generations to get there. You

both will be working together to improve the constitution of the patient,

but without an honest approach of what will work and what will not work (i.e.

how many corners you are prepared to cut to pander to the patient), then you

risk short-changing the patient and yourself. You must make the

recommendations and give the patient the opportunity to decide for themselves

whether they

wish to embark on such a regime or, if not, how far they are prepared to

accommodate it.

 

Unfortunately, it is usually only when the situation reaches either a life

or death crisis, or an inability to have quality of life, that patients are

willing to comply. The patient may also have lower objectives than you, as

their practitioner. For example, a patient with arthritis may only want to

alleviate this condition but do nothing further or stronger to deal with

another

chronic disorder he or she may have. Ultimately the arthritis will return,

because the patient was not healed; the healing achieved only alleviated some

of

the more pressing symptoms. Alternatively you may have a mother who brings

her child with chronic asthma; the asthma may be corrected but give way to

eczema, and the mother decides that she would rather deal with the asthma than

see the eczema. The patient often fails to comprehend that there are levels of

deepening chronic disease and that the healing process uncovers each level on

its way to recovery.

 

A detoxification therapy will address most chronic degenerative diseases and

it is for the practitioner to observe the criteria and dietary modifications

required to stimulate healing. If the modifications are too little, then

nothing will occur. Honest observation will give you your answer. If you adopt

a

hit and miss approach - **Oh, well, we'll try this new product that*s just

come on the market, it seems to have a good write up** and disregard the

healing protocol:

 

- detoxify the body, as healing cannot occur in a toxic environment

- re-fill the cells with nutrients

- restore the immune system, so that the body can initiate a healing

inflammation

 

then you are failing to obey the laws of healing; you will be offering a

quick fix/alleviation of symptoms and healing will not occur.

---------

Some Absolutes

 

Many patients will be unprepared for the drastic changes required to ensure

detoxification and healing. You may try and ease your patient into the

regime, but you should be aware that there are some absolutes in

detoxification.

I can give you a few useful pointers:

 

Diet

 

- A low protein diet is essential to the healing process. You will not

eliminate sodium or toxins on a high protein diet. By low protein I mean that

you

must allow 0.8g of good quality protein /kg of body weight. The protein

should be of a vegetable origin (grains, legumes - unless the patient has

adverse

reactions to any of these foods, as in many autoimmune disorders) and dairy -

skimmed milk products only.

- A low fat diet is essential. One of the hardest parts of a detoxification

plan for most people is giving up fat (this includes nuts, seeds and

avocados), totally. They will do anything just to have that bit of fried food -

**Can't I just take lecithin, some carnitine or choline and inositol supplement

to

help in its metabolism?** - the answer is, no. Can you wash a greasy floor

(liver) with greasy water (diet)? - of course not. You need clean water and

lots of detergent (bile). Adding fat to the water will mean you need more

detergent to wash the floor! This means you will just keep burdening and

pushing

that liver . Unless we make maximum effort to reduce the burden, then

nothing will happen. Flaxseed oil is the only oil allowed in the therapy. I

tend

to keep my non-cancer patients away from fats for at least 6-8 months.

- All food must be organic and unprocessed. Fresh food is best

- No salt (added or *hidden*)

- Ensure correct methods of food preparation and cooking

 

Juices

 

- Generally, depending upon the condition of the patient, no reversal or

healing will occur on less than 1 litre of juice daily. 2 litres is the best

recommendation and for the cancer patient, 3 litres. The more severe the

disease, the greater the number of juices.

 

- The type of juices should include both the green juice and apple and

carrot. If the patient is anaemic or suffering from blood deficiency, or has

been

on an inadequate diet for a long period of time, then at least 2-4 of the

juices should be green. If the patient is only taking 1 litre of juice, then

half this amount should be green.

 

- The juices must be made fresh whenever possible, particularly the green.

 

- A good juicer is a must. The patient will not heal if using a centrifugal

juicer and will fail to extract the nutrients from the more fibrous greens,

unless using a machine that masticates and presses (Norwalk, Champion with

Press, K & K grinder and press) or the models which use trituration (Green

Life/Green Power, Oscar, Samson).

 

Supplements

 

Never make the mistake of assuming that nutritional supplementation will

take the place of dietary changes.

 

Enemas

 

All my patients on a detoxification program will take enemas. The rule of

thumb is 1 enema/3 juices. On a litre of juice daily, if the patient is feeling

toxic in the afternoon, they may take an additional half-strength

coffee/chamomile tea enema. The criterion for increasing or reducing enemas does

not

change: you will increase in a toxic crisis and reduce as the patient heals.

 

All patients can heal to a greater or lesser extent if the therapy is

appropriate and strong enough to secure a detoxification, while addressing the

nutritional deficiencies. I have seen dramatic improvements in kidney disease,

hypertension, breathing disorders, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases

such as myasthenia gravis and rheumatoid arthritis, coeliac disease,

hyperactive

disorders, mental depression, infertility and irritable bowel syndrome. I

have treated patients as young as 6 months (yes, with vegetable juices in the

bottle - no enemas though!) to over 80 years. Failure is rare and usually due

to non-compliance in one form or another. Some patients may have to be on the

therapy for many months before seeing any improvement, such is the case in

CFS. It is very hard for these patients to stay the course. But most patients,

if they remain committed, do reap their rewards.

 

Detoxification will become a very important therapy in the not too distant

future. Just as organic farmers are detoxifying their soil, so will human

beings be looking to detoxify their bodies for greater health and resistance.

Many detoxification plans will come onto the market - from the quick 10-day

plans to the multi-level marketing strategies based on various products. Many

of

these detoxification plans will miss the key points, and consumers will fail

to achieve their long-term expectations. Products will tend to dominate the

market until the general awareness changes. At the present time, most people

will agree that nutritional deficiencies play a major role in the onset of

disease and believe that these deficiencies can be made good with nutritional

supplements.

 

As we know, the picture is more complex than this. The organic farmer has to

actively reduce the toxicity in his soil and replenish its nutrient status

with organic matter. Once the eco-system of his land is established (worms,

bacteria, birds, etc.), then the soil has health and will produce healthy

crops. The farmer who tries to replenish his soil primarily with commercial

fertilizers and not through organic matter, will end up killing his soil. So it

is

with the human being who tries to rebuild their nutrient status (through

human commercial fertilizers: supplements) without attending to the organic

diet,

with all its components, discovered and undiscovered, and additionally

ensure the release of their toxicity.

 

It is for you to understand the philosophy of detoxification and educate

your patients on these principles. There is no short-cut. The body cannot be

forced into a healing, but the conditions can be prepared to support that

healing. Your role is to ensure that this occurs, and the patient's is to

undertake

and practise the therapy.

 

Healing is holistic. If we are not healing the soil and the planet, then we

are not healing ourselves. Our work is very important at this moment.

Educate your patients, build your reputation as a holistic practitioner and,

most

importantly, try to practise what you preach.

 

Good luck with your endeavours.

 

Kathryn Alexander

 

 

My book **Get a Life** offers a more detailed insight into some of the

issues raised in this article. Order on-line now

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