Fasting has been considered to be a very powerful approach for healing of common diseases. Fasting detoxifies the body and allows it to rest. Few people consider fasting as a means to lose weight. During a fast, the body not only uses its own energy to cleanse itself from its accumulated toxins but also heals the parts that are unwell. When the fast progresses, the body uses everything including bacteria, stored fat, viruses and waste products that are present in the blood, because these are not essential for bodily functioning.
How does fasting work?
In the body, most of the changes occur during the first three days of fasting. This occurs because the body starts to depend on other fuel sources. To put it in a nut shell, during a fast, the body goes through three main stages:
- First Stage: In the body, the first stage deals with cleansing by removing large quantities of wastes and digestive residues. The first few days of a fast can be rough, because of the amount of waste passing through the blood stream.
- Second Stage: The cleaning becomes more thorough as the fast continues. During the second stage, the body cleanses the diseased and dying cells, mucoid fat, and other removable toxins. There is little desire for food during the second stage.
- Last stage: The last stage of fasting deals with cleansing the body from the toxins that have been accumulated in the cells right from birth, and the other toxins present in the microscopic tubes which are responsible for carrying essential elements to the brain. It is possible to cleanse the last layer only through a combination of water fasting, juice fasting and healthy diet of raw food.
If you want to overcome any severe disease, it is important that you continue a series of fasts so that the disease is removed from the tissue due to vigorous catabolism.
Fasting as a means of healing
For a number of disease conditions, fasting is found to be helpful. A number of clinical studies and trials have been carried out in treating common diseases with fasting. These findings suggest that through fasting a few common disease conditions can be healed. Few findings are as follows:
- Hypertension: A number of trials reveal that fasting is one of the effective method for lowering the blood pressure. Fasting helps in normalizing the cardiovascular function. Once the fast is completed, the blood pressure is observed to be low.
- Cardiovascular Disease: Fasting is considered to be beneficial in congestive heart failure and chronic cardiovascular disease, atheromas and reducing cholesterol.
- Type II Diabetics: Fasting is found to be extremely beneficial for type II diabetics, and is often considered to reverse the condition permanently.
- Obesity: Fasting has been one of the most effective treatment for obesity. Due to fasting, the fat stored in the body is reduced and thereby the risk involved due to obesity is also reduced.
- Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis: Findings from a number of studies suggest that fasting is effective in treating both Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis.
- During fasting, poor immune function improves. According to studies, there is cell- mediated immunity, decreased anti body- antigen complexes and enhanced natural killer activities.
- Depression, Insomnia, Hay fever, neurosis, schizophrenia, uterine fibroids, eczema are couple of diseases that are believed to have responded well to fasting.
Who cannot fast
Although most of us can fast, due to special conditions there are a few who cannot fast.
- People who are extremely in a state of starvation or emaciated
- People who are anorexic or bulimic
- Pregnant and Diabetic women
- People who have severe anemia
- People who have a fear of fasting
- People who have a genetic metabolic defect called — porphyria. It is a defect the affects the body’s ability to combine porphyria compounds with iron to produce blood.
- People with a genetic, fatty acid deficiency which prevents the initiation of ketosis. Fasting with this rare deficiency can lead to a lot of side effects.
