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Although this book was written for researchers and historians, it is able to make many other people better informed on these issues.
Since there are over fifty cancer treatment methods surveyed in this complete book of over 200 pages, in searching for the best ones to work with - what are the essential points we should keep in mind, in order to find the best remedial program for cancer?
(In the following overview, we will frequently refer to the cancer as a "tumor," knowing that not all types of cancer are in that form.)
In dealing with cancer, what are the areas which need correcting?
To summarize the above: Good nutrition cleans the tumor, gradually emptying it into the bloodstream, where it travels to the liver, which cleans the blood. Help is needed to clean the liver, which then empties the poisons through the gall bladder into the small intestine. That waste must be quickly hurried out of the body.
Reading through the more than fifty cancer treatment methods in this book, we find that all of them claim to reduce the tumor tissue.
But very few of them deal with all five factors; indeed, most appear to not be aware that all five must be dealt with.
In order to have the highest rate of success, all five factors must be dealt with, and on an ongoing basis, every day!
Let us now consider each of these five factors more closely:
1 - Wasting away: Part One of this present book provides a wealth of information on nutrition needed to prevent cancer and aid in eliminating it. Of the several dozen treatments described in Part Two, some strongly emphasize nutrition. These include Bulkley (47), Bell (48), Ozias (50) Hindhede (55), Chase (59), Kloss (66), Drosnes and Lazenby (71) Evers (82), Wigmore (84), Kelley (85), Knekt (89), Livingston (95), Schrauzer (99), Issels (102), Asai (106), Karmali (107) Krebs (118), and Gerson (142).
But, of these, most provide us with only vague data on nutritional changes needed or focus on the use of a single vitamin or nutrient.
Here are the few which actually had a nutritional program which was highly organized: Chase (59), Kloss (66), Drosnes and Lazenby (71), Kelley (85), Krebs (especially see 126-129), and Gerson (142 onward).
Of these, the Krebs and Gerson nutritional programs are to be noted. But the Gerson nutritional program is the most carefully structured and adapted to the needs of the cancer sufferer.
2. Reduce the tumor: All of the more than fifty remedial programs discussed in this book claim to reduce the tumor mass.
A number of them use special chemicals, herbs, serums, vitamins, or oxygen to do it. An excellent, brief survey of what each uses to reduce the tumor will be found on pp. 167-168.
Of the various methods used, one of the best is nutrition. Good food can not only reverse the wasting away problem; but, in addition, it is the primary way the tumor is dissolved!
Because the Gerson therapy provides the best nutrition, it is, in this respect, the best of more than forty programs for reducing the tumor.
3. Clean the liver: Surprisingly, although many methods have been devised to dissolve the tumor, very little attention has generally been paid to the need to come to the rescue of the overworked liver, - and remove the toxic buildup developing there as it cleans dissolving cancer tissue from the blood stream.
To our knowledge, only the Gerson program systematically deals with this problem.
4. Clean the bowel: Once again, the Gerson program is one of only a few which give careful attention to this need. As an important added benefit, as the liver and bowel are cleansed, pain is found to be reduced, and the person feels much better.
One might imagine that the present writer is prejudiced in favor of the Gerson program. Yet he wants you to know that he came to this conclusion after having written the present 200-page survey of all the better-known alternative cancer therapies and their results.
Why is the Gerson therapy superior? Here are several very important reasons:
Number of people helped: This is the outstanding factor: the pragmatic test. Does it really work? How many people has it helped? The Gerson program has helped more people recover from cancer than any other method that we know of.
Length of time it has been used: In the twentieth century, the Gerson therapy has been used longer than any other. Max Gerson first began using the method about the year 1910, and continued doing so until his death in 1959. In 1978 his daughter, Charlotte, teamed up with a medical group and opened a clinic in Tijana, Mexico, which has continued on down to the present. That is a span of 70 years!
Continual improvement for 70 years: As Gerson and those who followed him have tried to help cancer patients, they have gradually improved on the method. They were not satisfied to stop with one or two discoveries. They have considered every approach used by others and have found a few which are useful (many which were not).
Not a single substance: A large number of the forty alternative cancer remedies discussed elsewhere in this large book are single-item preparations. Yet it requires a broad nourishment and cleansing approach to both remove the cancer and rebuild the body. The Gerson program is broader than any other the present writer has, to date, found.
No strange chemicals: Other than potassium and iodine, both elements which the body needs, the Gerson therapy does not use chemicals. There are no laboratory-prepared extracts, no horse serums. Nearly all the foodstuffs can be purchased in a grocery store.
No pain opiates needed: Daily cleansing of the liver and bowel removes the pain. This enables the person to be much more cheerful and positive, and obtain better rest during sleep, during the recovery process. A cancer therapy is moving in the right direction when it reduces the accompanying pain. The removal of pain shows that the buildup of toxins in the body is being lowered.
Willingness to share: Gerson and his associates have been willing to share all they know, so folk can use it at home. That is a quality one does not find very often. We do not have here a secret formula, which is kept hidden for personal profit.
Yet, not even the Gerson therapy can heal every cancer sufferer. It should be kept in mind that certain factors reduce the likelihood of healing:
1 - Progression: How far the cancer has advanced. If a person begins on a nutritional/cleansing program early, he is far more likely to achieve a full recovery. (However, much of Gerson's successful work was with patients which the other physicians had given up on.)
2 - Location: The cancer site. Some types of carcinomas are more difficult to heal than others. Therefore, as soon as one recognizes that he has cancer, it is best to begin a full healing program.
3 - Chemotherapy and/or radiation: Has the individual received any chemotherapy or radiation for cancer? If so, his body has been heavily poisoned and weakened. Chemotherapy and radiation operate on the principle of trying to kill more cancer cells than the other cells. In the process, all kinds of cells are damaged or destroyed. But even if all the cancer cells were to be eliminated by chemo or radiation, - if the body has been greatly weakened in the attempt, and if nothing has particularly been done to cleanse the system of impurities or rebuild it with the best of food, the person would probably relapse into cancer again.
4 - Fully on the program: If the person does not fully go on the Gerson program (the choice of many), he/she is so delighted with the early relief that they only do the program partially or quit after a few months.
5 - After a relapse: If the person goes on a cancer-reduction program (Gerson, Laetrile, Essiac, etc.), then reduces or terminates it before the cancer is fully gone, and later tries to go on the program again after the cancer returns - he can find himself in very real trouble. Frequently, after a relapse, the cancer can not be controlled as it earlier had been.
Max Gerson succeeded where many have failed because he spent decades trying to improve his clinical work and watched closely to see what worked instead of what the researchers, working with rats, had concluded.
"The physician ... hesitates to take risks for his patients by applying a not-recognized treatment ... I was in a more favorable position. Ninety to ninety-five percent of my patients were far advanced (terminal) cases without any risk to take; either all recognized treatments had failed or the patents were inoperable from the beginning."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. xiv."Retrospectively, I think the results were arrived at because I did not follow most of the scientific literature nor the laboratory findings, as far as they did not accord with the clinical confirmations. `Der Erfolg am Krankenbett ist entscheidend,' Professor Kussmaul said. (`The result at the sick-bed is decisive.') I do not want to make the mistake Winston Churchill expressed so clearly: `Men occasionally stumble over Truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.' "
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 212 [cf. p. 207]"The scientifically accepted method is that these [cancer] symptoms alone will be treated locally wherever they appear. [If there is cancer of the mouth, treat the mouth, etc.] That is what we physicians learn and how we are trained in university clinics. All research work adheres mostly to these local symptoms. This is, in my opinion, the reason why decisive progress in cancer treatment has been impeded."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 37."Symptomatic treatment is harmful wherever in nature it is applied to the soil, plants, animals or human beings, or in medicine."
"Each part is important, but the whole in its infinitely fine order is more important."
Dr. Werner Kollath, quoted in
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 5."As Dr. Gerson expresses it, cancer is not specific. It is a degenerative condition of the total metabolism, including damage to the liver and all essential organs, which then makes it possible for cancer to develop. Similar damage also precedes other chronic diseases."
Charlotte Gerson Straus, Appendix I,
A Cancer Therapy, p. 391 [Gerson's youngest daughter].
Max Gerson recognized that God's plan was for man to eat wholesome food. In order to provide food for the plants, God gave us the soil, and then He gave us a gardener to till it!
"In Readers Digest, Dr. Thomas Barrett referred to the earthworm and soil. A French peasant told Dr. Barrett, `Le Bon Dieu knows how to build good earth and He has given the secret to the earthworms.' "
Thomas Barrett, Readers Digest, May 1948,
quoted in Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 184.
The following statements will help you understand Max Gerson's work:
"The experimental causation of cancer, first accomplished by Yamagiva and Itchikawa, through rubbing tar substance on the ears of rabbits for about nine months, is of importance insofar as they found that before the cancer started to appear, the liver was damaged and showed pathological changes, together with the kidneys, spleen and the lymphatic apparatus. The long period was required to poison the liver, before the damaged cells could perform the `mutation' into cancer."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 40."Cancer means: (1) Slow intoxication and alteration of the whole body, especially the liver. (2) Invasion of the Na-group [sodium and chloride], loss of the K-group [potassium and iodine], followed by tissue edema. (3) Lower electrical potentials in vital organs, more edema, accumulation of poisons, loss of tension, tonus, reduced reactivation and oxidation power, dedifferentiation [lack of differentiation] of some cells. (4) Cancer starts: general poisoning increases, vital functions and energies decrease. Cancer increases. (5) Further destruction of the metabolism and liver parenchym [the distinguishing or unique cells of the liver are destroyed]. Cancer rules, is acting, spreading. (6) Loss of last defense [the liver]. Hepatic coma. Death."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 102."The cancerous body is anergic, which means that it cannot prevent cancerous growth nor respond and defend itself against it. The treatment, therefore, has the task of restoring these normal functions, ... and finally, the conditions are restored for production, activation and reactivation of oxidizing enzymes."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 124."From the beginning, I felt that the tumor had to be killed while some scientists were satisfied to arrest the growths for as long a time as possible. In one of my articles I enumerated eleven points of difference between normal and cancer cells. The most important points are: cancer cells have more Na (ionized) [Cancer cells have more ionized sodium], live on fermentation (not on the normal oxidation), are negatively charged electrically, do not have the normal exchange with blood and serum, and grow and spread uncontrolled. Studying these, I felt there must be a way to prevent the fermentation, that is, to eliminate the basic facts upon which fermentation is built and can function. The fermentation is vital for the life of the cancer cell. That is the object upon which we could base further tests and explorations. How could this be done? The most Na-free [sodium free] diet has to be applied to extract Na from cancer cells through the blood and lymph stream. Instead of Na, potassium and the oxidizing enzymes have to be brought in with the help of an allergic inflammation."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 195."According to Dr. Gerson's research, the beginning of all chronic disease is the loss of potassium (K) from the cells and invasion of sodium (Na) into the cells, and with it water. This causes edema and the resulting malfunctions - loss of electrical potentials in the cells, improper enzyme formation, reduced cell oxidation, etc. The building of almost all enzymes requires K as a catalyst (activating agent) and is inhibited (slowed or stopped) by Na ... In order to initiate healing then, it is essential to remove excess Na from the cells, reintroduce large amounts of K, and detoxify the system of accumulated intermediary substances and other toxins. This is best accomplished by large amounts of K from fresh fruit and juices, detoxification through the kidneys and by enemas, and reactivation of the liver by special liver therapy. If this were only a theoretical assumption, it would not be worth mentioning. However, in Dr. Gerson's many years of experience with all types of chronic disease, this process worked in practice. Degenerative disease could be reversed, eliminated, and the body healed."
Charlotte Gerson, Appendix I,
A Cancer Therapy, pp. 392-393."... a precancerous development [in the body] ... does mean the pre-stage of any kind of skin cancer, but it does mean a gradual intoxication with a loss of the normal content of the potassium group and the iodine from the tissues of vital organs. That chronic loss opens the door for the invasion of sodium, chloride and water into the cells, producing a kind of edema. In my opinion, it must be assumed, as a rule, that sodium and iodine favor undifferentiated, quicker growth, seen in embryos and cancer; while potassium and iodine assure a more differentiated, slower growth with normal cell division. Here sodium and potassium are the exponents of two minerals groups with opposite electrical potentials, keeping the body in a controlled equilibrium ..."
"Iodine is necessary for higher differentiation and increased oxidation and could be used for that reason against cancer development, but not alone."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 197.
So starving the cancer cells of their sodium was an important factor in killing the cancer cell. Another was abundant, good nutrition - which would fill the body with potassium.
"... reading all the [medical] literature, I saw that all the scientists treat the symptoms. These, I thought, are only symptoms. There must be something basic behind them ..."
"... through my work with tuberculosis, I learned that in tuberculosis and in all other degenerative diseases, one must not treat the symptoms. The body - the whole body - has to be treated ... I came to the conclusion that the most important part of our body is the digestive tract ... And at the same time eliminate all the waste products ..."
"... the liver plays an important role. It eliminates the toxins from the body, prepares them so they can enter into the bile ducts, and can thus be eliminated with the bile; - that is not an easy job ..."
"The digestive tract is very much poisoned in cancer. How can we handle that? Detoxification is an easy word, but it is very difficult to do in cancer patients. These cases, when they are far advanced, can hardly eat. They have no stomach juice, the liver doesn't function, the pancreas doesn't function, nothing is active."
"Where do we begin? The most important first step is the detoxification. So let us go into that. First we gave some different enemas. I found out that the best enema is the coffee enema as it was first used by Prof. O.A. Meyer in Goettingen. This idea occurred to him when, together with Prof. Heubner, he gave caffeine solution into the rectum of animals. He observed that the bile ducts were opened and more bile could flow ..."
"The patients [I worked with] reported that this was doing them good. The pain disappeared even though in order to carry through the detoxification, we had to take away all sedation. I realized that it is impossible to detoxify the body on the one hand and put in drugs and poisons on the other ... One patient told me that he had one grain of codeine every two hours and he got morphine injections - how can you take these away? I told him that the best sedation is a coffee enema. After a very short time he had to agree with that, [Gerson then mentions that his treatments cause the tumors, as they dissolved away, to begin shrinking] ..."
"These patients who absorb the big tumor masses [from the tumor into the blood stream into the liver] are awakened with an alarm clock every night because they are otherwise poisoned by the absorption of these masses. If I give them only one or two or three enemas, [this will not detoxify enough], they die of poisoning. I did not have the right as a physician to cause the body to absorb all the cancer masses and then not to detoxify enough. With two or three enemas they were not detoxified enough! They went into a coma hepaticum (liver coma). Autopsies showed that the liver was poisoned. I learned from these disasters that you can't give these patients too much detoxification [into the bloodstrem without take it out of the body with enemas] ... When I didn't give these patients the night enemas, they were drowsy and almost semi-conscious in the morning. The nurses confirmed this and told me that it takes a couple of enemas till they are free of this toxic state again. I cannot stress the [importance of] detoxification enough. Even so with all these enemas, this was not enough! I had to also give them castor oil by mouth and by enema every other day, at least for the first week or so. After these two weeks you wouldn't recognize these patients any more! They had arrived on a stretcher, and now they walked around! They had appetite. They gained weight and the tumors went down."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, pp. 406-408."In former periods when there was not enough detoxification in my treatment, after the tumor was killed, the patient did not die of cancer - but of a serious intoxication with coma hepaticum caused by absorption of necrotic [dead] cancer tissue, as several autopsies have shown. The solution is that all these former failures can no longer occur if there is an intensive detoxification [through enemas] maintained long enough and a potassium plus iodine predominance [through nutrition] kept present ... Only a detoxified body has both power of resistance and healing."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, pp. 197-198.
Gradually, the tumor shrinks and dissolves. But more is required than merely killing the tumor cells. Next must come the task of cleaning those dead cells out of the system, and killing cancer cells elsewhere in the body.
"But now we have to deal with a mass of dead cells in the body, in the blood stream - and they have to be eliminated wherever they may be. And that is not so easy! The ripe [cancer] cells, the mature cells, are very abnormal. They are much more easily killed than the other cells which are unripe, not yet mature, and not so well developed. And there are other cancer cells in lymph vessels. These are clogged at both ends by cancer cells. No blood and no lymph can reach them. There are cancer cells in the glands. They are hidden there, protected from regular circulation. So it isn't easy to reach these. At first it is only the big [tumor] mass which is killed. But this dead mass now has to be absorbed wherever it is ... This absorption is only possible through the blood steam. I call this `parenteral digestion.' [In contrast,] Enteral digestion is in the intestinal tract. Parenteral digestion takes place outside the digestive tract, through the blood stream. It becomes important then to continually carry on detoxification day and night in order to bring the parenteral digestion to the highest point ... How can this be done?"
... [Gerson says the key is in building good soil and only eating good food.] ... "But our modern food, the `normal' food people eat is bottled, poisoned, canned, color added, powdered, frozen, dipped in acids, sprayed - no longer normal. We no longer have living, normal food ... One cannot cure very sick people by adding poisons to their systems. We cannot detoxify our bodies when we add poisons through our food, which is one of the reasons why cancer is so much on the increase."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 410.
But an important key is whether the liver can be saved.
"I should like to tell you what we do to prove that this treatment really does work on cancer. Number one, the results. I think I can claim [in 1956] that I have, even in these far advanced cases, 50% results. The real problem arises when we cannot restore the liver. Then there is no hope. The liver - the restoration of the liver and its functions - are so important that some of the patients whose livers cannot be restored die some six months to 2[1/2] years later from cirrhosis. Autopsies show no cancer cells in the body. They did not die from cancer. They died from a shrunken liver."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 411.
But can we not use drugs and hormones to stimulate the liver?
"We have to separate the state of pre-cancerous condition from the state where the cancer appears. In the pre-cancerous condition, all is prepared. The liver is sufficiently damaged and the other organs of the intestinal tract are damaged enough and then later the symptoms appear. Until then we have the pre-cancerous condition - and this condition cannot be cured with hormones and enzymes, etc. We can to a certain degree stimulate the liver with hormones. We can stimulate the liver with cortisone. We can stimulate the liver with adrenalin, etc., but then we take out the last reserves. We empty the liver instead of refilling it. What we have to do in cancer - a degenerative, deficiency disease - is to refill the organs which are empty and poisoned."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 414.Question: [Question from audience] "Your treatment worked in advanced cases of cancer of the liver?"
Answer: [Dr. Gerson's reply] "If more than half to three-quarters of the liver is gone, you can't restore its function enough to save the patient. You may save them for half a year to a year, but then the liver may shrink and the patients die of a shrunken liver, cirrhosis of the liver. The liver is such an important organ that when it has to eliminate its own cancer, this has to be done by the healthy liver tissue. Yet the process of elimination can damage the healthy liver tissue, if we don't detoxify constantly day and night, especially in these cases ... [He then tells of a woman who was brought to him with an apparently hopeless liver in terrible shape, - but he was able to save her because she kept taking the coffee enemas, every hour or two, and castor oil enemas twice a day - instead of the normal regime of 5 coffee enemas every 24 hours, and one castor oil enema every two days.]"
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 416."The Damocles sword of cirrhosis hangs over all cancer patients who have far advanced malignancies in their abdominal organs. We know that all these organs send their blood through the portal veins into the liver where tumor cells settle very frequently as soon as the liver, working as a filter, has lost its defense power."
Max Gerson, A Cancer Therapy, p. 68.