Dr. Fuhrman on Fasting
So we all know Dr. Fuhrman is a huge advocate of a nutrient-dense vegetable-based diet for superior health, longevity, and disease protection. But did you know he is a strong supporter of fasting too? In fact, he wrote a book about it. Here’s a little bit from Fasting and Eating for Health:
Susan Seliger of WebMD investigates whether or not fasting is healthy. And you’ll see she tapped a familiar source. Take a look:
Therapeutic fasting accelerates the healing process and allows the body to recover from serious disease in a dramatically short period of time. In my practice I have seen fasting eliminate lupus and arthritis, remove chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema, health the digestive tract in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and quickly eliminate cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and angina. In these cases the recoveries were permanent: fasting enabled longtime disease suffers unchain themselves from their multiple toxic dugs and even eliminate the need for surgery, which was recommended to some of them as their only solution.Until I started working for Dr. Fuhrman I thought fasting was something that happened by accident, i.e. not having a job. And you certainly don't hear the modern medical community talking about it, so to say the least I was pretty surprised when Dr. Fuhrman emailed me this article.
Susan Seliger of WebMD investigates whether or not fasting is healthy. And you’ll see she tapped a familiar source. Take a look:
"Fasting is not a weight loss tool. Fasting slows your metabolic rate down so your diet from before the fast is even more fattening after you fast," says Joel Fuhrman MD, author of Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Plan for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss and Fasting and Eating for Health.
Fasting for weight loss carries other health risks as well.
While fasting for a day or two is rarely a problem if you are healthy, "it can be quite dangerous if you are not already eating a healthy diet, or if you’ve got liver or kidney problems, any kind of compromised immune system functioning, or are on medication -- even Tylenol," says Fuhrman, a family physician in Flemington, N.J..
Even worse for dieters is that fasting for weight loss "distracts people from the real message of how to lose weight: lower fat intake, eat five fruits and vegetables a day, drink water and stop drinking other liquids, walk 30 minutes a day, and get more sleep," says Fernstrom, an associate professor of psychiatry, epidemiology, and surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
In addition, other practices that are often combined with fasting for weight loss, such as colon cleansing, carry their own risks.
Fasting establishes neuroadaptation,i.e. becoming more sensitive to the taste of natural food and desensitized to sweet and fatty food. An added benefit from fasting.