Last week I mentioned in High Sodium Levels Linked to Cancer, how Dr. Max Gerson provided us all with valuable information about the health benefits of eating high proportions of fresh fruit and vegetables, instead of foods high in acidity and sodium. This week I will build on this by looking at several long lived populations from history. By studying the diets of these long lived populations, the benefits of reducing foods with high proportions of acid and sodium from our diets are evident. Three long lived populations we should study the diet’s of are: the Hunzas in the Himalayas, Peruvian natives living in the high Andes and the Okinawans of Northern Japan.

Both lots of mountain dwellers lived into active, healthy old age (110 -120 years) on an essentially alkaline diet of fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables watered by glacier induced mineral rich irrigation water. Both the Hunzas and the Peruvian natives in the high Andes, consumed alcohol and animal proteins and fats, milk etc sparingly. The Okinawans also live into healthy old age on a traditional diet of mineral rich seafood and seaweed, tofu, miso, rice, fruit and vegetables. Similarly, their traditional diet is also more alkaline than the typical Western diet.

Quite obviously in Western communities, the combination of constipation, excess acidity and sodium levels, lack of exercise and the consumption of energy dense, mass produced and often over-processed and nutritionally deficient convenience foods high in fat, salt and sugar is proving to be a disaster. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, macular degenerative eye diseases, Coeliac Disease, asthma, osteoporosis, obesity and declining life expectancy, under our regime, are all on the rise: a very sad reflection and commentary upon our dietary and lifestyle choices. A situation, which despite our knowledge, we appear reluctant to address.

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In last week’s post, The Dangers of Acidity and Sodium, I wrote about the diet of the Western world containing too many highly processed foods with high proportions of acidity and sodium levels – leading to health serious health problems. I also wrote about Dr. Max Gerson’s discovery of high sodium intake being the cause of his recurrent severe migraines. Read on to find more about Gerson and his cancer treatment clinic.

Dr. Max Gerson believed that an excessive intake of sodium, caused the sodium to replace and displace the potassium in the human body, modifying body chemistry significantly and undesirably. In clinical trials, he found that body cells rich in potassium were highly oxygenated or aerobic – the anti-cancer condition. Whereas body cells rich in sodium become increasingly anaerobic or deprived of oxygen: a situation he believed to be cancer inducing. Gerson’s treatments involved treating people with water and seasonal fresh raw fruit and vegetable juices.

Towards the end of his life, Dr. Max Gerson complained increasingly of the declining nutritional quality of many of the fruits and vegetables he was using, also a sad indictment of our farming practices and another reason underlying our seemingly increasing poor health. His treatments involved a major cleansing regime and progressively reversed the sodium-potassium imbalance with patients often excreting 10g per day of sodium via their urine over quite extended periods.

Gerson’s cancer treatment clinic used treatments that were slow, gentle and effective. The treatments often adapted to treating a particular form of cancer, taking up to two or more years. They worked with the body’s natural healing systems, strengthened the immune system and were relatively non invasive compared to mainstream, Western, allopathic medicine. Many patients, over the years, have left his clinic free of cancer, diabetes, arthritis and the many other symptoms of an affluent lifestyle: the Gerson treatments often addressing multiple ailments simultaneously.

Sadly, Gerson’s treatments were beyond the reach of most patients financially. However, they do provide important clues as to what constitutes a more ideal long term diet for the human race; something we continue to ignore at our peril.

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Firstly, I’d like to start this post by wishing all my readers Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. I hope you all enjoyed the festive season as much as I did.

Unfortunately, too large a proportion of most people’s diets is acidic. Bread, pasta, dairy products, meat, tea, coffee, sugar, soft drinks and alcohol are all acid forming in the human digestive system. This often neutralises high dietary intakes of calcium and can lead to malabsorption of nutrients, and deficiency diseases. In the longer term this can lead to serious rheumatic, arthritic, dental and osteoporosis issues, like the rising incidence of hip fractures. I also believe this acidity plays a role in and is one of the factors behind the rising incidence of cancers of various types, especially in conjunction with constipation and excessive sodium intake.

Most people eat too high a proportion of the above listed foods and insufficient fresh fruit and vegetables. Fresh fruit and vegetables tend to be more liquid, alkaline and rich in potassium and dietary fibre than most processed foods. It is my belief that fruit and vegetables should constitute at least two thirds of the diet with all the above acid forming foods being eaten sparingly rather than forming the major portion of the diet, as they do in many instances.

Sodium is another especially critical issue when consumed to excess. In the early 1920’s Dr. Max Gerson, a young veterinary student in Vienna, suffered from severe migraine headaches for which no-one could find a cause. By careful observation of his own eating habits, Gerson eventually related these severe headaches to the consumption of milk and bacon, both of which he found contained very high levels of sodium which he suspected constituted the major cause of his headaches. At the time and to this day milk was treated with caustic soda or sodium hydroxide to neutralize the acidity produced by fertilizers and the process of pasteurising the milk. At the time, bacon was also being cured with very high levels of salt or sodium chloride.

After making these discoveries, Gerson transferred to study medicine and later went on to establish a world famous cancer treatment clinic in Mexico, still being run by his daughter, Paula.

In next week’s post I will continue writing about Dr. Gerson, his cancer treatment clinic

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