The five-week juice fast cure Anne Frahm is one person who believes that diet can cure cancer. In her book: Cancer Battle Plan, she describes how, for eighteen months she went through every form of conventional therapy - surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, hormone therapy and finally, an autologous bone marrow transplant. They all failed. She refused to `lie down and play dead' and instead went to see a nutritional counsellor. Following a strict juice diet, she claims that all signs of cancer quickly left her. " Within five weeks after starting a strict programme of detoxification and diet under the guidance of a nutritional counselor, my cancer had packed its bags." Hers was a breast cancer that had metastasized to the backbone - and even to the bone marrow. Her recovery was begun by going on a juice fast that looked like this: 8:30 am grapefruit juice with olive oil. She brewed a pot of Jason Winters' Tea to sip throughout the day. 9:00 am apple juice with fibre cleanse, plus enemas. 10:00 am green-drink with vitamin C powder 11 am apple juice with fibre cleanse Noon carrot juice, acidophilus 1:00 pm green drink with vitamin C powder 2:00 pm apple juice with fibre cleanse. 3:00 pm carrot juice 4:00 pm green drink 5:00 pm apple juice with fibre cleanse 6:00 pm carrot juice 7:00 pm green drink with vitamin C powder 8:00 pm carrot juice 9:00 pm green drink with vitamin C powder 10:00 pm apple juice with fibre cleanse It is not clear from the book what the green drink consists of. It is either a mixed vegetable juice containing red cabbage, cos lettuce, watercress, and green peppers (favoured by proponents of the Gerson diet described below) or it is the Barleygreen or Wheatgrass drink (also described below). Acidophilus are so-called `friendly' bacteria that aid digestion and the absorption of nutrients. Jason Winter's Tea is a tea made from chapparal, an American herb. The ingredients for the juices were organically grown apples and carrots and they were mixed 50-50 with distilled water. No tap water was allowed. The juices have to be drunk soon after they are made as the nutrients quickly oxidise. For Anne Frahn, this was the start of a programme that would lead on to a largely raw vegetarian diet supported by enzymes, amino acids and vitamin & mineral supplements; strengthened through morale boosting activities and exercise. And, if we believe what she says, by following this diet rigorously all signs of her cancer were gone in five weeks. The water question This question of water needs to be dealt with early on. It is strongly believed by many that tap water, chlorinated and/or fluoridated or simply heavy in calcium, is extremely unhealthy and interferes with the absorption of nutrients. The option generally argued for is pure distilled water. However, there are critics who say that distilled water leaches minerals from the system and would therefore in theory lead to inevitable mineral deficiencies. The retort to this is that, yes, distilled water does leach out minerals but these are not the organic minerals that the body can use - they are therefore potentially toxic to the body and so distilled water is doing the body a favour by removing them. Some people take a different tack. They say that filtered tap water is fine because the toxic chemicals have been removed. Others say that filtered tap water is a potential health hazard if the filter is not regularly changed because the filter becomes loaded with toxins which eventually leak through and instead of providing the drinker with chemical-free water instead provides water with a very high and very toxic chemical content. This argument goes round and round. Each person has to make his/her own decision. With respect to the juice diet, it seems to me sensible to use bottled distilled water if this is cheaply and widely available. The case against meat Anne Frahm was forbidden by her nutritionist from taking in any animal product: the reason being that they store pollutants from the environment. Dairy products have a 250% higher concentration of pollution - pesticides etc - than green leaf vegetables and 1,500% more than root vegetables. The figures for meat, fish and poultry are double these figures. Meat also contains all the hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals that are part of modern animal farming. According to T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University: "Excessive animal protein is at the core of many chronic diseases." Animal fats also increase the number of anaerobic bacteria in the human gut - and these bacteria create an environment that favour the development of cancer. These anaerobic bacteria live not by oxygen but by fermentation - and so do cancer cells. In fact, it appears there is a strong case to be made that cancer cells develop as a response to a low oxygen environment. A diet high in animal fats is likely to be low in fibre so these bacteria stay for longer than they should in the intestine. So meat is out. The principles of detoxification Alongside her dietary changes, Anne Frahm had a daily enema. The purpose of this procedure is to flush out the colon and so help the regeneration of the liver. Now the place of the liver in the scheme of things is another focus of dissent. Orthodox surgeons pour scorn on the idea that a poor functioning liver has anything to do with the development of cancer, but most complementary health practitioners disagree. So do some orthodox doctors. Dr Harold Manner has absolutely no doubt that liver dysfunction is the root of the problem: " the livers of cancer patients have become clogged with many of the poisons they were meant to eliminate...Cancer can be reversed and controlled only if we regenerate the liver. Fortunately for us, the liver is the one organ in the body capable of regenerating itself. " So purification of the liver is the first step to a cancer-free existence. What causes the liver to become toxic and so dysfunction? Poor elimination of waste in the colon. Poisonous materials are trapped in the large intestine and reabsorbed back into the bloodstream where they again go through an increasingly weakened liver. As it becomes less and less able to keep up the work of cleaning the blood, the whole body becomes more toxic. The most famous exponent of colon health was Norman W. Walker. On the first page of his book: Colon Health: the Key to a Vibrant Life., he says: "Few of us realise that failure to effectively eliminate waste products from the body causes so much fermentation and putrefaction in the large intestine, or colon, that the neglected accumulation of such waste can, and frequently does, result in a lingering demise." Norman Walker's prescription for a healthy life included half-yearly colonics, vitamin C and raw vegetable juices, particularly carrot juice. Since he lived actively to the age of 109. It is hard to argue with him. An efficient colon will eliminate food 16-24 hours after it has been ingested. Very few British intestines work at this rate. According to the Dunn Nutritional Institute at Cambridge, they average, 60 hours, and 5 days is not unusual. Colonic Therapist, Pauline Noakes, likens the situation to having the dustmen permanently on strike so that the rubbish piles up in the street. "Many people don't realise they are carrying around impacted faecal matter in their colons and that their lack of energy, their irritability, their aches and pains...and various ailments are due to the toxic waste in the bowel." (P.Noakes, Positive Health magazine, April/May 1995) There is evidence to support this view. Two doctors from University of California, Nicholas Petrakis and Eileen King, writing in the Lancet in 1982, reported that they had studied the breast fluids of 5,000 women. They had found that women who had two or fewer bowel movements per week had four times the risk of breast disease (benign or malignant) as those who had one or more bowel movements per day. They also found that the bowels of people who ate meat contained greater amounts of mutagenic (potentially harmful) substances than did those of people who abstained from eating meat. Colon Cleansing Enemas can be undertaken at home with an enema kit bought at a pharmacy. Easier and more effective is to go to a colonic cleansing clinic, but make sure the person giving the therapy is a registered colonic therapist. (Send a large SAE to The Colonic International Association, 50A Morrish Road, London SW2 4EG or telephone 071-671-7136 for a list of registered colonic therapists in Britain.) And how do you feel after a colonic? Carol Signorella, writing in Cosmopolitan October 1979 wrote: "After a year of colonics, my appearance and energy levels were both radically improved. No more draggy mornings or late afternoon slumps... I seem to think more clearly now and I need less sleep. In a word my body and mind feel marvellously clean." Wouldn't laxatives work just as well? The answer is a definite no. Colonics clean out the large intestine but laxatives also interfere with the small intestine which is where digestion and absorption of nutrients occur. Also laxatives are, in a sense, addictive - for them to continue to be effective, you need to take larger and larger doses. A word of caution: colon hydrotherapy is not suitable for people with the folowing conditions: severe cardiac disease, aneurysm, severe anaemia, severe haemorrhoids, cirrhosis, carcinoma of the colon, fistulas, advanced pregnancy, kidney problems and hernia. There are perfectly good alternatives to a full colonic. One is to take a colonic cleansing treatment. A suspension of Bentonite mud and dried psyllium husks does a good job of taking waste material out of the digestive system. All pharmacies and health shops should be able to offer advice in this area. Anne Frahm's story is enlightening. Hers is one story that food alone can cure cancer in a person who is still prepared to fight despite gloomy medical predictions. But she is not alone. In fact the principle that underlay Frahm's cure has been known for thousands of years. The ancient Hippocratic Oath contains the following much ignored statement: "I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgement." AN OVER-VIEW OF NUTRITIONAL THERAPY There is general agreement from all sides that 70-90 per cent of all cancers are caused by lifestyle and environment, and of this at least half are in some way related to diet and nutrition, while a further 30 per cent are the result of cigarette smoking. Some studies supporting a nutritional approach to prevention or cure are summarised here: A large-scale study in New Zealand published in 1994 showed that vegetarians had less than half the cancer risk of their meat eating friends and neighbours. - A 50-year study in England and Wales found that breast cancer mortality fell from the beginning of World War II because intake of animal fats and sugar fell due to rationing. In 1954, consumption of these items returned to prewar levels. However, breast cancer rates did not return about 1969, suggesting that there is a 15 year time lag between ingestion and development of the disease. This is close to the 20 year timelag reported between increase in smoking habits and increased incidence of lung cancer. - Seventh Day Adventists, of whom roughly half are vegetarian, have significantly lower cancer levels than average. 84 per cent less cervical cancer and 30-44 per cent fewer leukemias for example. - The Hunza people of northern Pakistan are renowned for their freedom from degenerative diseases. Dr Robert McCarrison who visited the area from 1904-1911 said," I never saw a case ... of cancer." he attributed their health and longevity to their diet of whole-wheat chapatis, barley, maize, green leafy vegetables, beans and apricots. Later experimenting on rats, he found that rats fed on the Hunza diet remained healthy and free of disease, while rats fed on the normal Indian diet contracted heart disease, cancer and other ailments.