Hi Alan, all,

I started writing a brief reply and just started sharing my thoughts in depth.
So, this is one of my long posts.

> > Personally, I think a two week fast on distilled water will injure most
> > people's health.
>
> I suspect this is a "gut feeling" on your part rather than the result of
> any experience with distilled water. You have obviously been reading
> some literature on this so I would be greatful if you could quote it
> so that I can reply.

Well, no this isn't "gut feeling" - Let me introduce myself to you - I don't
think we've had a discussion here yet.  I'm a trained and licensed health care
professional, and extended (for weeks on end) fasting (as opposed to brief, like
up to two days or so) on water only is medically documented to be injurious to a
normal body, as we do need nutrients (minerals, protein, fats, vitamins to name
some of the chemical components) to be well.  So if you did this water only fast
indefinitely you'd die of malnutrition.  You CAN survive for two weeks on water
only, but you cannot have optimum health on this for an extended period.

So my statement isn't "gut feeling" but observation and personal experience
watching many patients who have tried to do this before coming to me for
treatment.  If anyone tries to do this they'll feel weak, tired and exhausted.
That is not a good sign of health.  The regimens I put my patients on always
have them feeling energetic, not weak.  Put your average person on a daily diet
of a little (like a half pint to a pint) of fresh vegetable juice plus lots of
water for many days and most people will detox for a couple of days, but be
highly energetic, mentally alert, physically become more well if they were
suffering from any ailment.

It is has also been documented that in lab tests animals that are lean, and
which are put on near starvation diets for periods of time have extended
longevity by a very significant factor.  Scientists are still determining all
the reasons why.  Still that is not water only fasting.

One reason for the extended longevity is that when mammals digest food they
obtain nutrients, but also there are other chemicals created/released during
digestion which cause
extremely minute damage to the cells, including but not limited to damage to the
DNA.  This damage can actually be measured by chemically testing the
urine.  The more a mammal eats, the more damage is done to the DNA in a day.
This damage
is measurable in humans and what is not known is whether the DNA repairs itself
later.  All that is known is that it is usually damaged after eating.  So
partial fasting gives the body some nutrients but also causes a minimal amount
of damage to the DNA and, if the body treats DNA like any other body part, maybe
it will repair the damage when it has the opportunity.  Some foods damage the
DNA more than others but I haven't seen research about whether cooked and
processed foods cause more damage which is of course what I suspect.  If one's
DNA were all perfect, one would live much longer, since, in a sense, as we age
or become unwell our bodies "forget" how to make a perfect copy of what it made
before and hence you have cancer or something like that.  My thoughts is that
raw unprocessed foods contain healthy DNA which our bodies could somehow use to
maintain or repair its own.


> > I would never recommend that for any patient.  I think eating very
> > sparingly or nearly fasting is much preferable.
> >
> Eating "sparingly or nearly fasting" is not fasting and the root of
> the problem that most people have with dieting..i.e. the so-called
> "yo-yo effect" where one tends to gain weight faster afterwards than
> before.

Well, now we were not talking about weight loss; we are talking about fasting to
heal, and
specifically to heal herpes.  Well, I have helped patients with using only
natural means - using treatments that stimulate the body's immune system and to
initiate healing.  I have found people get well fastest on a very sparing diet
of fresh raw stuff, or nearly fasting.  We can start another thread on dieting,
but that is not the point of this discussion.


> > I have helped people with herpes by using Chinese herbs.  My patients
> > have all told me that this works well. Since I always recommend raw
> > foods for any infection or immune system problems I have to think the
> > herbs work best with lots of raw foods.
> >
> Imported Chinese herbs have been found to contain high levels of
> heavy metals and even conventional medicines. Herbs grown naturally
> are also a part of every raw food diet (herbs are vegetables as
> long as they are deemed edible..those which contain toxins are
> not natural human food, i.e. even though the medical industry
> uses some of these toxins as medicine). I eat many wild plants
> and do not consider them to be "herbs" (the word has a medicinal
> touch) but merely alternative vegetables.

Wrong!  Chinese herbs don't contain high levels of heavy metals, or certainly
not any more than another country's herbs.  I find your statement irritating
because it makes it sound like Chinese foods and herbs are somehow excessively
toxic, and I think your statement is ridiculous.

However, regarding toxicity, let's clarify this:  I agree that imported Chinese
PILLS have been found to contain toxins, but not Chinese herbs which are
plants.  That is why I never give pills made in China to my patients.  I know
all about this- it is what I have done for a living for nearly 20 years and have
grown up in a Chinese American family so had exposure to this even prior to
that.  I take my patients OFF Chinese pills all the time and consider dangerous,
injurious and generally to be avoided
unless there are no other options, in which case it is better to alleviate
suffering than to allow people to be extremely unwell, which, fortunately is not
the case these days since natural, non-toxic herbs are readily available.  I
just did this for one patient yesterday - she consulted me about herbs - she had
bought something from a massage therapist who thought he could go around
prescribing Chinese pills - IMO these untrained people are downright dangerous -
and she instantly put them in the trash which is where I think majority of the
Chinese pills belong.  There are one or two brands of pill herbs made in China
which have excellent purity and these are exceptions.

Not everyone who eats raw foods eats herbs.  I do, and I grow them for myself in
my garden, but most people do not necessarily eat herbs.  Herbs taste very
delicious when fresh, when your body needs them.

There are about 400 Chinese "herbs" of which about 1/4 are consumed in the
Chinese diet as food, some of which aren't considered herbs in the American
culture.  Here in the US people do not consume herbs very much.  These 400 have
been extensively documented and every student of Chinese medicine must learn the
dozens of properties of each one to become licensed here in California to
practice medicine as a TCM practitioner.

For example, these are classified as Chinese medicinal herbs and have been known
to have specific healing properties, and contra-indications.  And they are also
eaten, sometimes also put in soups and food dishes in Chinese culture:  whole
barley, scallion, ginger, garlic, aduki bean, mung bean, dioscorea,
chrysanthemum, garlic-chive, peppermint, leek, licorice root, jujube, lily,
bamboo, loquat fruit, and more that I don't know the English names for.

> PS I am still waiting to eat my hat. ;-)

Well, all I can say, is that my experiences are true.  I have a number of
patients who have told me they either greatly improve on the regimen I put them
on or consider themselves "cured" because they haven't had another outbreak
incident since treatment with me.  None of them fasted on water only.  All of
them went on a mainly raw, unprocessed foods diet plus the herb formulas which I
made for them.

regards,
roberta