RC: Dr. Fuhrman, how did you become interested in fasting?

JF: I was 19, and a champion figure-skater training for the Olympics with my sister Gail. We were number two in U.S. pairs figure-skating. I had a severe injury to my leg, and could not walk, let alone skate. The best physicians didn’t help me and wanted to do experimental surgery. I was on crutches for a year. My arthritic father had recovered from arthritis through fasting, so I chose to try it. I fasted to reabsorb the calcium deposits on my foot that had come from the repetitive stress that had caused my injury. I went to Dr. Shelton’s health school in San Antonio in 1974 and the foot healed after a 36-day fast.

My sister and I resumed our athletic career and were rated third in the world. When I was fasting, I saw other patients throw away their asthma and blood pressure medications. Contrast that with going to medical school and watching almost no one getting better, where patients need more and more medications.

The value of fasting is that it allows us to correct the damage done by our diet. Most of the major killer diseases such as cancer and heart disease have a nutritional origin. They are diseases of excess nutrition.

Through a proper diet high in phytonutrients and lower in fat and protein, people can make great strides in improving their health. When people make dietary changes, they see gradual and slow improvements. They often reach a plateau. They often can’t get off their asthma or high blood pressure medications or get rid of chest pains. These are cases where a therapeutic fast, properly supervised, can bring a patient to a new plateau where his/her disease will go into complete remission.

RC: Fasting means nothing but water.

JF: Yes. Juice fasts and light diets do not have the powerful healing effects of a water fast.

JF: High blood pressure is an example of a disease where the blood vessels are narrowed. They are stiffened because of the buildup of plaque in the arteries. Frequently, through weight loss and good nutrition, a person’s blood pressure can improve. That can take many years of following the right diet, however. It’s often difficult for people to have the motivation and see the progress occurring. Fasting can do what many years of eating correctly could accomplish in a few weeks’ time. Blood pressure can drop quickly into a normal range. Many people can’t tolerate many medications—they get headaches, they get impotent, tired, and medications don’t touch the underlying cause of the disease—the stiffened blood vessels and the plaque.

RC: Do plaque deposits regress during a fast?

JF: Absolutely. I’ve seen many patients who have stopped all high blood pressure medications.

The exciting part is when you have patients with advanced coronary artery disease who are told they need angioplasty or bypass surgery and who are still on multiple medications for chest pain; a fast resolves all their chest pains. During a fast the body will use for its sustenance the cholesterol plaques and atheromas—the build-up lining the blood vessels—that causes heart and artery disease and high blood pressure in the first place.

A person who is overweight and fasts will not see the same impressive results as those of normal weight. Overweight people should lose weight before they fast, through healthy eating. The fast can then direct its attention to removing the cholesterol and the atheromas, which are harder to remove, than just by eating right. A fast will look for whatever superfluous tissue the body has and remove it.

RC: Can you share one case of angina reversal?

JF: Certainly. When you practice medicine this way, you remove the cause of disease and it is very rewarding for the doctor and the patient. A 51-year-old man came to me after he had had three angioplasties. They told him he needed another one. His chest pain would come back a month or two after he had each one. Angioplasties merely condense the plaque and make things worse in the long run; 30 to 40 percent of arteries reocclude in a three month period after an angioplasty. They really cause an acceleration of the disease process.

I put this man on an extremely low-fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables for one month. Then I put him on a fast of nothing more than distilled spring water for 24 days. After the fast he was able to play tennis and golf. He has no more chest pains. His pet scan showed that blockages in his coronary arteries went from 95–99 percent to 60–70 percent. Three years after the fast, he has never had another chest pain. His blood flow was increased, and he had no more need for invasive procedures. This has happened with so many other patients. I have set them free. They don’t need me any more.

RC: When you tell your medical colleagues this, what do they say?

JF: They say, “Wow! But I could never get my patients to do that.” I say, let’s tell patients what their alternatives are. With fasting people with life-threatening conditions and so many other problems can get well again and lead a normal life. Patients deserve to make their own choice and fasting should be an option.

RC: You have said that the modern medical management of heart disease is malpractice.

JF: That’s my belief. People are pushed into cardiac catheterizations, bypass surgery, angioplasty and cholesterol-lowering medications and are never talked to about aggressive nutritional interventions. Eating less fat and less cholesterol is not enough. They have to do much more than follow the American Heart Association recommendations about eating 30 percent of calories from fat and no more than 300 mg of cholesterol per day. They need to follow a very low-fat diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables and very low in cholesterol.

RC: In 1909 we ate more cholesterol and yet had less heart disease than we do today. Is eating cholesterol really the problem?

JF: Animal protein and saturated fat have more of an affect on cholesterol levels than eating cholesterol. The lack of phytonutrients and fiber also causes problems.

RC: You’ve said that the fastest way to make a high-risk heart patient into a low-risk patient is to fast him.

JF: It is. Fasting thins the blood and interferes with the ability of platelets to clot, therefore greatly reducing the risk of having a heart attack. Every patient that is slated for bypass surgery could use fasting as an alternative.

RC: What about hypoglycemics who want to fast?

JF: Hypoglycemics can do well if they cleanse their body. As blood glucose lowers during the hypoglycemic attack, the body begins to dump nitrogenous wastes. A high-protein diet is not the solution to hypoglycemia. It is like taking a drug addict and giving him more drugs, because the real problem is the nitrogenous wastes of the high-protein diet.

RC: You’ve said you can get rid of migraines through fasting.

JF: Yes. Ninety-five percent of the migraine patients who see me are cured after a fast. There are hundreds of toxic substances that irritate the brain. Coffee is just one of the hundreds of substances people are detoxifying from on a daily basis. When these substances are removed from the central nervous system, you cure the problem. Toxic drugs—barbiturates, ergotamines, narcotics—prolong the problem. The doctor who treats headaches with these medications is no different from a drug pusher selling drugs to prolong an addiction.

RC: How do you know when a fast should be ended?

JF: I look at body weight, nutritional reserves, blood pressure and electrolytes. When potassium and other electrolytes go too low you have to end a fast. A precipitous drop in blood pressure is another sign to end a fast.

RC: The Lancet had an article that showed that rheumatoid arthritics (RA) were helped by a fast. That was exciting. The question is, which foods should they eat after the fast?

JF: There is no one diet that will suit every RA patient. There is no way to tell until we fast them and introduce foods slowly, one at a time. I will just add one food every three days. If their pain starts to come back, we know they are sensitive to that food. One out of three are sensitive to wheat, one out of twenty are sensitive to nightshade vegetables (like potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant). We treat every RA patient as an individual. It may take a month to add back all the foods but this is only way to do it.

RC: Why, even with published articles in the esteemed Lancet, is fasting looked down upon by the medical establishment and the Arthritis Foundation?

JF: I don’t know. Most rheumatologists are not interested in nutrition. They want to write prescriptions, not spend an hour with each patient educating him about nutrition. There is a world literature out there about fasting. It should be employed to help people.

RC: Does fasting help people with fatigue and adrenal burnout?

JF: Absolutely. The body can discharge toxins that are much of the cause of fatigue during a fast, allowing the body to repair and rejuvenate itself.

RC: What about lupus?

JF: If caught in the early stages fasting will completely reverse lupus. I have so many case histories. Most of them come to me on drugs like prednisone, and I wean them off those slowly. A fast allows the body to detoxify the toxins that cause many autoimmune diseases.

RC: Can fasting help asthma?

JF: Asthma patients come to me because they are tired of taking medications. The inflammation that occurs in asthma is the response of tissue in an effort to dilute, ward off or throw off a noxious irritant. By taking drugs that suppress the body’s response to the noxious irritants, we are making the body not react to these irritants and they hang around and things get worse. Some of the drugs that cause dilation like beta agonists add more toxins, further aggravating the situation. These drugs are associated with increased mortality from asthma.

The anti-inflammatory effects of a water fast, however, are at once very powerful and more in accord with the body’s healing goals. Fasting removes the toxins that cause the inflammation in the first place. Once these irritants are removed, the patient can start breathing normally. I then begin to wean the patient off the medications. The benefits of the fast can be maintained long term, if the patient eats a healthy diet.

RC: How do people feel on a fast?

JF: It is different for everyone. If you cut back on high-fat foods, salty and sweet foods and eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, you’ll do better. There is no hunger after day two. What most people think of as every day hunger is really withdrawal from their diet of rich foods. A lot of people who eat an improper diet will go through withdrawals. Yet after the first few days of headaches and nausea, even these patients will feel terrific and sail comfortably through the rest of the fast.

RC: Do people need to rest and avoid work and stress while fasting?

JF: Absolutely. To get maximum benefit from the fast, it is important that the person is at rest and not exercising strenuously. S/he should go to places where other people are fasting, if possible. Yoga and stretching are fine.

RC: What are contraindications for fasting?

JF: Liver or kidney failure, pregnancy, Type I diabetes or a strong fear of fasting.

RC: What about guidelines for coming off a fast?

JF: The key is to eat bland foods and start with small amounts. I usually have patients begin by eating a fist-sized serving of watermelon. Spicy foods and alcohol should be avoided since they can severely irritate the GI (gastrointestinal) tract right after a fast.

RC: You recommend that all patients with medical problems—indeed anyone who is going to fast for more than three days—do so under medical supervision.

JF: Absolutely.

RC: Can physicians contact you for more information about how to supervise fasting?

JF: Yes. I am happy to help train physicians in this modality.

RC: What is the one thing you want people to remember about fasting?

JF: All fasting does is remove the stresses from the body so that the body can direct its energies towards healing. It is thrilling to watch patients get well and throw away their medications. That is why I went to medical school and what this is all about.

RC: I would just like to caution readers that fasting is best done under the guidance of a physician. Do not fast without some form of supervision. Dr. Fuhrman, thanks for talking with us.

JF: Thank you, Robert.