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Fasting for Renewal of Life

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Few people have had as much experience with fasting as Herbert M. Shelton. Between 1925 and 1970, he supervised more than 30,000 fasts. This book will give you the benefit of his experience. A few chapters get technically challenging, but most will be understandable to intelligent lay readers. He cites many researchers and nature cure practitioners. He learned much by studying animals in nature, how and why they fast. He calls fasting a distinctly natural practice, "older than mankind" and "widespread in nature."

This is not strictly a how-to book, but potential fasters can learn much from it about how and whether to proceed. It covers fasting from many angles, both theoretical and practical. It discusses specific disease conditions, both chronic and acute, in which fasting can be employed to advantage, claiming that the autolytic action of fasting can even digest and absorb tumors. On pages 281-285 he discusses stones in the gall bladder, kidneys, and bile ducts of the liver, how they can be dissolved by fasting.

This book does not neglect to mention the downsides, the contraindications to fasting, but denies that fasting produces malnutritional states. Does it aggravate deficiencies that may already exist? "All mammals carry in their tissues at all times nutrients well in excess of their current needs." It makes no mention of hypoglycemia or anorexia. The author regards fasting as physiological rest, no more to be feared than any other kind of rest. He claims that nutritional needs diminish as food intake diminishes.