Customer Reviews

Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases

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Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases

Reviewed by Andrew W. Saul in J Orthomolecular Med, 2007. Vol 22, No 4, p 217-218.

If I were asked to choose the most valuable two pages of any medical book ever written, I would not hesitate to nominate pages 196-197 of Healing the Gerson Way. They present a very concise listing of the full Gerson nutritional therapy as an "Hourly Schedule for Typical Cancer Patients." These two pages deserve to be (and may already be) among the most photocopied-and-shared documents in alternative medicine. Authors Charlotte Gerson and Beata Bishop also provide additional, modified treatment schedule tables: one for patients who are severely weakened and/or on chemotherapy, and another for nonmalignant patients.

Any preconceptions that the seven-decades-old Gerson approach may be outmoded or inflexible will be put to rest in the second chapter. Long-time students of Gerson will appreciate new additions to the therapy, such as chromium, selenium, and pau d'arco. Chapters 5 and 6, supported by 175 references, discuss how chronic disease is primarily caused by what we do to ourselves. The remainder of the book tells you exactly what you can do about it, with sections on "Restoring the Body's Defenses," "Why Does the Gerson Therapy Work," "Pain Control Without Drugs," and "Preparing Food and Juices - The Basic Rules."

It would not be Gerson book without a chapter on coffee enemas. The coffee enema is probably the most controversial, most misunderstood, and, perhaps, most memorable Gerson technique of all. Its purposes are detoxification, liver cleansing, and pain relief. Chapters also explain recommended laboratory tests and discuss non-pharmaceutical medications. I was pleased to see chapters addressing psychological support, necessary household procedures and equipment, and potential "healing reactions," the Gerson version of the side-effect. A collection of frequently asked questions, and a broad sampling of case histories of recovered patients are also provided. Healing the Gerson Way is carefully supported with citations from the medical literature. Indexing is thorough, including both subject and author indexes.

For those who dread the thought of living on some kind of a health-nut vegetable juice diet, there is more good news. Chapter 28 is entirely made up of recipes, some 80 pages of them. They look good, too: dips, appetizers, sorbet, dressings, numerous soups and salads, grilled vegetables, ratatouille, and desserts. You do not have to be sick to want to eat Gerson-style.

For over thirty years I have recommended the Gerson therapy to persons fighting cancer, and have never once had cause to regret it. This new Gerson manual is the best ever written on the subject: comprehensive, up-to-date, exhaustively referenced, and very well-written. It explains the therapy as it instructs on exactly how to do it yourself. Most importantly, Healing the Gerson Way is about healing chronic diseases other than cancer, including many that are supposedly "hopeless." Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: There is much more than hope for "terminal" patients: there is Gerson. This is a compendium of knowledge, based on decades of success, that you will want to share with everyone you know.

This is the most comprehensible book on Gerson Therapy to date. Well worth a read for anyone suffering from degenerative diseases. Even better if they are willing to look the medical establishment in the eye and say, "No Thanks, I'd rather do it myself" A very powerful healing method that relies upon food, not prescriptions, and truly cures, as opposed to treating the symptoms. Diabetes, arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure and cancer are symptoms of a suppressed immune system. This therapy will kick start your immune system, start the healing reaction and cure what ails you. It has done an incredible job of clearing me of all the above symptoms.

Don't get me wrong I have not read it yet & I am ordering it now, I just wanted to share why I need it & here is a little back ground because I have done my own little research & I believe that the Gerson teaching will work. I believe every part of what they say because I have a terminal Disease by the name of systemic lupus & all my doctor said to me was that I would eventually die from my disease & that I would suffer viciously, what a thing to say to someone & I told him that I wanted to take some classes at the college & he was like what for you should be resting in bed. Now my chest dropped after he told me this with straight sorrow for my self & sadness because my life had just started & I have not lived yet,so by learning about the late & great Max Gerson surely gives a person like me hope because ever since they have been treating me with there tainted drug's of death like Methotrexate & Prednisone & 16 other meds & my body has been getting ate away by these drug's & I get sicker from the drug's then the actual disease, so then these snakes try to kill off the side effects of these tainted drugs & all they do is create more side effects & so they keep trying to give me new drug's to fight the new side effects which intern creates new side effects & problems for me & I for one can feel the meds that my doctor giving me killing me,So this is a blessed treatment & Mr. Gerson was a blessed man with the best daughter in the world to carry on her father's work & just think how Max Gerson felt to cure his very own daughter, wow that had to feel really good because I know if I was him it would have made me feel like a million bucks. People like me & soon to be you if you do not watch it, You see we have nothing to loose by trying this way of life because what is my alternative? & the answer from conventional doctor's is get ready to die one day & I say to them scr*w you I want to live & I am going to live even if I have to turn this whole world up side down. So blending carrots & Apple's & other raw foods & doing Coffee enemas could never be as worse as the normal alternative & that is to die. My life has been a big mess ever since I was diagnosed at 29 y/o & I am tired of sitting around being sick & in pain while my whole family looks at me with that pity look of discuss upon there faces already giving up on me & that is sad, but I will not give up on my self & I am buying me a juicer online at Amazon & I am buying all of Max Gerson Books & watching all of the movies of his great work & I truly have faith in what they say & I am going to try it & I hope you all do also because I was just like you living a healthy life & boom one day fainted on the ground & could not breathe & that was the first day of the end of my life, so people please start this diet also because you do not want to be in that position but in a good & healthy one. So try it to. Good luck to my self & to you all in our chase for healthy bodies & healthy lifestyles & hopefully a healthy world one day free from big business running everything that kills us!

I bought this book on the recommendation of Andrew W. Saul.

I'm glad I bought it and I feel I have come away from reading it with some useful information, although I have found out that I am too ill and do not have the financial resources to follow the program fully.

(Like many people with severe M.E. any type of overexertion makes the disease worse, and this would include drinking juices hourly and having to interact with the juice bringer hourly, plus the enormous input and overexertion etc. in a weekly enema would be impossible, let alone 3 or more a day. The juices would also be far too high in carbohydrate for many of us, and we would feel more ill still from avoiding protein - as would others with mitochondrial diseases.)

However, I have bought the best quality juicer I could afford (NOT the $3000 one recommended!) and have been using it a lot, and have boosted the amount of vegetables I eat each day considerably too. I plan to do maybe 30% of the program. The book actually warns against this, and says that the program must be followed 100% to work. But you can only do what you can do I guess and it all helps, so I still have my little ember of hope and this program is part of that, although I'm also dong several other equally important things (a full orthomolecular program including high-dose vit C etc.).

One would have to be VERY VERY wealthy to follow this program fully incidentally. Expenses include a full-time carer for 12 hours a day to juice and do food prep and enemas (this cannot be done by the patient), a one-off expense of $3000 for a juicer (and no that third zero isn't a typo!) plus the cost of 8-10 kg or so of all organic fruits and veg each DAY, plus the costs involved in 3 daily coffee enemas.

I have to admit I was quite disappointed about how much the book only talked about each part of the program in the context of cancer. The amount of information about chronic disease was just tiny. Quite often it would be explained that you need to avoid X or take Y 'to shrink tumours' - but often no explanation was given at all as to why those of us facing non-tumour related disease should also do X or Y. This is important to know when you are considering giving up a food for years, or stopping a supplement you believe is important and I feel this was a big problem with the book, for chronically ill readers.

Another big problem I had with the book was when it said to avoid reading other health information as much as possible, as only the Gerson program was correct and everything else, just about, was wrong. Such an attitude is just.... unhelpful and doesn't inspire confidence in the authors. Knowledge is power.

(It's quite strange that while Saul recommends this book, the Gerson people warn against anyone reading and following HIS very very good books, or anything like them! I think that is a shame, and perhaps a bit arrogant.)

The recommendation to take highish doses of some B vitamins without taking some of all the B vitamins, as almost every orthomolecular expert recommends, also seemed a bit of a worry.

I'd have loved a section in the book for what to do if some of the contra-indications for enemas apply to you or you are too ill for enemas. Enemas are said to be contraindicated for those with cardiac insufficiency and diarrhoea (which would include all M.E. patients!). Can you use FIR saunas instead to some extent, I'd like to know?

I'd also like to know what those of us with severely reduced circulating blood volume that benefit from and need extra sodium (such as those with M.E. and also POTS or NMH)...how or even IF this can be combined with the extremely low sodium Gerson approach?

Overall this book was useful reading, if significantly flawed, and not something that could be followed strictly by all patients. Worth reading certainly but perhaps with just a grain of salt, for several reasons.

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.

Wow, this book frees you from fear. Now the un-known is in the light and it really is empowering to know that your options are plentiful and humane. Too bad the public is not more motivated to advocate health. Those who are motivated to be part of their own health can now make correct choices with this information.

I hope I never get cancer, but if I do, this is the protocall I will follow, I am getting more fruit and veggies into my diet now..how can you expect a body to be healthy when you feed it stuff that is not food..a car won't run on soda, gasoline is it's fuel.....the fuel for our bodies is real food....look what happened to the population in the last 70 years due to "convienent foods" they are killing us..............thank you Gerson family and friends.........................

Absolutely informative book. Great concepts. Great facts. All around, you can't go wrong. If you don't like this book, then you are obviously from the "Traditional" medical or dental "profession', who get paid to posion us!

I loved this book, any one who has cancer or other health problems should embark on their journey using this book as a beginning guide to health and wellness.
DT

God made man in His Perfect Image and man proceeded to eat the forbidden fruit and screwed up since then.
This book explains and documents resources to prove that we can live a healthy life with eating nutritious food.
This book also explains why we must guard ourselves from the unhealthy lifestyles that is out there in the world.

Just get Omega VRT330 juicer on amazon(see video on youtube for demo) and drink the organic juice all the time replace water for juice (get carrot and apple at costco). Also eat organic RAW vegi and fruit or just become a vegan. One important thing don't cheat yourself by eating cook or junk foods if you want to be healthy. If you think Omega VRT330 is expensive then you better think again because you spend less on fruit and vegi because you get a higher yield of juice. If you think vegi and fruit is expensive, you better think again a big mac meal is more expensive do the math or just grow your own food. If you have a serious health problem just give it time or get this book or dvd at gerson website, they will show you the right direction. It not that expensive for the info.