The Whey Prescription (5 page)

MEDICINAL PLANTS

The health benefits of the whey cure come from the cleansing of the body that is achieved by whey’s stimulation of the system to eliminate wastes and toxins. For this reason, it has been common practice throughout history to use depurative (purifying) plants and herbs to reinforce the effects of the cure.

There are several ways to benefit from the effects of medicinal plants. One method is to pasture the livestock whose milk provides the whey in fields that are rich in these plants; thus, the plants’ active principles will be contained in the whey. Another option is to ingest the herbs directly in their many available forms.

There are three plants that are commonly recommended as supplements to the whey cure: dandelions, artichokes, and nettles.

Dandelion stimulates the production and elimination of bile and thereby the filtration of wastes and their evacuation out of the system, because bile is the fluid in which wastes are excreted. Thanks to its hepatic action, dandelion acts as a gentle laxative, guaranteeing good intestinal elimination. Dandelion also activates the kidneys’ function of purifying the blood by increasing the volume of urine and wastes eliminated over the course of the day.

Artichoke is excellent for draining the liver and the gallbladder; it is also a fine diuretic. It encourages the elimination of urea, cholesterol, and uric acid. Artichoke facilitates the excretion of toxins from the tissues by encouraging cellular exchanges through its stimulation of the circulatory system.

In addition to its diuretic and hepatic qualities, nettle has a tonic property that stimulates circulation and metabolism. Nettle is often used in treatments for rheumatism, eczema, gallstones, and kidney stones—diseases characterized by an accumulation of wastes.

These three plants, or any other depurative plant you might choose, can be used as infusions, drops, tablets, and juices. While the last three do have the advantage of being practical, they do not lead, as do infusions, to the ingestion of a large volume of water. A large intake of liquid is valuable because it supports the transport of toxins and stimulates diuresis by the pressure it places upon the kidneys.

Dosage amounts for drops, tablets, and juices are provided in the manufacturer’s instructions. To make an infusion, add 50 grams of dried leaves (about a handful) for every liter of boiled water. Let the leaves steep for ten to fifteen minutes, strain, and drink over the course of the day. The depurative effect should be quite apparent: the frequency of urination, quantity of urine eliminated, and intestinal transit should all increase markedly. Individual systems will respond differently to the plants, so the dosage should be increased or decreased depending on the effect they produce.

Taking medicinal plants in small doses over the course of the entire day stimulates the excretory organs repeatedly, and this, little by little, creates a new working rhythm for them, one that may well persist after the cure is over.

OXYGENATION

Stimulating the work of the excretory organs with whey and medicinal plants allows large quantities of wastes to be eliminated from the body. However, some wastes lie stagnant in the depths of the tissues for so long that they combine with other wastes to form agglomerations. Because of their large size, they cannot be eliminated naturally without first being broken down into smaller pieces.

The degradation of large toxins into smaller toxins is performed by oxidation. In the presence of oxygen and thanks to enzymatic activity, the wastes are “burned.” This combustion results in a fine ash that the body can easily carry to the excretory organs for elimination.

For oxidation to take place successfully, enough oxygen must penetrate the deep tissues. Respiration, because of the sedentary lives most of us lead, generally brings very little oxygen into the body. Furthermore, this oxygen has a difficult time reaching deeper into the tissues, again because our far-too-sedentary lifestyles do not encourage optimum cellular irrigation or exchange.

Physical activities that cause an intensification of the rate of respiration and the sensation of being out of breath will bring more oxygen into the tissues. Walking at a sustained pace, for example, or over uneven terrain will create this healthy oxygenation. Sports activities in general, as well as dancing and manual labor, such as sawing wood, mowing the lawn, and raking leaves, can also have the same result.

The health spas where the whey cure was followed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were most often located in the country and in mountainous regions; long walks in the fresh air were an integral part of the cure.

PHYSICAL EXERCISE

The principal virtue of physical exercise during the whey cure is that it intensifies cellular exchanges and circulation, thereby triggering the movement of deeply embedded toxins toward the surface where they can be expelled. When muscles contract, they have a crushing effect on the surrounding tissues and organs that pushes out some of the bodily fluids and toxins they contain. The action is similar to squeezing a sponge so that it will release the dirty water it contains. The repetition of these contractions engenders a kind of “agitation” in the tissues, which until this point have been only sluggishly irrigated, and releases numerous toxins into the blood where they will travel to the excretory organs. Our tissues are often so poorly irrigated that descriptions such as “marsh” or “desert” are used in natural medicine to designate those regions of the body where capillary and lymphatic circulation are extremely deficient.

Another benefit of exercise during the cure is, as we saw earlier, to encourage oxygenation of the deep tissues and therefore the combustion of the wastes they contain. This combustion is amplified during exercise by the simple fact that the body’s energetic needs are increased and this forces the system to burn the energetic substances stored in the tissues at a higher and more intense rate.

Physical exercise can also be beneficial to the body by relaxing the mind and the nervous system. In fact, breathlessness and muscular labor will quickly shift attention toward the body. Anxieties, obsessions, tensions, and bad feelings become blurred, at least momentarily, and the physical tensions, spasms, contractions, or blockages they engender disappear. The organs of the body can once more function freely without any disturbance to their activity or malfunctioning due to tensions and blockages of nervous origin.

Whatever physical activity is chosen (walking, biking, tennis, swimming, jogging, etc.), it should be performed according to the individual’s physical strengths and capabilities but must last long enough for its effects to reach the deeper regions of the body. It should also take place on a daily basis in order to truly reinforce the benefits of the cure.

OTHER MODALITIES

There are a great many other modalities that can be used as supplements to a whey cure, including hydrotherapy, sauna, massage, and foot reflexology. Each of these techniques will help the body release and eliminate the toxins that are responsible for ill health.

ILLNESS: AN ACCUMULATION OF TOXINS

The concept of illness as a consequence of the presence of undesirable substances in the system is based on observation and can be verified by anybody. Individuals suffering from respiratory ailments blow their noses, cough, and expectorate to rid themselves of the substances that are burdening their alveoli (asthma), their bronchi (bronchitis), their throat (cough), their sinuses (sinusitis), or their nose (the common cold).

The joints of people afflicted with rheumatism and arthritis are inflamed, blocked, and deformed by the presence of grit and crystalline precipitates.

All skin disorders are due to the excretion of either acidic substances by the sudoriferous glands (eczema, skin that is cracked or split) or colloidal substances by the sebaceous glands (acne, boils, greasy skin, sweating, eczema).

Excess food substances in the stomach and intestines can cause indigestion, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. When these substances are irritating or fermenting and putrefying, they cause inflammation of the mucous membranes (gastritis, enteritis, colitis) and the production of gas (flatulence, bloating).

The entire gamut of cardiovascular diseases, to which 37 percent of all U.S. deaths are attributed,
^*2
is due to the presence of excess substances such as cholesterol and fatty acids that thicken the blood, become deposited on the vessels (arteriosclerosis), inflame the walls (phlebitis, arteritis), deform them (varicose veins), and clog them (heart attack, stroke, embolisms).

In kidney diseases, the guilty substances are protein wastes; in obesity, fats; in cancer, carcinogenic substances; in allergies, allergens; and in stomach ulcers, acids.

THE PROFOUND NATURE OF DISEASE

Our ancient ancestors already knew, and it remains valid today, that the majority of illness is caused by the presence of undesirable substances in the body. These substances have been known by a wide variety of names over the course of history. Today they are generally designated as toxins. These include the cholesterol and fatty acids that are the origin of all the cardiovascular diseases; the acids and crystals that inflame, block, and deform the joints of those who suffer from rheumatism and arthritis; the colloidal wastes that cause congestion in the respiratory tract, leading to infection and catarrh; the uric acid that causes gout; the salt that retains water; and the sugar that is the root cause of diabetic disorders.

In the present day we must also include in the list of undesirable substances all the food additives (colorings, preservatives), agriculture and gardening products (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides), drugs given to livestock (hormones, antibiotics, vaccines), medications we ourselves take (sedatives, sleeping pills, antibiotics), as well as the large number of poisons stemming from the pollution of our air, water, and earth.

The great doctors of all eras have underscored the fundamental role played by intoxication (in the clinical sense of poisoning). Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote: “The nature of all illness is the same. . . . When the contaminated humor is abundant, it will take hold and cast into sickness all that is healthy. The entire body is attacked and thrown out of order.”

Thomas Sydenham, a great English doctor of the seventeenth century, summed up the disease process magnificently when he said: “A disease, however much its cause may be adverse to the human body, is nothing more than an effort of Nature, who strives with might and main to restore the health of the patient by the elimination of the morbific [disease-causing] humor.”

Closer to our time, the French doctor Paul Carton, dubbed the “Hippocrates of the twentieth century,” said in confirmation of the above sentiment: “Disease is in reality only the translation of an inner effort to neutralize and clean out toxins, which the body performs for preservation and regeneration.”

Rudolf Steiner, who in the early twentieth century founded anthroposophical medicine, an approach that integrates the physical and spiritual components of the individual, also observed that the origin of internal disorders stems from the fact “that undesirable substances are dissolving into our liquid being.”

Whatever the terminology employed in whatever era, disease has always been recognized as being caused by a build-up of substances that clog the body.

THE EXCRETORY ORGANS: THE EXIT DOORS FOR TOXINS

The body is equipped with five organs for confronting rising levels of toxins: the liver, intestines, kidneys, skin, and lungs. These excretory organs filter wastes out of the blood and the lymph and expel them from the body.

The liver is incontestably the most important of these five organs because not only does it filter and eliminate wastes like the others, it is also capable (if in good health and functioning sufficiently) of neutralizing numerous toxic and carcinogenic substances. The wastes filtered by the liver are eliminated in the bile. Good production and flow of bile is therefore not only a guarantee for good digestion, it also ensures good detoxification.

Because of their combined length (approximately 7 meters or 23 feet) and their diameter (ranging from 3 to 8 centimeters), the intestines also play a fundamental role in waste elimination. In fact, the amount of substances that can stagnate, putrefy, or ferment within them is enormous, and largely contributes to the autointoxication (self-poisoning) of the body.

The kidneys eliminate the wastes filtered out of the blood by diluting them in the urine, insofar as the kidneys are functioning properly. Any reduction in the quantity of urine or its concentration of wastes will engender an accumulation of toxins in the body, and this will generally cause health problems.

The skin constitutes a double exit door as it expels crystalloidal and acid wastes with sweat (through the sudoriferous glands) and colloidal wastes and fats with the sebum (through the sebaceous glands).

The lungs and respiratory tract are primarily an eliminatory path for gaseous wastes, but because of overeating and pollution, they will often expel solid wastes (mucus, spit, and so forth).

TO HEAL MEANS TO DETOXIFY

The solution to the congestion of the body by toxins is detoxification. Nature reveals the path we should follow here. When confronted by excessive wastes, the body reacts: it burns them by fever or seeks to eliminate them through the excretory organs. We can see the wastes leaving the body by way of the skin (acne, eczema), the respiratory tract (bronchitis, colds, sinusitis), the urinary tract (polyuria, acidic urine, grit), the digestive tract (vomiting, diarrhea), the uterus (white discharges), and the eyes (crust or discharge in the eyes on waking, conjunctivitis caused by excess acid in the tears).

If the body is unable to expel all of the wastes via its normal exit channels, the body will create new ones for itself. These may be in the form of varicose ulcers, leaking wounds that will not scar over, or spontaneous hemorrhaging (hemorrhoids, bloody noses, heavy menstruation).

Animals also heal themselves through detoxification. Wolves who are bitten by poisonous snakes cure themselves by purging the toxins with the help of medicinal plants that they would not otherwise eat. When dogs and cats are sick, they will eat grass, which, depending on the amount ingested, can trigger expectoration, diuresis, and vomiting.

THERAPEUTIC DRAINING

“All diseases are resolved either by the mouth, the bowels, the bladder, or some such organ. Sweat is a common form of resolution in all these cases,” writes Hippocrates. If illness is caused by autointoxication, it is logical that only detoxification can deal with it successfully. Draining is the method that is used to achieve this cleansing.

Draining consists of stimulating the excretory organs, which are used by the body to filter blood and eliminate toxins. The means that effect this stimulation are varied. They may include using medicinal plants, ingesting fluids and foods that have detoxifying properties (such as whey, for example), adhering to diets, stimulating reflex zones, receiving massages, cleansing the intestines with enemas, and using hydrotherapy.

The excretory organs are the essential pathways through which this draining is achieved. In draining cures, therapeutic efforts are directed at these organ systems to restore normal elimination and even increase elimination for a period to make up for the buildup of wastes in the body.

First, the individual excretory organ, stimulated by one or more drainers, will cleanse itself of the wastes that lie stagnant in its tissues and clog its “filter.” Once it has been cleansed, the organ will regain its ability to filter blood properly. The blood, in turn, irrigates deep tissues, ridding them of accumulated toxins by transporting wastes to the various excretory organs.

Draining is thus characterized by the increased waste elimination performed by excretory organs. This increased elimination will be apparent to the individual taking the cure: The intestines will expel more matter, or evacuation will occur more regularly. Urine, now loaded with wastes, will take on a darker color and will increase in volume. The skin will sweat more copiously, and the respiratory tract will free itself of colloidal wastes through increased coughing and catarrh.

This visible elimination of wastes reduces the amount of toxins that are held in the tissues. With this cleansing of the internal cellular environment comes improvement of the body’s overall health and the gradual disappearance of symptoms of illness. The extent of the healing possible obviously depends on the amount of damage that these wastes have already caused in the organs, as well as on these organs’ capacity to regenerate.

If draining toxins is not the logical response to the true nature of illnesses, how do we explain that a single therapy—the general draining of toxins—can dispel all health problems for the same patient, despite the vast differences that might characterize the disorders?

A multitude of patients, after running from one specialist to the next to treat various disorders, have found themselves cured of
all
conditions by a single causal treatment—detoxification with therapeutic drainers.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING GOOD EXCRETORY FUNCTION

The excretory organs serve as the obligatory exit doors for toxins. The following figures illustrate the importance of these organs and the consequences that may result when any of them loses function.

The kidneys should eliminate 25–30 grams of urea over a twenty-four-hour
period. If they eliminate only 20 grams, this represents retention of at least 5
grams per day, or 150 grams (
1/3
pound) per month! These 150 grams of urea will clog the tissues and overburden the internal cellular environment. The same is true for salt. If the kidneys eliminate 12 grams of salt in twenty-four hours, instead of the entire 15 or more grams that are typically absorbed from food, this means 3 grams each day are retained, equaling 90 grams (
1/5
pound) per month!

To be sure, these elimination figures are not precise, as wastes can be expelled through more than one exit. Nevertheless, substantial amounts of wastes do accumulate in the tissues, as can be seen during dialysis.

During one twenty-four-hour period of blood dialysis—in which all blood is extracted from the arteries and passed through a filter that removes urea before the blood is reintroduced through a vein—an amount of 300–400 grams of urea can be collected, whereas the presence of only a few grams (2 grams per liter of blood) is considered fatal. These 300–400 grams of urea are obviously not stored in the bloodstream (our bodies contain only around 5 liters of blood, so this amount would clearly be fatal); but, because the excretory organs are unable to eliminate all of the wastes, they are pushed deeper into the tissues where they contribute to congestion of the internal environment.