Curing the Incurable: Beyond the Limits of Medicine

What survivors or major illnesses can teach us

Jerry Thompson

• Publisher: Hammersmith Health Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781781611777
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nutrition, Dietics & Bariatrics

There is a steady stream of articles and books about 'miraculous' cures from the chronic illnesses that face us in the 21st century: autoimmune conditions such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis; neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's, MS and Alzheimer's; and many cancers. But if all these individual cases are brought together and reviewed systematically, something much more practical and less miraculous emerges – a set of principles to guide us to better health and a greater chance of recovery. Dr Jerry Thompson draws on an immense range of case histories and research studies to show how what we eat, the toxic load we carry, the environmental electromagnetic fields we live in, and our beliefs and attitudes to health and illness can change the course of disease. The result is a practical guide to what we can learn from 'survivors' about how to improve our chances of good health and recovery.

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Part I

Change your diet

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25

Chapter 1

Using food to cure

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

Hippocrates (460–370 BC)

After Dr Terry Wahls developed multiple sclerosis (MS), she received the very best treatment that modern medicine could offer. Despite this she deteriorated over a seven-year period, eventually having to use a wheelchair. She kept working as a doctor but wondered how long she could continue.

She had read about the benefits of the Palaeolithic diet – that is, eating like a hunter-gatherer. Intrigued and hopeful she started this diet and added supplements such as co-enzyme Q10 and carnitine which supported brain and mitochondrial function. These changes, although helpful, were not enough to stem her decline.

Something else was required and soon. She removed foods that released sugar quickly and added healthy fats (especially coconut oil) knowing these supported nerve and brain function. She also ate nine portions of fruit and vegetables daily (three brightly coloured, three high in sulphur, three leafy green).

In addition she removed gluten and milk, being aware of research showing that these could trigger inflammation. Bone broth, with its high content of beneficial fats and proteins, became an integral part of her diet. She also used exercise where 26possible, meditation and an electrical therapy called e-stim.

It was a radical change, but it worked. After three months she could walk between consulting rooms with just one cane; after six months she could walk round the hospital without a cane and she could cycle around the garden. After 18 months she could cycle 18 miles. It was an astonishing turn-around.

In her ground-breaking book, The Wahl’s Protocol1, she described not only her own story but also those of other people with MS who had made impressive recoveries using the same approach. Initially, what nearly all patients noticed was an increase in vitality and in their clarity of thinking.

By a combination of research, experimentation and intuition she had found that a diet could reverse MS. And she found this diet could also be effective in other autoimmune diseases. It was an immense breakthrough. However, perhaps it should not have surprised us. The clues had been around for a long time.

So was Hippocrates correct? Can we cure diseases simply by eating the right foods? More importantly, can we reverse some of the most serious diseases of our time using diet? To many doctors this idea seems preposterous. But the answer is unequivocal: it can be done and it has been done, time and time again. In fact, this is the most common strategy used by survivors. Food really can act like a medicine and sometimes it can make the difference between life and death.

The best place to start looking for answers is with cancer, for this is where most research has been done. We know that in Foster’s group of 200 patients with spontaneous remission (the majority with metastatic cancer), 87.7% had changed their diet.2 We have seen that Elaine Nussbaum recovered from terminal cancer using a macrobiotic diet.3 They are far from the only ones. Below are several accounts of people who have reversed their cancers by changing their diet. This is further evidence that food can act like a medicine. However, to put this in perspective, the changes in diet typically have needed to be radical.27

One thing that struck me most as I read through these inspiring stories was that some survivors not only recovered from their cancers but also had an unexpected bonus: they ended up feeling better than they had ever felt before. Bernadette Bohan, who recovered from two different cancers over two decades after she radically changed her diet, described how she felt years younger.4 Good food can do more than cure diseases; it can raise vitality and it can alleviate pain. All this tells us that Hippocrates was on the right track.

Clearly food is far more fundamental to health than most doctors have previously thought.

Is it possible to take this concept a step further: could we live in a world without cancer, heart disease, arthritis and other degenerative diseases? Do we already have the information necessary to do achieve this? The answer to both questions is yes. What’s more, this critically important information has been around, though largely ignored, for a very long time. The story must begin with two of the greatest medical pioneers of all time, Weston Price and Robert McCarrison. Few have understood the immense importance of their work.

The food pioneers

Weston A Price

Weston Price has already been mentioned; he was a dentist and one of the most innovative medical researchers of all time. He locked the door of his dental surgery in the 1930s and set off with his wife, travelling around five continents, researching 14 isolated communities over 30 years, looking primarily for the cause of dental decay. Most of these isolated communities were relatively primitive groups (Eskimos, Aborigines, Maoris, African tribes) but some were isolated western communities (in the Outer Hebrides and the Loetschental valley in Switzerland). All these groups had quite different diets but they had one thing 28in common: they ate foods that were completely natural.

He soon found that none of these communities suffered from dental decay. But he discovered something far more fundamental. The degenerative diseases, so common in the world today, were absent in these communities. There were no cancers, heart disease or arthritis. Gallstones, appendicitis and ulcers were largely unknown, their eyesight was exceptional and childbirth was simple and rapid. Their babies were born in vigorous health and, remarkably, they rarely cried. They lived in harmonious communities with no doctors, dentists or policeman.5

The health of these races was exceptional – for instance, he recalled a North American Indian who, after their truck had broken down, walked back 65 miles through difficult terrain, without stopping for food or sleep for 18 hours. He noted Peruvian Indians who would carry loads of 90 kilos (200 lb) on their back through mountainous territory all day and every day. Reading through his accounts, I couldn’t help wondering just how healthy we might all be if we all lived this way. Their health was at another level to ours.

These isolated groups had a deep understanding of the relationship between health and food. Before, during and after pregnancy, and during the early childhood years, they were given special foods to boost health, usually fish, eggs and other seafood, but also milk and butter produced from cows fed on rapidly growing grass. They knew this special grass was packed with nutrients. Today we know why: it is especially rich in omega-3 fats and fat-soluble vitamins. Sometimes pregnancy was postponed to coincide with the availability of these high-quality foods. They made sure there was enough time between births to build up nutrition in the mother; usually this was between two-and–a-half and four years. Many groups had access to the sea, but those who did not made great efforts to keep their land fertile; they were aware that this increased the nutritional value of their foods. 29

However, Weston Price also discovered something else and something more disturbing. Whenever these communities changed their diet to modern food, their health deteriorated rapidly: they developed dental caries; they became susceptible to tuberculosis (TB) and other infectious diseases; their births became longer and more painful. And once the parents changed to a western diet, their children suffered too. Birth defects were more frequent as were dental decay, crowding of the teeth and changes to the shape of their faces. The youngest of the family suffered most, suggesting that their mothers were becoming progressively depleted of something vital for health. Weston Price was not content to speculate that these changes were due to the modern diet. He successfully demonstrated that many of these diseases, including dental decay, could be put into reverse simply by reverting to their original, natural diet.

Here is an example. Price had looked for arthritis in the Native American Indians but failed to find it. The only exceptions were those who ate the ‘foods of civilisation’. One was a five-year-old boy crippled with arthritis which developed after rheumatic fever. The boy had been told that he would never recover. Price disagreed. He recommended a diet that removed all white flour products. He added milk and butter from cows fed on rapidly growing grass plus cod liver oil. This was successful and the boy’s pain rapidly diminished, his appetite improved and he started to gain weight.

We can sum up Weston Price’s ground-breaking work. Populations living on natural foods enjoyed exceptional health with none of the degenerative changes so typical ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Part I: Change your diet
• Part II: Use your mind
• Part III: Minimise toxicity
• Part IV: Maximise your energy
• Part V: Combine what works for you
• Appendices
• Index
• Copyright