Therapeutic starvation
Fasting theory periodically underwent the times of active flourishing, and fell into disgrace. This pattern is natural.
As a rule, the extinction and complete cessation of self-initiated starvation coincided with folk disasters, wars, crop failures and other misfortunes when food products were tight.
Conversely, during periods of abundance, the "preaching" of initiative starvation sharply intensified, and the number of people voluntarily, at their own desire, starving, increased sharply.
Today, active starvation refers to a very common type of self-treatment. Unfortunately, among the propagandists there are people who are incompetent, distorting the methods of treating starvation. It is difficult to overestimate what harm to health is caused by the unjustified dilettante propaganda of self-treatment by famine.
In addition to the "self-imposed" initiative starvation, the theory of curative fasting , conducted in hospitals or outpatiently, has recently appeared.
Fasting with a curative purpose has been used since ancient times. Currently, curative fasting has been particularly intensive in the United States, France and some Asian countries. There are ideas that curative fasting replenishes and does what the official medicine is powerless to do.
To diseases that are cured by starvation, especially in the earliest periods, obesity and overweight, some mental and skin diseases, metabolic disorders, early sexual decay and premature aging were included.
Currently, this list of medical starvation has expanded and was supplemented by such diseases as gout, kidney stone disease, diabetes, rheumatism, atherosclerosis, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, bronchial asthma, etc.
Supporters of curative fasting and its therapeutic effectbelieve that all body systems, including immune, protective, function when fasting at the highest level of activity.
Another justification( old enough) boils down to the fact that during starvation, the organism is freed from accumulated slags and other unnecessary and harmful substances. The organism in such a situation is maximally unloaded from them, purified and updated by the most active components.
However, the transition of the body to food due to internal means can have negative consequences. When starving, in addition to fats, the body uses cellular proteins for energy purposes.
Phenomena of protein deficiency and impairment of protein metabolism are unfavorable factors accompanying fasting. After all, the body satisfies its need for protein at the expense of its own proteins! Essentially, there is a redistribution of body proteins. The consumption of proteins is especially increased after 15 days of fasting, when other energy sources are exhausted. In this case, there is a lack of vitamins, which, in turn, leads to even more significant violations of metabolic processes.
Less valuable proteins turn into vital proteins, without which the functioning and normal state of life support systems( brain and central nervous system, endocrine systems, etc.), preservation of blood proteins( hemoglobin), immune proteins, high-activity lipoproteins, phosphoproteins, glucoproteins and
However, the consumption of its own proteins is not unlimited. Facts are facts: death occurs when you consume 50-45% of your own body proteins. Depending on the individual characteristics of the organism( age, etc.), it can also occur with a smaller consumption of its own proteins.
As a result of disturbed protein metabolism in fasting, some metabolic products that have toxic properties can accumulate in the body.
Thus, during starvation, the main danger is the violation of protein metabolism.
The obvious danger of starvation is the violation of vitamin and microelement exchange.
The termination of the intake of vitamins and mineral salts disrupts the normal structure and function of enzyme systems, intracellular metabolism and the function of the membrane structures of the cell. During starvation, acid-base balance is violated towards acid shifts, as a result of which acidosis, which affects human health, may develop.
Such negative consequences of starvation cause many scientists to be wary of using fasting for medicinal purposes.
When fasting, the most important thing is not to overstep that physiological limit of the body's capabilities, after which serious disorders may occur.
This physiological limit is purely individual. In some people it is larger, in others it is smaller. Individual characteristics of starvation play an important role. They are based on the nervous status of a person, the state of the central and endocrine system, etc. Therefore, it is extremely important to establish the duration of fasting for each person.
In the case of curative fasting( in a clinical setting), the duration of fasting can reach 30 days or more. It is believed that the loss of half of the original body weight is fatal. The more stocks of adipose tissue, the longer the body can tolerate starvation.
Women withstand fasting longer than men.
It can be considered that the duration of curative fasting, conducted in a clinical setting, should not exceed one month. As for the initiative "home" self-treatment of starvation, then its duration should be much smaller.
The most common methods for self-initiated starvation are fasting for two days each week and fasting for a week each month. These "recommendations" come from amateur propagandists of self-treatment with famine and do not have any deep scientific justification. However, they are, unfortunately, widespread.
Longer initiatory starvation in the home is approaching forced starvation. Meanwhile, an initiative fasting, exceeding 15 days, represents a real danger to health.
Fasting is a strong enough effect and a serious intervention in the vital activity of the body, not less, but rather more than any drug implantation into it. Therefore, in the same way as drug treatment can not be released from the hands of a doctor and transferred to the discretion of the patient, and the method of treatment by starvation can not be released from the field of medical supervision and control.
In Russia, fasting is used as a therapeutic method only in hospital settings in medical institutions. Professor Yu. S. Nikolaev and his school received more notoriety in the field of fasting for therapeutic purposes( they accounted for more than 7000 patients).The use of fasting is initiative, in the order of self-treatment is unacceptable.
Dosage curative fasting for 14 days is carried out with complete refusal of food, but with the intake of water. Carried out methodically correct, such fasting does not lead to dystrophic changes in the body, as happens when forced starvation.
The duration of the course of therapeutic fasting is prescribed by the doctor individually, depending on the state of human health. During this period, smoking is prohibited, no medications are prescribed. Every day, the patient needs to perform cleansing enemas. Water is recommended to consume at least 1.5 liters per day.
There are different discharge and recovery periods. In the first period - during 3 days from the onset of fasting( the stage of food arousal) - a painful feeling of hunger, irritability, restless sleep, often exacerbate previous diseases. For 3-5 days the feeling of hunger is usually blunted, and sometimes completely disappears.
The tongue is covered with a thick white coating, acetone appears in the urine, which is often determined in the exhaled sick air( acidosis develops).Accumulation of acidosis occurs within 7-10 days.
Then the state of health improves significantly - the so-called acidotic crisis occurs, when cheerfulness appears, the mood improves. The tongue is gradually cleared of plaque, the daily loss of body weight becomes minimal( 100-200 g per day).However, gradually the patient's condition worsens again: general weakness, headache, sometimes pain in the heart area, a feeling of severe hunger is restored. This usually ends the unloading period.
The recovery period is about the same in duration as the unloading period. The prescribed diet gradually expands, and its energy value also increases. On the first day after cessation of fasting, the patient is given half-diluted juices - 100-120 g per reception, up to 1 l per day. From the second day, add mashed apples, oranges and other fruits, and on the third - grated carrots( 400-600 g per day).It is allowed to consume 500-600 g of kefir a day.
Starting from the fifth day, the patient receives 100 grams of bread per reception. After the sixth day, the menu includes a vinaigrette of potatoes, beets, raw grated carrots and finely chopped cabbage with vegetable oil( 15-20 g).On the eleventh day, it is allowed to consume semi-liquid porridge in milk with butter( 5-7 g).Food is prepared without table salt. Meat, fish, eggs are introduced into the diet after the end of the recovery period.
Treatment fasting should be carried out exclusively in a hospital environment and only in cases where other medical and dietary measures do not have the desired effect.
It is especially cautious to use complete medical starvation in obese patients, as they develop more severe acidosis( a violation of the acid-base state) than in other diseases, and very often there are serious complications: convulsions, a sharp decrease in blood pressure( collapse) with impaired cardiac activity and a consciousness disorder.