Article #4: Does Fasting Cure Disease? by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

We do not claim that fasting cures disease, but simply that it enables the organism to heal itself. What, then, does fasting do?

1. It gives the vital organs a complete rest.
   
2. It stops the intake of foods that decompose in the intestines and further poison the body.
   
3. It empties the digestive tract and disposes of putrefactive bacteria.
   
4. It gives the organs of elimination an opportunity to catch up with their work and promotes elimination.
   
5. It reestablishes normal physiological chemistry and normal secretions.
   
6. It promotes the breaking down and absorption of exudates, effusions, deposits, "diseased"  tissues, and abnormal growths.
   
7. It restores a youthful condition of the cells and tissues and rejuvenates the body.
   
8. It permits the conservation and recanalization of energy.
   
9. It increases the powers of digestion and assimilation.
   
10. It clears and strengthens the mind.
    
11. It improves function throughout the body.

When we say that fasting is neither a cure-all nor a cure at all, we do not thereby intend to limit its scope or its field of usefulness. Indeed, the more we learn about this element of nature's hygiene, the more useful we find it to be. As it is used as a rest and is employed where there is great need of a physiological housecleaning, it is effective in all states of disease, even in deficiency diseases, where it is commonly thought that more of certain food factors are essential, the fast has proved to be very helpful. Thus, what may appear on the surface to be an indiscriminate resort to the fast, turns out, upon analysis, to be no more indiscriminate than the employment of water or food or exercise in the same great variety of conditions. When we once grasp the fact that fasting is not employed as a cure and that it is not something that is good in certain so-called specific diseases, but may not be good in other so-called specific diseases, we understand that its use in all the conditions of impaired health is not an indiscriminate use.