8

Maintaining Balance in the Body’s Cellular Terrain

Detoxification and Supplementation

The relationship between germs and the terrain is often compared to the one that exists between mosquitoes and swamps. The mosquitoes multiply by means of the eggs they lay in the stagnant waters of the swamps. All attempts to eradicate mosquitoes by poisoning them while they are in the air or on the ground is doomed to fail; other mosquitoes will soon emerge from the eggs in the water to reinfest the region. The solution, therefore, consists of draining the swamp to remove the favorable living environment for the mosquitoes’ eggs.

The same is true for germs, which, in order to multiply, need a terrain that has been oversaturated with toxins and is suffering from a deficiency of nutrients. To prevent their survival in our bodies, it is necessary to cleanse the cellular terrain in order to make it inhospitable to germs. Cleansing the terrain means eliminating the toxins that have been collecting there by means of dietary and detoxification treatments, and addressing the deficiencies with a healthy diet accompanied by natural supplements that are rich in vitamins and minerals. These measures are quite simple but highly effective, as they address the very root of the problem.

STIMULATING ELIMINATION

The cellular terrain of an individual suffering from an infectious disease is a damaged terrain that is overladen with metabolic residues and wastes. These are precisely the foods that germs need in order to prosper inside the body in which they have taken up residence as parasites.

Consequently, a fundamental measure to take is to cleanse the terrain by eliminating toxins from the body. To do this, it is necessary to stimulate the organs that are responsible for eliminating wastes: the intestines, liver, kidneys, skin, and lungs.^*4

Although they work constantly, the eliminatory organs can be outpaced by the mass of wastes the body needs to eliminate, especially during an infection, when dead cells abound, or if they have become too weak to perform this task properly. Stimulating them—and the means to do this are many—intensifies their ability to filter and eliminate wastes, which means a greater quantity of waste is removed from the body on a day-to-day basis than normally would be the case. In this way the terrain will gradually recover its ideal composition.

Let’s now take a look at how to stimulate the different organs of elimination.

The Intestines

The intestines are the first organ we should stimulate in order to improve our cellular terrain. Because their average length is from 23 to 26½ feet and their diameter is from 1 to 3 inches, the volume of waste they can hold is considerable. This waste comes from the food we eat as well as the toxins produced by its putrefaction and fermentation. Other toxins are released into the intestines from the other tissues of the body so that they can be expelled.

Temporarily high levels of intestinal toxins are not necessarily a cause for alarm; the terrain would not be threatened by them. But the intestines do not function only as an eliminatory organ; they also assimilate the nutritive substances from the food we eat. The intestinal walls are porous so that they can absorb those nutrients, and because of their assimilatory capabilities they can also absorb toxins. If transit through the intestines is slow or they are partially clogged, which is the case with constipation, toxins that are waiting to be eliminated from the intestines will instead stagnate in the intestinal milieu, which allows the possibility that they will be reabsorbed into the body. Those toxins then enter the bloodstream and are transported throughout the entire body, clogging the tissues and organs. Poor intestinal function can therefore be responsible for considerable deterioration of the terrain.

It is a common observation that, during an infection, a meal that is too large or consists of poor food choices can cause a spike in the infection and the fever. This is because a large or poor-quality meal slows the transit time of the digestive system and allows toxins in the intestines to enter the bloodstream and the body, thereby encouraging the proliferation of germs. Conversely, a light diet, or abstaining completely from solid food, will reduce the momentum of the infection. It is readily apparent that the body requires these restrictions during a fever if we consider that one of the by-products of a fever is a more or less complete loss of appetite. In the same order of things, if an enema performed during an infection causes a reduction in fever, it is because the treatment caused a reduction in the overload of the noxious elements in the body.

Restoring good intestinal transit not only helps to get rid of the toxins that are present in the intestines, but it also allows the body to expel into the intestines the toxins present in its other tissues, which in essence liberates the terrain of their presence.

The primary methods used to cleanse the body, stimulate the intestines, and support good intestinal transit are the use of medicinal plants, enemas, and colonic irrigations.

Some of these medicinal plants stimulate intestinal peristalsis, thus promoting the evacuation of stools. If they encourage the body to gradually and gently expel waste matter, they are referred to as laxative plants. When, to the contrary, they cause the intestines to rapidly and almost completely empty themselves, they are called purgative plants. Purgative plants are used for just one dose, but laxative plants can be used in cures that last from one to two months. These laxative cures not only help clear the intestines but have the bonus of restoring their proper function, which is not the case with the purges, which, when taken too often, will exhaust the organs.

Enemas follow a different course of action. By introducing water into the intestines, they liquefy the stools and make their elimination easier. In cases of constipation, the stools are dry and therefore difficult to evacuate, whereas in cases of diarrhea, they are fluid and easily eliminated. Enemas are performed with the help of an enema syringe, which introduces small quantities of water (a few ounces), or an enema bag, which introduces larger quantities (1 to 2 quarts). This equipment can easily be found in drugstores and pharmacies.

Colonic irrigations are the most effective method for profoundly emptying and cleansing the colon. Thanks to a special device that gently propels water into the colon and a cannula (a small tube) with two openings, the water is simultaneously introduced and evacuated from the intestinal tract. In this way, the clean water that enters the intestinal tract by one of the two openings will come out later through the second one, filled with wastes. The dirty water that is taken out is therefore constantly replaced by clean water.

Usually one of these means is sufficient to cleanse the intestines, but sometimes two are used successively; for example, first a colonic irrigation or enema to empty the bowels and then medicinal plants to keep the intestines working intensively.

Intestinal Detoxification

• Laxative medicinal plant: Buckthorn or mallow mother tincture: Take 20 to 50 drops with water, three times a day, before meals, for one to two months. Start with a small dose, then increase it in order to obtain one or two stools a day.
• Purgative medicinal plant: Senna mother tincture: Take 20 to 50 drops in a glass of water, just one time. The effect will be apparent in several hours. Remember, use purgatives sparingly.
• Enema: With the help of an enema bag, introduce 1 to 2 quarts of lukewarm water into the colon. Pull the tube out and hold the liquid in for about five minutes, then sit on the toilet and release the waste-filled water. Give yourself one or two enemas a week for three weeks.
• Colonic irrigation: Because of the fairly sophisticated device required for this treatment, it is best undertaken in a center that specializes in it.

The Liver

The liver removes toxins from the bloodstream and expels them, mixed with bile, into the intestines. To support the liver, it is therefore of major importance to make sure that the intestines are functioning properly.

The liver is an essential organ for cleansing the terrain. It not only rids the bloodstream of its toxins, thereby permitting it to take on new wastes from the depths of the tissues, but it also has the ability of neutralizing “aggressive toxins” such as heavy metals, food additives, medications, and so on—all poisons that make the terrain toxic and weaken the body’s defenses.

Stimulation of the liver is primarily achieved through the use of medicinal plants. The cures should continue for one to two months in order to give the liver sufficient time to rid itself of the wastes that have collected there as well as to continue filtering the many toxins that the bloodstream has absorbed from the various tissues of the body.

Stimulating the Liver

• Medicinal plants: Dandelion, boldo, artichoke, or black radish mother tincture: Take 10 to 50 drops with water, three times a day, before meals, for one to two months. Start with a low dosage and increase as needed to obtain one or two stools a day.

The Kidneys

The kidneys also filter toxins out of the bloodstream, but it eliminates them through dilution with urine. These wastes, which include uric acid, urea, creatine, and so on, can have a powerfully toxic effect on the body and thereby damage the terrain if they are not eliminated daily in sufficient amounts. For example, if instead of eliminating 25 grams of urea a day—which is the norm—the kidneys removed only 23 grams, the body would accumulate 2 grams of urea a day, totaling 60 grams a month or 720 grams a year. This would be more than enough to overload the terrain and make it vulnerable to pathogenic germs.

To stimulate the kidneys you should, on the one hand, drink plenty of water during the day and, on the other hand, take medicinal plants with diuretic properties.

By drinking copious amounts of water—at least 2 quarts a day—you are providing your body an abundant support for transporting toxins to the outside. The kidneys can be compared to a stream: when a stream’s source of water has been restored after being absent, the muck that has collected in the riverbed is carried away by the now abundant flow of water.

Diuretic plants help by increasing the rate of excretion of urine. In this manner they intensify the filtration process, allowing the kidneys to eliminate many more toxins than they would normally and helping to purify the blood. In order to allow diuretics to be most effective, so they can encourage the kidneys to eliminate the maximum quantity of toxins, cures using these medicinal plants should be followed for one to two months, and then repeated if necessary.

Stimulating the Kidneys

• Water cure: Drink 2 to 3 quarts of water daily. Avoid highly mineralized waters, and space out your ingestion of water over the entire day.
• Diuretic medicinal plants: Mouse-ear hawkweed, nettle, or goldenrod mother tincture: 30 to 50 drops with water, three times a day, before meals. The dosage should be adjusted as needed to increase the frequency and quantity of urination.

The Skin

The skin works as an eliminatory organ in two ways. First are the sudoriferous (or sweat) glands, of which we have about 650 for every square inch of skin. These glands expel wastes like uric acid, urea, salts, and other spent minerals diluted in water. Second are the sebaceous glands, of which we have about 300,000 over our entire skin surface. These glands rid the body of a variety of wastes, including fatty acids, dead cells (including germ cells), mucous substances, carbohydrate wastes, and so on, in the form of sebum.

When this eliminatory organ is functioning well and solicitations for its services are performed correctly, then the skin is capable of ridding the terrain of a much larger quantity of toxins than you might think. While a person leading a sedentary lifestyle produces an average of ½ quart of sweat a day, this rate can be as high as 1 quart an hour for people performing intense physical activities or taking a sauna. Several quarts of sweat can be eliminated every day with the latter, which represents a rate of detoxification that is from four to six times more intense than normal. With regular sweating sessions an individual can free the body of numerous toxins that would otherwise collect in the terrain and thereby make it more vulnerable to infection.

It is significant that the majority of infections are accompanied by fever, and consequently by intense bouts of sweating. By this means, the body seeks to eliminate its own toxins rapidly and in massive amounts, as well as those produced by germs, in order to keep the cellular terrain as clean and resistant as possible.

Imitating a process like this by virtue of sessions of preventive perspiration can only help. There are numerous means to make yourself sweat. Some are active, like all physical and athletic activities, and others more passive, like hot baths, steam baths, and saunas. To have a profound effect on the terrain, these sessions must be performed regularly, two or three times a week for one to two months. You can also turn to sudorific plants, a class of medicinal plants that stimulate and maintain the production of sweat.

Stimulating the Skin

• Sudorific medicinal plants: Linden flower, elder flower, or borage flower: Prepare an infusion (tea) using ⅓ cup of flowers for every 1 quart of water. Drink this tea every day to help the skin in general, but especially on the days when you plan activities that could cause intense perspiration.
• Hyperthermic baths: Get into the bath when the water is at an agreeable temperature and gradually add hot water until it feels almost too hot. It must be hot, but not so hot that you cannot remain in the bathtub for twenty to thirty minutes. When you get out of the bath, extend the session for another half hour at least by wrapping yourself in bath towels that will continue to cause your body to sweat. Depending on the vigor of your health, two or three baths a week are recommended.
• Sauna: Take a sauna in two or three bouts of ten to fifteen minutes, taking a tento fifteen-minute break between each of them. Do so once or twice a week.

RESTRICTIVE DIETS

When you restrict your intake of a food for a more or less prolonged period of time, two physiological phenomena that can cleanse the terrain to its depths take place:

1. Autolysis. Because it is not receiving all the nutrients it requires from external sources, the body is forced to draw them from itself. It does so by autolysis: digesting (lyse) its own tissues (auto). Autolysis does not work in a random fashion. It first attacks the metabolic residues and wastes that have collected in the cellular terrain, and only after that will it turn to the organs. This process thereby removes toxins from the depths of the terrain. The useful substances they contain—like amino acids or minerals—are reused by the body, while everything else is flushed out by the eliminatory organs.
2. An increased elimination of toxins. Because it is receiving lesser amounts of food, the body does not have to expend as much energy as usual on digestive processes. It will employ the energy it suddenly has at its disposal to eliminate the surplus of toxins that the eliminatory organs have not been able to evacuate from the body. It will thereby eliminate a large quantity of wastes from the body, which will greatly increase its resistance to infections.

The most restrictive kind of diet is a fast, in which all foods except water are eliminated. Autolysis and eliminations are strongest in this diet. Mono diets are a less severe form of a fast.^*5 These diets allow one single food in addition to water. The chosen food is generally a fruit or a vegetable, which is eaten at every meal in as great a quantity as the individual desires for the duration of the cure. Because this one food will supply only a very restricted portion of the nutrients the body needs, the mono diet will also trigger a vigorous autolysis. Furthermore, as it will travel through the digestive tract alone rather than blended with a crowd of other nutrients, as is normally the case, the chosen food will be digested more easily. The body’s forces that are spared this way will be used to make up for the backlog on the elimination of toxins.

There are a great many other possible restrictive diets that have a more or less cleansing effect on the terrain depending on their scope (diets that consist of just two meals, are weight restricted [e.g., limiting daily food intake to 2 pounds], are low-calorie, are protein-free, or do not combine certain foods are all options). To guarantee good elimination of toxins, all the diets must be accompanied by the ingestion of medicinal herbs that will help detoxify the body, such as those recommended in the previous section, “Stimulating Elimination.”

Restrictive Diet Options

• Fast: Fast for one to three days, under the supervision of a competent health professional or after having thoroughly studied all the aspects of the cure: how to prepare for a fast, what to do while you are fasting, and how to physiologically break your fast. A good understanding of the warnings that could indicate that the fast should be stopped is necessary.
• Mono diet: Follow a mono diet for one to three days, using a fruit (such as grapes, watermelon, apples, and so on) as your chosen food if you are not sensitive to fruit acids, or a vegetable (carrots, green salad, fennel, and so on) if you are.
• Vegetable cure: For one to seven days, eat only vegetables. This is not a mono diet, as all kinds of vegetables can be consumed. Every meal consists of a selection of vegetables (salads, raw or cooked vegetables, soups, etc.). The detoxifying effect of a vegetable cure is a little less powerful than that of a fast or mono diet, but it is easier to pursue and still permits a good, deep cleansing.

ADDRESSING DEFICIENCIES

While the ideal composition of the terrain can be altered by the excessive presence of some substances, like toxins, it can also be transformed by the absence of other substances, such as proteins, vitamins, minerals, and so forth. These deficiencies will inevitably cause disruptions of bodily functions: digestion, eliminations, and cellular exchanges will no longer be performed properly. As a consequence, the production of toxins will increase while their elimination is reduced. Lesions may appear in the event of serious deficiencies, which will contribute even more to the deterioration of the cellular terrain. Germs then find it much easier to establish themselves there and begin to multiply.

The immune system figures prominently among the various systems that are weakened by deficiencies. The immune system is made up of a variety of organs, including the spinal marrow, spleen, lymph glands, and so forth, that produce the phagocytes, white blood cells, and antibodies necessary for the body’s defense. How can these organs function properly if they are suffering from a deficiency of vital substances? How can they produce the millions of phagocytes and white blood cells that are necessary if they are missing proteins and other nutrients that are essential to their manufacture? And just how effective can these defenders be, once produced, if they themselves are suffering from deficiencies?

To fill these deficiencies it is necessary to eat a variety of whole foods and also to take nutritive supplements. Nature offers us an extremely wide range of foods. In order to enjoy the benefits each has to offer, we need to eat all of them. Many of us tend to have a rather narrow diet, excluding whole categories of healthful foods. The body therefore never receives (or at best receives only a little of) one or more vital nutrients that can be found in the missing foods. Some people, for example, eat very few vegetables, while others leave out grains or nuts, and others never eat fruits, and so forth.

In addition to varying your diet, it is necessary to eat whole foods, rather than highly processed. If you only eat nutrient-deficient foods, your body will be nutrient-deficient as well. The refinement of cereal grains, for example, strips them of numerous nutrients, particularly B vitamins, which are rarely found in substantial quantity in other foods. This is why someone who regularly eats white bread rather than bread made from whole grains will suffer from deficiencies over time. The same is true for those oils that are heat-extracted as opposed to cold-pressed; many nutrients of the first group are completely destroyed by the heat. These nutrients include vitamin E and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are hard to find in other foods and are both indispensable for the immune system.

While simply adjusting your diet to eat properly will, over time, fill any existing deficiencies (or prevent any from occurring), it is sometimes necessary to act quickly in order to improve the quality of the immune system and the terrain in a short space of time. At times like these, people should turn to natural food supplements like spirulina, bee pollen, brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, seaweed, royal jelly, ginseng, black molasses, sea buckthorn, and so on.

These different products offered by nature contain high concentrations of vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. Some of these foods are characterized by their record-breaking nutrient content: for example, brewer’s yeast is the most abundant source of vitamin B. Other high-powered supplements include wheat germ, which has the highest concentration of vitamin E, sea buckthorn for its vitamin C, spirulina for essential amino acids, and so forth. Another characteristic of these supplements is that the nutrients they contain are quite varied: seaweeds possess all minerals and trace elements, bee pollen contains all the vitamins but two, spirulina possesses a wide range of vitamins and minerals, and so on.

Food-sourced supplements are easy for the body to assimilate. For terrain correction, they should be taken for one to two months. In certain cases, two or three supplements are taken simultaneously, but more generally it is a cure of one supplement followed by another one. They are commonly sold in health food stores and the health food sections of grocery stores and co-ops.

Food Supplements

• Bee pollen (contains all the vitamins, especially rich in vitamin C): Take 1 to 2 teaspoons a day in the morning before breakfast, mixed with water or yogurt. If necessary, another dose can be taken at midday. The supplementation should continue for four to six weeks.
• Spirulina: Follow the manufacturer’s dosage instructions. The tablets must be taken with water, three times a day before meals, for two months.
• Ginseng (rich in B vitamins): Take 1 to 2 grams of ginseng root a day, chewing it slowly until it has completely dissolved. Or try a commercial concentrated ginseng extract, following the manufacturer’s dosage instructions. The supplementation should continue for one to two months.

Correcting your terrain is the most important thing you can do to stand up against infectious diseases, both preventively and therapeutically. On the preventive level, correcting the terrain makes it healthy. It can consequently resist germs and prevent infections. On the healing level, making such a correction to the terrain when it is infected will not be enough to transform it to its depths. But it will alter the terrain sufficiently to help stop the multiplication of the germs. This will help lessen the intensity of the infection.