Doctors slow to endorse fasting as therapy

By Shari Rudavsky, Globe Correspondent, 9/30/2003

The first time Bo-In Lee suggested Freema Shapiro should give up food to help cure her psoriasis and digestive woes, the Cambridge woman blanched. But Lee, founder of the New Life Health Center in Jamaica Plain, told her fasting would help her address her body's toxic overload.

"You're Jewish. If you can fast for one day, you can fast for seven," the licensed acupuncturist told her.

On the third day of Shapiro's fast, she felt awful. Not to worry, Lee assured her, the nausea is a sign of toxins leaving your body. By the end of 10 days, Shapiro had the zeal of a convert.

"I felt wonderful and strong," said Shapiro, who has gone on at least 10 fasts in the decade since. "I really felt so good afterward."

For Jewish people bracing for the daylong Yom Kippur fast next week, 24 hours may seem more than long enough to go without food. But a number of adherents have long embraced extended fasts as a way to detoxify their bodies and improve overall health and well-being.

The technique has gotten so popular that some spas will charge people for telling them to give up food and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fasting" is just one of the many books published to address the demand.

Not surprisingly, mainstream doctors think little of eating next to nothing.

"Purging yourself by fasting does not have any scientific or medical support," said Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of nutrition at Harvard Medical School.

Fasting, though touted as a treatment for such afflictions as cancer, obesity, diabetes and heart disease, is particularly dangerous for diabetics and other fragile people. The Jewish religion prohibits the elderly and the infirm from partaking of the one-day fast and that advice should apply to all fasters, Blackburn said.

Experts fear that fasting can spark bulemic or anorexic behavior in people who appear to have a predisposition to developing an eating disorder.

"Even a very short period of a diet seems to have the power to start a cascade of forces that could click into an eating disorder," said Douglas Bunnell, president of the National Eating Disorders Association and director of the Renfrew Center in Wilton, Conn., which specializes in treating eating disorders. "Anything that glamorizes food restriction has the power to harm some vulnerable people."

Fasting as a way of spring cleaning the body does not mean giving up food altogether. Practitioners may sip on juice, or take a little honey, agar, sodium, or enzyme powders, in the interest of cleansing their bodies better.

At the New Life Health Center, it is no glamorous process. Each fast begins with an assessment of the patient's toxic load, including hair and urine analysis. Fasting -- under the watch of the center's staff and individually prepared regimen -- is aimed at a range of conditions, including chronic pain and cancer. At the New Life Health Center, where a week's stay in a semiprivate room starts at $1,565, the patient's condition determines the length of the fast, and whether he or she is encouraged to consume any herbal teas or other substances in minuscule quantities.

"It's critical to assess what toxins you are dealing with and to understand the underlying imbalances of organ harmony," said Seung Jae Lee, Bo-In's son and the center's vice president. "Ultimately our concept is that illness is an imbalance and the treatment is to correct that imbalance."

Most patients taper off food gradually. When the fast ends, they slowly reintroduce solids. Then comes the hard part -- maintaining the gains made during the fast.

"Fasting is much easier than eating healthy. You don't have to think about it," said Beth Rontal, who underwent her first cleansing fast more than 10 years ago as part of successful treatment for infertility.

Personal testimonials such as hers lead many experts to shrug at fasting. While no evidence exists to support its benefit, there's no reason healthy people can't do it, once they consult their health care provider.

Said Jeanne Goldberg, a professor at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science: "For all of the science behind why there's no real reason why they feel better, if they do feel better, it's hard not to argue."