Dr. Patrick Vickers, MD
PURE Juicer does not promote any specific protocols, but rather we share points of view for people to learn and decide for themselves. Health practitioners should be involved in your health decisions.
The Periodic Table of Juicing highlights Gerson Therapy. We have had a long relationship with this therapy and rigorous juicing protocol and are proud of the service we have provided, delivering the highest quality juices for nearly 10 years.
Many in the wellness world may not have heard of Dr. Max Gerson and Gerson Therapy. We interviewed Dr. Patrick Vickers, Founder of the Gerson Clinic in Tijuana Mexico about this subject and for an understanding of its placement in the Periodic Table of Juicing. Dr. Vickers explains the basic principles of the science and findings of Dr. Max Gerson.
A little history…
Back in Germany around 1900, Max Gerson was a medical student suffering from severe migraines. Even with the best medical professors in the world, they couldn’t help him cure his migraines. Their only solution was to find a dark room during episodes until his hormones changed (in his 50s. He was in his 20s). They had nothing useful to offer him.
He took matters into his own hands and ended up curing himself of these debilitating headaches by radically altering his diet which included absolutely no salt, saturated fats, processed foods, coffee, and alcohol!
He basically eliminated the standard German diet, which is also sadly known as the SAD (standard American diet), as well. He developed a fruit and vegetable regimen, filled with juices that we will delve into soon.
He began using this migraine diet on his patients. One patient came back to him and said not only are their headaches gone but their skin tuberculosis dried up and was disappeared. At this time in history, tuberculosis was incurable. So, as you can imagine, this discovery was a very big deal. Dr. Gerson shared his knowledge with thousands of patients and when he passed away, his work was carried on by his daughter, Charlotte Gerson, and now with the Gerson Institute and the Gerson Center in Tijuana.
The basics from the ‘Gerson’ perspective:
What is a healthy body?
According to Gerson, a healthy body starts in the gut and there is one word that he reiterates over and over again. That word is metabolism. Metabolism is the breakdown of food into energy. When ‘illness happens, people cannot properly convert their food to energy. This can be caused, after compromising their gut with processed food, alcohol, antibiotics, sweets, etc. for many years of their lives.
How do we restore a gut that has been abused for decades by environmental toxins, processed foods, saturated fats, excessive sugar, salt, alcohol, and caffeine? We start by eliminating ALL of the above and replacing them with loads of organic fruits and vegetables in the form of juice and food.
What is alkalinity and why is it so important?
When we speak about alkalinity versus acidity, we are talking about the pH (potential hydrogen acidity – or buildup of hydrogen in the body). When you hear the word “saturated fats,” you need to know that it is also saturated with hydrogen. Too much hydrogen disrupts the electrical charge at the level of the cell membrane so that oxygen can’t get into the cell. Basically, acidity is the buildup of hydrogen which is causing people to become ill.
Being alkaline is so important because when the body is acidic, and oxygen tries to enter the cells so that the mitochondria can convert sugar to energy, it literally gets repelled away. What it will produce instead of energy is lactic acid, which ultimately is believed to feed disease. It turns normal cells into a fermented fungal nature otherwise known as cancer. The good news is when we restore the alkalinity through fruits and vegetables, and we stop eating the acidic diet, (highly processed and heavy in saturated fats and empty sugar), we can create health back in the body.
When we juice and eat cooked, healthy meals with Gerson Therapy, all of those calories are well received and gentler on the system. They are easily absorbed and the mitochondria are restored. *Sugar in fruits and vegetables is not bad, in fact, it is GOOD when we have a healthy, alkaline system! These are healing and energy-giving foods!
What about OH negative and H positive? Restoring cell membranes.
When you eat a fruit or vegetable, it gets broken down in the body to potassium hydroxide, or O H negative, oxygen-hydrogen negative.
Massive amounts of O H negative ions are being created when you drink juices and eat fruits and vegetables. We are trying to neutralize that one unbonded radical hydrogen, positively charged ion. The acidic hydrogen is H positive, while O H negative is alkaline. When you flood the body with the OH negative, they start to react. When you take OH negative and H positive, Two H’s and O are H2O – The two hydrogens are bonded and it becomes water. This creates a neutral charge. Those other hydrogen ions from the acidity are positively charged and repel oxygen away, the neutral charge of water and the alkaline charge of the OH negative ion, draws oxygen into the cell. By eating raw fruits and vegetables, you’re neutralizing the hydrogen.
We also must restore the cell membrane. On Gerson Therapy there are absolutely no saturated fats at all.
The only oil Gerson found safe to eat was flax oil. He tried them all. Flax oil is a polyunsaturated fatty acid. It has absolutely no hydrogen bonded to the oil. Flax oil starts restoring the cell membrane. It literally acts as a magnet to draw oxygen into the cell, unlike saturated fats which repel oxygen.
Why no salt?
Sodium chloride in all forms (including Himalayan salt) is believed to be destructive to healing. The goal is to eliminate all table salt from the body and re-establish normal cellular metabolism. The reason why sodium is destructive is that it displaces iodine from the thyroid gland. The thyroid’s specific job in your body is to make mitochondria. Mitochondria convert sugar into energy.
We want to remain alkaline and get oxygen into the cells so that the mitochondria can do their job. If we are acidic, oxygen can’t get into the cells, and sugar gets broken down into lactic acid which feeds cancer and other diseases. Sodium also makes the body lose potassium and that causes the cells’ integrity to collapse.
Therefore, salt must be eliminated to heal. That is also why celery juice is not part of the Gerson Therapy protocol. *Celery has health benefits for sure, but for those who are ill and are following Gerson Therapy, there is too much salt in the juice for their diet.
What does one consume on Gerson Therapy?
What are the juices?
On the Gerson Therapy, patients ingest 20 pounds of organic fruits and vegetables, every single day. They drink a fresh, cold-pressed juice every hour, on the hour from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM, which is 13 juices every single day! There is an all-orange juice in the a.m. There are four green juices every day. There is a lot of carrot juice on this protocol and that is because they are loaded with beta carotene which is an incredible antioxidant! It plays a major role in cancer prevention. Granny Smith apples are the apple of choice because of the malic acid which fires up the metabolism and the mitochondria require malic acid.
Orange Juice
Ingredients for 8 oz / 236 ml Orange Juice:
- 2 organic oranges
GREEN JUICE
Ingredients for 8 oz / 236 ml Green Juice:
- 6-7 big leaves (with stalk) of romaine
- Red leaf lettuce
- 2-3 leaves of escarole
- 2-3 leaves of endive
- 3-4 leaves of red cabbage
- 2-3 young inner beet tops (inner leaves)
- 2 leaves of Swiss chard
- A quarter of a green bell pepper
- 3-4 leaves of watercress
- 1 medium green apple, Granny Smith, or as sour and hard as possible
CARROT/APPLE JUICE
Ingredients for 8 oz / 236 ml Carrot/Apple Juice:
- 3-4 organic carrots
1 large green apple, Granny Smith, or as sour and tart as possible
CARROT JUICE
Ingredients for 8 oz / 236 ml Orange Juice:
- 5-6 organic carrots
Dr. Vickers and his team at the Gerson Clinic add lemon, fresh aloe, and raw living spirulina to the juices for their healing and alkaline nature to the gut as well.
Cooked foods?
Many are curious why our patients eat cooked foods. Dr. Gerson was adamant that sick patients with a damaged gut must get three cooked meals a day. The rationale is that an unhealthy gut cannot break down raw vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots and must be cooked to easily convert them to energy.
No nuts or seeds?
Nuts and seeds tend to be hard on the digestive tract and the liver. Therefore, even healthy foods such as cucumbers, strawberries, pomegranates, and almonds are prohibited.
Why coffee enemas?
How does coffee take rectally help cure disease? Using knowledge from WWII at the end of the war, in Germany, there was no medicine left. Nurses used enemas for many reasons back then and when they ran out of pain meds, and all they had left was coffee, they added coffee to the enemas and the patients surprisingly felt relief. Digging into why this is, Dr. Gerson found that our liver produces an enzyme called glutathione transferase, which happens to be one of the most potent detoxifying enzymes in the body. The liver requires palmitic acid to produce glutathione transferase. Specifically roasted, organic coffee from a certain bean is loaded with palmitic acid. Dr. Gerson was able to demonstrate that when you do a coffee enema, the production of glutathione transferase goes up to 700% greater than normal. With trial and error, he found that five coffee enemas per day were part of the protocol for patients that are particularly toxic. The practice of using enemas was not uncommon 100 years ago for the flu and other ailments, and this was part of how Dr. Gerson discovered it. *This is very different than drinking coffee which isn’t allowed since coffee ingested as a drink depletes the body. When we drink coffee, a diuretic, we eliminate so many vitamins and minerals when we urinate.
Gerson Therapy is all about healing a faulty metabolism. To cure most ailments, we must begin in the gut. In many cases, it must be drastic changes. We must restore our body’s ability to convert food into energy in a healthy, oxygenated, alkaline body. This therapy has been used by thousands.
Dr. Patrick Vickers is the Director and Founder of the Northern Baja Gerson Center in Rosarito, Mexico; the world’s premier clinic for the natural treatment of advanced diseases, specializing in Advanced Gerson Therapy.
*Once again, we state that PURE Juicer shares this information on our blog today to allow you to learn about it and make your own informed decisions with your healthcare provider.
*We are proud to say that our PURE Juicer passed the Gerson Institute’s rigorous testing.
The PURE Juicer is officially approved and recommended for Gerson Therapy.
Used in Gerson Clinics and Healing & Wellness Centers around the world, our PURE Juicer preserves the naturally occurring live enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants in raw fruits and vegetables. These nutrients support greater overall health and complement medical treatment for people coping with chronic conditions and illnesses.
True cold-pressed juicing allows each juice to maintain its maximum nutrient and vitamin retention and allows you to get a concentrated amount of live enzymes that would otherwise be difficult to achieve just by eating raw fruits and vegetables alone.
