Gerson Therapy with Dr. Patrick Vickers: Rational Wellness Podcast 259
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Dr. Patrick Vickers discusses Gerson Therapy for Cancer with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
1:33 Dr. Patrick Vickers knew he wanted to be a chiropractor when he observed a five year old boy who was coughing for 20 minutes straight and could not sleep and his father, who was a chiropractor, came and adjusted his neck and the coughing stopped. Dr. Vickers was in New York Chiropractic College as a student and he heard Charlotte Gerson speak about her father’s work and he immediately developed this burning passion for learning more about Gerson Therapy, so he was invited to Charlotte’s home and he read through her father’s handwritten files of all his patients and he is one of a handful of people who have ever studied those files. It became his professional focus.
3:26 There are a myriad of factors that cause cancer, from diet to stress to environmental factors. With the industrial revolution we’ve released poisons into our air, water, and out diets. In 1900, 1 out of 60 or 100 people were being diagnosed with cancer but now it is 1 out of every 3 people that get cancer and the number is increasing.
5:13 Dr. Gerson felt that what causes cancer is metabolism and a breakdown in metabolism and in the liver, but this is different than what is now known as the metabolic theory of cancer that Dr. Thomas Seyfried and Dr. Nasha Winters have spoken about on this podcast, which revolves around the concept that cancer cells are exclusively glycolytic and that sugar feeds cancer. Dr. Vickers said that he does not believe that sugar feeds cancer. Dr. Vickers said that “If sugar fed cancer, we’d be sending everybody straight to their graves quicker than they’d get there naturally, because our patients are getting 3,500 to 4,000 calories per day in the form of fruits, vegetables, juices. So if sugar fed cancer, why does the Gerson Therapy have the most renowned history and consistency for being able to reverse virtually every single degenerative disease, most notably, terminal cancer?…Not only does sugar not feed cancer, sugar heals cancer, and it’s biochemistry 101.”
7:45 In 1931 Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for proving that cancer cannot survive in a body that is properly oxygenated and the primary way to oxygenate cells is with an alkaline diet. This is in contrast to those who feel that the Metabolic theory of cancer is correct and who think that Otto Warburg developed that concept. Dr. Vickers said that the ketogenic diet’s ability to permanently reverse advanced cancer is very low and one reason is because it is a very acidic diet. PH stands for potential hydrogen.
11:15 The cell membrane is made up of fats and this will change with the diet. Today people are not getting their fat from unsaturated sources like raw nuts and seeds and flax seed oil. People today are mostly eating saturated fats and these are saturated with hydrogen. When this goes into the cell membranes, the membranes will repel oxygen, because as oxygen approaches that cell, the charge at the level of a saturated cell membrane rejects it and repels it.
17:59 What is the Gerson Therapy? It consists of reestablishing the proper charges at the level of the cell membrane, reestablishing, or regenerating the deficient nutrient status in the body, all through ingesting 20 pounds of fresh, raw, organic fruits and vegetables every single day mostly in the form of juices. When you give people this amount of nutrition, you need to detoxify the body. Not only are people toxic from years of living, because the tumors generate endotoxins, but when you provide this amount of nutrition, the body starts to destroy tumor tissue, which is more toxic. Then it starts to rebuild new tissue, which also generates toxins. To facilitate detox, Dr. Gerson recommended coffee enemas, which are given five times per day during treatment as part of the Gerson Therapy. Coffee that is lightly roasted contains lots of palmitic acid, which stimulates the liver to produce an enzyme called glutathione transferase, which catalyses the conjugation of glutathione, thus facilitating detoxification.
25:24 Juicing is generally better for cancer patients than smoothies, since they often can’t tolerate that much fiber because of they often have compromised gut health. The rules for a cancer patient change dramatically when you’re trying to heal cancer. And this is why Schweitzer, Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize winner called Gerson, the most eminent genius in medical history.
34:26 The Gerson Therapy program also includes flax seed oil. Six weeks into the therapy, Dr. Gerson incorporated several aspects of Johanna Budwig’s diet for cancer, which are flax seed oil and nonfat cottage cheese and yogurt on a daily basis. Budwig felt that the cottage cheese and yogurt help the body to absorb the omega 3 fats from the flax. The cottage cheese and yogurt should be homemade.
41:11 Nutritional supplements. The Gerson Therapy utilizes a number of nutritional supplements, including a special potassium compound powder, CoQ10, niacin, and high dose pancreatic enzymes, high in alpha chymotrypsin.
43:20 Patients are not supposed to exercise for the first year that they are on the Gerson Therapy. Your body needs massive amounts of energy to rally the immune system and exercise would deplete cellular energy. They do not recommend anything other than a 20-30 minute gentle walk daily.
51:03 Other treatment modalities employed at the Gerson Clinic include ultraviolet blood irradiation with ozone, hyperbaric oxygen, they add hydrogen peroxide into their enemas, and pulsed electromagnetic frequency in the form of the Bemer Mat, all of which help to oxygenate the tissues. They have also added pure, unadulterated aloe vera harvested in the Dominican Republic and sent fresh frozen to the Gerson Clinic that is added to the juices. The aloe vera must be from the heart of the leaf. They also add raw, living spirulina harvested fresh from rawspirulina.com
Dr. Patrick Vickers is the current face of the Gerson Therapy today. He was trained by Dr. Max Gerson’s family and is one of the few people to have studied Dr. Gerson’s handwritten files. He continues to carry on Dr. Gerson’s legacy through his clinic, The Advanced Gerson Therapy Clinic, in Rosarito, Mexico; the world’s premier clinic for the natural treatment of cancer and advanced disease. Dr. Patrick Vickers is also featured in the epic documentary series, The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest and one of his patients is also chronicled in the classic documentary, The Beautiful Truth.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss and also athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates, and to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com. Thanks for joining me and let’s jump into the podcast. Hello, Rational Wellness podcasters, our topic for today is Gerson Therapy with Dr. Patrick Vickers.
Dr. Patrick Vickers is the current face of Gerson Therapy today, which is a interesting approach to treatment of cancer and chronic diseases. Dr. Patrick Vickers was trained by Dr. Max Gerson’s family, and he’s one of the few people to have studied Dr. Gerson’s handwritten files. He continues to carry on Dr. Gerson’s legacy through his clinic, the Advanced Gerson Therapy Clinic in Rosarito, Mexico, the world’s premier clinic for the natural treatment of cancer and advanced disease. Dr. Patrick Vickers is also featured in the epic documentary series, The Truth About Cancer, a global quest, and one of his patients is also chroniced in the classic documentary, The Beautiful Truth. Dr. Vickers, thank you so much for joining me.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Thanks for having me Ben. Nice to be here.
Dr. Weitz: How did you become interested in Gerson Therapy?
Dr. Vickers: Yeah, so ever since I was 11 years old, I wanted to be a chiropractor. A friend of our families was a chiropractor and they were staying at our home for the weekend and their five year old boy was sleeping with me in my room one night when he woke up at three in the morning with a cough that wouldn’t stop. He coughed literally for like 20 minutes straight. And then finally his father heard him, came upstairs, lied him on the end of the bed, adjusted his neck both ways and the boy stopped coughing immediately. And I was 11 years old and I said, “That’s what I’m going to do for a living.” And so here I am a year away from graduating chiropractic school, when a woman by the name of Charlotte Gerson was invited to New York Chiropractic College for the weekend to speak about her father’s work. And the moment she opened her mouth, I knew it was true, everything she was saying was true. And I said, “That’s what I’m going to do.” And I finished school, I had this burning passion from the Gerson Therapy. She recognized that, invited me to her home, where she had all her father’s handwritten files of all his patients between 1910 and 1959 when he died. And like you said in the intro, I’m maybe one of a handful of people who’ve ever studied those personal files. And so that’s how it was born essentially. I mean, at that early age, I had an understanding at that point that the human body can heal itself when you give it what it needs. But I never imagined that the body could heal something as drastic as advanced cancer. When Charlotte opened her mouth and started talking about her father, I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I knew the human body was powerful, I didn’t know it was that powerful.
Dr. Weitz: What causes cancer?
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Well, that’s a good question.
Dr. Weitz: It’s an easy question.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. There really, very rarely is there any one cause of cancer. It’s a myriad of factors that goes from diet, to stress, to environmental factors. In 1900, they say one out of every 60, maybe one out of every 100 people got cancer. Now we’re going down to one out of every three. Soon to be one out of every two will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Well, we know genetics doesn’t work that quickly based on evolutionary theory. And so what’s happened in the last 100 years, that’s caused these rates of cancer to skyrocket? Simple, just a massive expansion of the industrial revolution, where we’ve belched every poison into our air, our water, our lifestyle, our environment, our diets. It’s a multiple factors that ultimately causes the breakdown of the liver and metabolism in the human body. If you ever read Dr. Gerson’s book that he wrote, his epic book called The Results of 50 Cases of Cancer Therapy, one word sticks out over and over and over again that he mentions in that book and it is metabolism. And when we have an ultimate breakdown in metabolism that causes disease. And maybe we’ll be able to touch on that as we go into this interview, but that is the secret on how the Gerson Therapy’s been the most successful therapy essentially in history for being able to reverse advanced disease. But in terms of causative-
Dr. Weitz: It’s interesting that you… Yeah, go ahead.
Dr. Vickers: No, in terms of causative agents of agents, multiple factors go into causing cancer today.
Dr. Weitz: Now, you used the concept and Dr. Gerson did, metabolism as the central focus. It’s interesting that there’s a number of people in the integrative cancer field who used the metabolic theory of cancer. And we’ve interviewed quite a number of them and their theory is based on this concept, that sugar feeds cancer and that cancer cells are glycolytic. Whereas our regular cells are both glycolytic and oxidative. And if we want to starve cancer cells, we’ve got to restrict the sugar. And so therefore, the approach is quite a bit different. It typically involves a very low carb ketogenic type diet.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. And let me tell you something. In 10 years, we’re going to look back on that theory, just like we looked back on the Atkins diet for weight loss. We know how destructive the Atkins diet ended up being for the human body, because what it ultimately did in the end was destroyed metabolism. So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about sugars feeding cancer. If sugar fed cancer, we’d be sending everybody straight to their graves quicker than they’d get there naturally, because our patients are getting 3,500 to 4,000 calories per day in the form of fruits, vegetables, juices. So if sugar fed cancer, why does the Gerson Therapy have the most renowned history and consistency for being able to reverse virtually every single degenerative disease, most notably, terminal cancer. Why have eight movies been done on our work if sugar feeds cancer? Not only does sugar not feed cancer, sugar heals cancer, and it’s biochemistry 101. In chiropractic school, you and I in our first three weeks, what did we learn? We learned the Kreb cycle. And how does the Kreb cycle ultimately function? It needs sugar. Now it can do it with fats. The mitochondria can produce energy with fat, but when does the body want to do that? The body doesn’t preferentially want to use fats to create energy, it wants sugar. It wants carbohydrate. It’ll only use fat for energy production at times of what? Starvation. When we’re talking about sugar healing cancer, in 1931 Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for proving that cancer cannot survive in a body that’s properly oxygenated. And he went on to theorize that the body’s primary ability to oxygenate cells is in alkaline diet.
Dr. Weitz: It’s interesting. I’ve heard you talk before and you always bring up Otto Warburg and the metabolic theories also bring up Otto Warburg in supporting their theory.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Unfortunately they haven’t read more in depth. What Otto Warburg had to say about oxygenating the body because he clearly laid out that a body that’s highly alkaline is what determines the body’s ability to oxygenate tissues. Let’s talk about this for a second, because this is really the crux of the matter. You’re going to find out in 10 years that the ketogenic diet’s ability to permanently reverse advanced cancer’s going to be around nil. It will literally be around nil. And so here’s why. When we’re talking about alkalinity and acidity, what are we talking about? We’re talking about pH. Well, what’s pH? Nobody ever really explains, we always hear alkalinity promotes health, acidity promotes disease, but what are we talking about? We’re talking about pH. Now, what are the health implications of alkalinity and acidity? Well, pH is what? It’s potential hydrogen. The definition of acidity, by definition is the buildup of hydrogen in the body. Now what are the health implications of that? Let’s talk about metabolism for a second, real quickly. Let’s define it. Metabolism is what? It’s the-
Dr. Weitz: Well, let me just ask you one thing, on this pH thing, potential hydrogen. When the body or a food becomes more acidic, it’s lowering pH. Does that mean there’s less hydrogen?
Dr. Vickers: No, it means there’s more hydrogen.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. The pH with acidity, you have a buildup of hydrogen in the body ultimately. Now this isn’t bonded hydrogen like H2. These are H+ molecules running around the system that are causing a disruption in the electrical charges throughout the body. And this is the crux of the matter. When we’re talking about metabolism, what are we talking about? The breakdown of food into energy. That is the definition of metabolism. So once you break down the food and we’ll get into that, there’s no mistake that 70% of your immune system is where? In your digestive tract. If you’re going to have a problem with metabolism, it’s going to begin there. But then once you’re able to restore the digestive tract, now you have to restore the internal cellular metabolism. Once you start absorbing food into the body, then you have to be able to convert that food into energy where? Inside the cell. Inside the cell, you have these little things called mitochondria. Mitochondria, convert sugar or fats into energy. Now outside the cell, you have what? The cell membrane. Well, what’s that cell membrane made up of?
Dr. Weitz: Phospholipids.
Dr. Vickers: Exactly. It’s made up of fats. Well, what kind of fats is it made up of? Well, whatever fats you’re feeding it. Whatever fats you’re feeding it, the body’s naturally going to use to maintain your cell membrane. Well, what kind of fats are people eating today? Are they eating their raw nuts and seeds or their polyunsaturated oils like flax seed oil? Are they eating fruits and vegetables, which naturally contain essential fatty acids as well? No. What are people eating today? They’re eating tons of saturated fat. When we talk about saturated fat, what defines a saturated fat? What are they saturated with? Cookies, cake, ice cream, meat, cheese, dairy, all these different oils that people are cooking with eating with. When we define a saturated fat, what does it mean? It’s saturated with what? Hydrogen. Fats are carbon chains and the definition of whether it’s saturated, mono saturated, polyunsaturated is based on whether or not those carbon chains are saturated or unsaturated with hydrogen. Saturated fats are saturated with hydrogen. What are the implications of this when it goes to build the cell membrane? The implications are, you can’t get oxygen into the cell because as oxygen approaches that cell, the charge at the level of a saturated cell membrane rejects it. It cannot accept it. It literally gets repelled away. These are the things that Otto Warburg addressed. And 20 years prior to Otto Warburg’s Nobel Prize, Gerson had a therapy demonstrating exactly this. Now the irony is, do you know Otto Warburg won his Nobel Prize in Freiburg Germany? Do you know where Gerson went to school for many years while Warburg was also in Freiburg Germany? The University of Freiburg. I could nearly guarantee you Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize on the back of Dr. Gerson’s clinical work.
Dr. Weitz: Interesting.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Very interesting. We know that sometimes these things get stolen, right? Now, I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just saying, but anyway.
Dr. Weitz: What about the fact that people often use as evidence for cancer is fed by sugar, that when you do a pet scan, you use radioactive glucose, and that gets sucked up by the cancer cells?
Dr. Vickers: Okay. That’s true. Cancer cells have exponentially more insulin receptor sites than normal cells. If you give a glucose solution, cancer cells are going to suck it right off and give off a reading on the pet scan. But what a lame excuse to claim that sugar feeds cancer? Sugar feeds cancer in an acidic diet. Let me continue elaborating on what we’re trying to get to here.
Dr. Weitz: But if cancer cells have more insulin receptors and feed off of sugar and cancer cells are not able to produce energy through oxidation, then if we starve the glucose that hurts the cancer cells more than the human cells, than the healthy cells, because the healthy cells can get their energy through oxidation while the cancer cells can’t.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah, but the problem with this, Dr. Weitz, is that when you are constantly consuming a ketogenic diet loaded with saturated fats, ultimately you begin to destroy metabolism. But it takes a good nine to 16, 18 months to do that, which we found out with the Atkins diet. There’s no difference between the primitive ketogenic diet. Now there’s good keto they say. And I’m not on the fence about good keto. I still believe it’s detrimental in the end, but there is a better keto compared to the eggs, bacon, burger, steak keto that people are out there promoting for cancer treatment. But we know that long term use of that kind of a diet, look, it’s no mistake we know that these things, these meats and dairy and animal products are one of the primary causes of all disease. It’s that simple. We know that. We know that, the science is crystal clear on that. To be using it for cancer treatment, based on these theories, it’s nonsense. Cancer heals using sugars only when oxygen is readily available to convert those sugars into energy, where the ketogenic people have it completely wrong. They have it completely wrong. Is that sugar would technically feed cancer in an acidic diet. It would, because you can’t get oxygen into the cell to convert it into energy, therefore it goes into anaerobic glycolysis, which the final production of that is lactic acid. And lactic acid would feed tumors and disease. Sugar in an acidic body would feed cancer.
Dr. Weitz: Which is why you say you couldn’t eat a standard American diet and just throw in some raw juices on top of it?
Dr. Vickers: That’s exactly right. Well, you could, it’d still help you. Because it is adding masculinity to the body, so that has to help. But the point is, when you are drinking fresh, raw, organic juices, literally off the press in their highest point of alkalinity, you are re-establishing the charges at the level of the cell membrane where sugar now can be converted into energy because you’re able to get oxygen into the cells. We have been reversing advanced cancer for over 100 years. As I mentioned, eight movies have chronicled our work because of it. There is not one therapy out there that can remotely boast that international recognition. Why? Because nothing heals cancer better than the Gerson Therapy as its foundations. Which is-
Dr. Weitz: Let’s go into exactly what the Gerson Therapy is.
Dr. Vickers: Well, that’s exactly what it is. It is reestablishing the proper charges at the level of the cell membrane, reestablishing or regenerating the deficient nutrient status in the body, all through 20 pounds of organic fruits and vegetables every single day. Our patients are getting 20 pounds of organic fruits and vegetables every single day, mostly in the form of juices, they do get three meals per day, but most of that is through juicing. Then when you give people this amount of nutrition, you have to detoxify the body. Not only are people toxic from 50, 60 years of toxic living, not only are people toxic because the tumors themselves are generating massive amounts of endotoxins. When you start giving them this amount of nutrition in the juices, the body starts to destroy tumor tissue, which is even more toxic. Then it starts to rebuild new tissue, which is even more toxic.
And you end up generating massive amounts of toxicity. Well, Dr. Gerson made something famous called the coffee enema. There is nothing more potent to detoxify the human body than a coffee enema. And that’s science. So the coffee enema is given five times per day to a cancer patient. And the amount of toxicity that is eliminated with that quantity of enemas is exorbitant. Let me explain the coffee enema real quick. Your liver produces an enzyme, it’s called glutathione transferase. Glutathione transferase is one of the most potent detoxifying enzymes in the body. It’s made by the liver using palmitic acid. Now, properly roasted, organic coffee, not made for drinking, it doesn’t come from a drinking bean, so to speak, it’s not roasted to drinking status. Properly roasted organic coffee is loaded with palmitic acid.
Dr. Weitz: What do you mean so it’s different than coffee that you would drink? How is it roasted differently? Where do you get this from?
Dr. Vickers: Yeah, well, we get it from a company in Oregon who it roast it specifically for us. But it’s a more alkaline bean and it’s not toasted to espresso, to dark roast. And so it keeps a lot of its healing potential within it. Furthermore, when you drink it, the palmitic acid salts get burnt up in digestion. They don’t go straight to the liver. And I’ll explain that in a second.
Dr. Weitz: This is roasted less like it’s less heated or less-
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. That’s right. It’s lightly roasted, correct.
Dr. Weitz: Lightly roasted. Okay.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. And it’s just a different bean. Coffee’s like wine, it’s a science and it’s based on acidity. The aromas and the flavors are based on acidity, believe it or not. And so this coffee is very high in palmitate and it’s been demonstrated. Scientifically Peter Lechner, you can Google Peter Lechner, he did a study on the coffee enema. And it’s been demonstrated that when you do one coffee enema the production of glutathione transferase goes up six to 700% greater than normal. There is not a more potent way to detoxify the human body.
Now people say, “Well, how does sticking it up my rear end, get it to the liver?” And here’s how, when it enters the rear end, what’s sitting right there? The hemorrhoidal veins. The hemorrhoidal veins absorb the coffee. They carry it to the portal vein. Well, where does the portal vein end? It ends in the liver. When you take it rectally it goes straight to the liver. That’s why, if you drink a bottle of vodka, you’re going to get really sick. If you do a bottle of vodka rectally, and stupid people have done that, they’re dead within 30 minutes. Why? Because it goes straight to the liver and they end up with liver coma and they die. So taking coffee rectally goes straight to the liver, completely undefiled by the digestive tract. Furthermore,-
Dr. Weitz: So the goal is to stimulate glutathione. Why not just take IV glutathione?
Dr. Vickers: Doesn’t do the same thing. It doesn’t do the same thing. And so when you take it rectally, coffee, it boosts the production of glutathione transferase by six to 700% greater than normal. That is the foundations of the Gerson Therapy.
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Dr. Weitz: By the way, when it comes to juices, I know when my patients talk to me about juicing, I usually recommend smoothies because that keeps the fiber.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah, well, that’s great. I have no problem with doing some smoothies to get some fiber, but what’s the problem with that. Dr. Weitz? You’ve got patients coming in with terminal cancer. It’s the ultimate breakdown of the human organism. Where did we say 70% of your immune system lies?
Dr. Weitz: In the gut, of course.
Dr. Vickers: In the gut. Anyone coming to us with terminal cancer or any disease for that matter, their gut is sick. And so you give a cancer patient, an all raw diet? Loaded with all-
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. They can’t tolerate that much fiber. Yeah.
Dr. Vickers: They can’t. And so Gerson was adamant that their meals be thoroughly cooked to help the gut, because cooking is a form of predigestion. Their meals were thoroughly cooked, but where they got their raw organic nutrients was through the 17 pounds of organic fruits and vegetables being juiced. Because the digestive tract utilizes very little energy to be able to convert those nutrients into energy or whatever it needs to do. And so where by giving raw juices, rather than the raw fiber with it, that’s going straight into the bloodstream almost as quickly as alcohol, without the energy required to extract it from the fiber.
Not to mention that they just wouldn’t be able to handle that. But to have some smoothies for a healthy person, absolutely you need it. And it actually promotes proper gut flora. Because that’s what the flora feed on, but not when you’re treating cancer. The rules for a cancer patient change dramatically when you’re trying to heal cancer. And this is why Schweitzer, Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize winner called Gerson, the most eminent genius in medical history. Gerson understood this stuff instinctively and nobody to this day has been figuring it out. And certainly not the ketogenic people.
Dr. Weitz: It’s interesting when you just talk about hydrogen, there’s actually one recent trend in functional integrative medicine is to actually take supplemental hydrogen.
Dr. Vickers: That depends. Is it bonded? Or is it radical hydrogen running around positively charged? There’s a difference. It’s like hydrogen water. I believe hydrogen water is H2 like H20. Let’s talk about that for a second. You have someone coming in with an acidic body, a bunch of positively charge, hydrogen ions running around, disrupting electrical charges throughout the body. Well, how do you neutralize that? There’s only one way. OH negative ions. Hydroxyl ions. So when you drink a juice, if you test a juice with litmus paper, do you know it tests acidic?
Dr. Weitz: But that juice is for sure like lemon, for example?
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. They test acidic. But then when you drink them, they get broken down into potassium hydroxide. Now hydroxide is written chemically, OH-. That’s a potent alkaline molecule. Imagine you’re drinking all these alkaline OH- molecules, and you have all these H+ molecules you need to neutralize. Well, those two things start to react in the body. OH-, H+, two Hs and an O, water, H20, neutral charge. All of a sudden oxygen can start flooding into the cell. A lot is talked about hydrogen being healthy. It’s probably bonded hydrogen, that’s what it is.
Dr. Weitz: There’s another group of folks who talk about cancer and they talk about, they recommend a ketogenic diet for a different reason. They claim that if you have too much fruits and vegetables, you’ll have too much water. And water can contain a certain amount of heavy hydrogen called deuterium. So they believe in having deuterium depleted water and a ketogenic diet, so you get less water, so you get less heavy water.
Dr. Vickers: It’s madness. Dr. Weitz, let me repeat. We have been reversing advanced terminal cancer for 100 years with our patients getting 3,500 to 4,000 calories of sugar in the form of juices, which are 90% water. Listen, everyone’s got an opinion. And what do we say about opinions? Everyone’s got one and everyone stinks. They’re like what? Listen, everyone out there has an ego, has an opinion and I guarantee you now these new theories have absolutely no basis in history, no basis. They’re just theories. These people haven’t tested their theories for 100 years. And I can guarantee you Dr. Weitz, they are not getting the results. They’re not. There aren’t 10,000 ways to skin a cat when it comes to healing advanced cancer, there’s not.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. So on the Gerson Therapy, you’re eating mostly fruits and vegetables. And then when they’re cooked, are they allowed to use oils or butter to cook the vegetables in?
Dr. Vickers: If our patients cook with oils, cook with butter cook with gee, they’ll die.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Vickers: They will die.
Dr. Weitz: So how about-
Dr. Vickers: It’s not simple.
Dr. Weitz: … nuts and seeds, [inaudible 00:30:29], eggs.
Dr. Vickers: No.
Dr. Weitz: No?
Dr. Vickers: No. Eggs? No. There’s a Pulitzer Prize winning book called Death Be Not Proud written by John Gunther in 1956. John Gunther is one of the most renowned journalists in American history. His son came down with terminal brain cancer. Dr. Gerson completely cured the tumor within one year. They are instructed once tumors are gone to continue with the Gerson therapy for one year. All right? One year later. So two years total. John Gunther and his family, once the boys’ tumor was gone, they completely went off the Gerson Therapy against Dr. Gerson’s recommendations. Do you know there’s actually a movie too that’s made on it. And Robbie Benson was the star, was one of his first roles as Dr. Gerson’s patient. You can Google it, Death Be Not Proud, 1975 on YouTube. You can actually watch the movie. You can watch the boy’s tumor gone. Well, the tumor comes back. When the tumor comes back because they went off the Gerson Therapy after one year, now the family wants to integrate the medical doctors. What do medical doctors want to do for brain tumors? They want to give artificial steroids. Because for three months, the artificial steroids will reduce the tumor and it makes them look like geniuses. Then the steroids stop working, the cancer comes back with a vengeance and the patients die, across the board. Well, that’s what they did. Gerson was adamant, adamant that they not give the boy artificial steroids. He came to an agreement with them, rather than give the boy artificial steroids, let’s give him egg yolk. He didn’t want to give him egg yolk, because he knew what the ultimate response would be. But he at least came to a compromise rather than giving the artificial steroids, let’s give him egg yolk. Why egg yolk? Well, how does your body make natural anti-inflammatory steroids? Cholesterol. We know the body makes hormones, steroid hormones from cholesterol. So let’s the body do it naturally rather than giving an artificial. They started giving the boy egg yolks. They came to that agreement and he was dead in three months. The egg yolk fed the tumor like mad. Tumors love fat. Tumors are hormonal monsters and they love fat.
Dr. Weitz: Now I’ve talked to other integrative cancer experts who promoted vegan diet-
Dr. Vickers: They’re not experts.
Dr. Weitz: … and they claim that the reason why the vegan diet works is because it restricts certain amino acids like methionine, that feed cancer.
Dr. Vickers: Well, yeah, we know the [inaudible 00:33:13]-
Dr. Weitz: The reason why animal foods can feed cancer, people pick different amino acids. One doctor picks glutamine, other doctors pick methionine. Other doctors pick other amino acids, but they claim that the animal products have higher levels of these amino acids, which feed cancer.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Well, that’s right. We do know the methionine connection, especially with particular cancers now, like prostate cancer, for example. Prostate cancer across the board, meat and fats, meat and fats, meat and fats, dairy, across the board. I mean, you can take that to the bank, prostate cancer. You’re definitely not going to cure prostate cancer on a ketogenic diet, but anyway, look, the ketogenic diet for cancer, it’s a new theory. It’s a new theory and there’s no long term evidence to it’s consistent ability to-
Dr. Weitz: No. No. Right now I’m just talking about the doctors who claim that the vegan diet is good, but specifically because it restricts amino acids.
Dr. Vickers: Absolutely. We know that there are certain amino acids that in high quantities can feed cancers, particularly certain cancers.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, you guys also include flaxseed oil as part of the program.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. So Gerson knew Johanna Budwig and he integrated part of her protocol into his protocol. He found it to be an absolutely vital component to it. And that is flax soil and cottage cheese and yogurt. Non-fat. Non-fat organic yogurt and or non fat cottage cheese, six weeks into the therapy is added on a daily basis. Interesting. Gerson was doing this all the way up until his death in 1959. Ironically. In the ’80s, a doctor by the name of Robert Good out of the University of Minnesota, he did a study and he published the results. And what he published was, when you put someone on a diet, a vegan or vegetarian diet with cancer, for the first six weeks, their immune system goes through the roof. But after six weeks, it starts to come down a little bit and then plateau. Still higher, but it’s plateaued and gone down a little bit. And what Dr. Good found was that when you introduce yogurt into the diet, it kept the immune system functioning at a higher level. Now Gerson knew this 30 years before Robert Good did that study. He must have seen it in his dietary, empirical data. And so he added Budwig that part of her protocol, not the rest of it, into his protocol. It’s a vital component of our Gerson Therapy.
Dr. Weitz: After six weeks you add non-fat yogurt and or cottage cheese?
Dr. Vickers: That’s right. But homemade, you don’t go to the store and buy cottage cheese. Why? Because it’s so high in sodium. Sodium’s the other primary cause of disease because of how it destroys human metabolism. And that includes the good salt, because there is no such thing as good salt. There such thing as better salt, but there’s no such thing as good salt. That is one of the primary rules again on the Gerson Therapy. Absolutely no sodium other than what naturally occurs in fruits and vegetables. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: And a lot of fruits and vegetables have sodium in it.
Dr. Vickers: That’s right. That’s right.
Dr. Weitz: Besides the diet and by the way, if you recommend flax seed oil, why not fish oil? Isn’t it equally polyunsaturated?
Dr. Vickers: That’s a great question. The reason why flax oil comes in a refrigerator, it’s refrigerated, it’s in an opaque bottle, completely opaque. Why? Because light air and heat can break it down, right?
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. It gets oxidized.
Dr. Vickers: That’s right. It’s highly volatile. Why? Because of its unsaturated nature. Well, fish oils, they’re like 10 times more volatile than flax oil. And so these companies who produce fish oil, they’ll tell you how pure and natural air products are publicly, but privately, they lament because you can’t keep fish oil, especially the way they’re processing it. Even cold press putting it into a capsule, whatever, you can’t keep it fresh. It’s rancid. Whenever you take a fish oil and you burp up that fishy taste, that’s already means it’s rancid. Because pure fish oils straight from the fish, it doesn’t have that. It doesn’t have that flavor, it’s rancid at that point. But not to mention that our oceans are completely polluted. I will never eat anything out of our waters today, ever. And so where do contaminants like heavy metals get stored?
Dr. Weitz: We have to pick and choose, the whole world is so toxic, there’s so many toxins. I mean even organic fruits and vegetables, are they using purified water to-
Dr. Vickers: Right. No doubt about it.
Dr. Weitz: … irrigate their plants?
Dr. Vickers: No doubt about it Dr. Weitz, but let’s face it. Our oceans are so polluted today they say, if you eat like four or five fish, you’ve reached your mercury levels for the year.
Dr. Weitz: You’re probably get your plastic levels too.
Dr. Vickers: Well. Exactly. Right. And where do these toxins get stored in the fish, in the fat? Just like in any human being.
Dr. Weitz: Well, a good fish oil is going to be molecularly distilled to take out the mercury.
Dr. Vickers: Potentially. But if it’s being molecularly distilled, what are you doing to the contents of the fat? You see, this is where all our technology and all our science, it’s actually working against us. Fish oil doesn’t work. Gerson tried it he just found the only oil that didn’t cause cancer to grow in his patients was flax soil. He tried, them all
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Dr. Weitz: Besides the diet and the flax seed oil and the coffee enemas, which nutritional supplements do you recommend?
Dr. Vickers: Oh gosh. The on the Gerson Therapy, there’s a myriad. But Dr. Gerson’s primary supplementation to enhance and boost up cellular metabolism was a special potassium compound powder that he came up with after 300 different experiments. Why potassium? Because the only way you can get people’s sodium, that’s stored up in their cells, the only way you can get it out is through potassium. The law in the human body is, if you eat sodium, the body dumps potassium. You eat potassium, the body dumps sodium. It’s sitting there trapped inside of people’s cells with sodium and water. Our cells are so swelled up today with salt and water and it can’t get out. The only way it can get out is if you’re eating fruits and vegetables or supplementing with a potassium supplement. So he has a special potassium compound powder, CoQ10. We have to give CoQ10.
Why? Well, once the mitochondria have converted glucose into nicotinic acid dehydrogenase and ADH, that goes down the electron transport chain to the final production of energy. Well that electron transport chain is completely dependent on coenzyme Q10. Our patients are getting coenzyme Q10 as well. They’re getting niacin. Why? What’s niacin, nicotinic acid. Nicotinic acid dehydrogenase. But the other reason they’re getting niacin is because niacin keeps the arteries and veins in a complete, in a constant state of expansion. Why is that important? Because you need to get all these nutrients, enzymes, everything that we’re giving to our patients, to every corner of the body. So you have to increase the exchange between the bloodstream and the tissue. Gerson gave massive amounts of niacin to keep that in a constant state of expansion, to get these nutrients to every corner of the body.
Dr. Weitz: And so you get that flushing effect?
Dr. Vickers: That’s exactly right. Now, most people would exercise or do saunas in order to achieve that, but you can’t do that on the Gerson Therapy. Why? No exercise on the Gerson Therapy.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, really.
Dr. Vickers: If our patients exercise on the Gerson Therapy, exercise as you and I know exercise to be, they won’t get well. Why?
Dr. Weitz: So is that just for the first number of weeks or that’s for the whole two years?
Dr. Vickers: That is pretty much for at least the first year.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Vickers: Now why? And this is just logical.
Dr. Weitz: But a lot of integrative cancer experts recommend exercise. I’ve seen videos of integrative cancer doctors who are given their patients, their IVs of their chemo while they’re on a treadmill or something.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. And that’s stupid. Look, when people are dying, what do you notice? They’re lethargic. Why are they lethargic? Because they’ve lost the capacity to produce energy on a cellular level. Why is this significant? Because your body requires massive amounts of energy to rally the immune system. It’s that simple. If we’re trying to create energy on a cellular level to heal the human body and you’re going out there and jogging three to five miles or going and biking or playing tennis two hours a day with your buddies out in the hot sun, you’re not going to get well, we see it all the time. We see people-
Dr. Weitz: Isn’t it a good idea to do resistance exercise in particular because we tend to lose muscle and with cancer patients, you can go into that wasting stage where you start losing your muscle, so you can’t be active and maintaining, building muscles, anti cancer in that effect?
Dr. Vickers: Dr. Weitz, how does a horse or cow maintain their muscle mass? They’re not out there pumping, doing resistance exercises.
Dr. Weitz: Well, I don’t know.
Dr. Vickers: How do they maintain-
Dr. Weitz: Try carrying a cow around on your back?
Dr. Vickers: No, no. Do you know, after about six months on the Gerson Therapy, people start to regain all their muscle mass back without exercise. Do you know why? Because it’s not exercise and resistance that maintains muscle mass. It’s actually nutrition. What keeps the tone in the body is a dense nutrient diet. And that’s why cows, horses that graze all day long can maintain that muscle mass. It’s that simple. You don’t need that exercise in order to do that. Yeah, exercise is vital, we encourage our patients, maybe do a 20, 30 minute gentle walk. I’m telling you, you can take this to the bank. You tell a cancer patient, an advanced cancer patient to exercise and start exerting that energy and losing that energy, it won’t go towards healing.
Dr. Weitz: But is-
Dr. Vickers: We’ve seen this-
Dr. Weitz: … an exercise going to stimulate the immune system?
Dr. Vickers: No, the diet and the detoxification is. That’s ultimately what’s going to stimulate the immune system and then breathing oxygen is also going to stimulate the immune system. Going out there, I’m telling you Dr. Weitz, for 120 years, we have known that if patients go out and try to do exerting exercise, they will not heal. I can’t tell you how many people have done that on our regimen and they don’t heal. It happens all the time. I had a lady who didn’t even come to my clinic. Her husband went to another clinic to do the Gerson Therapy and after not… This is a guy who was robust, a tennis player. He had a colon tumor that if he had stuck to the Gerson Therapy perfectly, no ifs, ands or buts about it, he would’ve healed. So she calls me after nine months, they just got their scans back and his tumors hadn’t made a dent with the Gerson Therapy.
The tumor had stayed the same. Maybe gotten a little bit larger. We have to go through and make sure they’re doing everything correctly. She was doing it for him to a team perfectly. And I said to her, there’s something you’re doing that he shouldn’t be doing. And she spills the beans. She said, ‘Well, when we were at the other Gerson clinic, my husband told Dr. Savantis that he wanted to play tennis. He plays tennis with his buddies three times a week, two hours a day in the hot sun. And he just couldn’t give it up. And so he told Dr. Savantis he said, “He just didn’t think he could give it up.” And Dr. Savatis said, “Well, if it means that much to you, then just, I guess, go ahead and do it.”
Now, if he was at my clinic, I said, “Okay, you have a choice, you can play tennis or you can die. Choose your poison, choose your poison.” And so she says to me says, “So ever since we got back home from the clinic, he’s been playing tennis with his buddies two hours a day, three times a week from 10 to noon in the hot sun.” I said, “Well, there you go ma’am, there’s your answer. He didn’t heal, that’s why he didn’t heal.” You know your world class athletes, Dr. Weitz, they have the worst immune systems on the planet. Your world class athletes they have the worst immune systems. That’s why at the end of a season, at the end of their boxing match, at the end of whatever their particular sport is and then they have time to rest.
You know what happens? Their body completely shuts down and they get sick for about a month. That’s standard with your world class athletes, their bodies, they don’t have that time to regenerate from week to week, like an NFL player, so to speak or a traveling tennis player. And then once their season’s over and they have time to rest, their bodies crash because now the body has to start healing. And so you do these, you exert the body if you’re an advanced cancer patient, you’re not going to get well. Especially on the ketogenic diet. Sorry. I had to put that in there.
Dr. Weitz: Do you recommend pancreatic enzymes? That’s something other integrative cancer experts have recommended. And specifically, I’m thinking about Dr. Gonzalez who recommended really high dosages.
Dr. Vickers: Well, who did Dr. Gonzalez learn from? He learned from William Kelly. How was William Kelly cured of his pancreatic cancer? The Gerson Therapy. William Kelly used the Gerson Therapy to cure himself of cancer. And then he went on to do his own thing and tweaked it and called it the Kelly, now the Gonzalez Protocol, whatever. Yes, of course, pancreatic enzymes, high dose pancreatic enzymes, high in alpha chymotrypsin that’s the major one you want to look for. When you’re taking an enzyme complex, you want to make sure it’s high in alpha chymotrypsin.
Why? Because it’s the alpha chymotrypsin that has the capacity to break down cancer cells and tumors. Why? Because of its ability to break down the biofilm that cancer cells can put around themselves to hide from the immune system. Now we give loads of pancreatic enzymes, but the juices as well are very high in enzymes capable of doing that, which is why the Gerson Therapy is so successful. That’s another reason. Yes, pancreatic enzymes should be a standard on any cancer protocol and massive amounts.
Dr. Weitz: What is some of the other treatments you employ besides the diet and the supplements and the coffee enemas.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Great. Thanks. Obviously, what are we trying to do? We’re trying to oxygenate tissues. How do you do that? Well, first and foremost, you have to alkalinize the body to be able to get oxygen in. Once you’ve prepared the body to accept oxygen into the cells, you’ve bombard it with oxygen. Our patients are getting ultraviolet blood irradiation with ozone, they’re getting hyperbaric oxygen. They get hydrogen peroxide into their enemas, 35% food grade, a little bit dropped into their enemas, they’re getting pulse electromagnetic frequency, particularly the Bemer Mat. We know the Bemer Mat now what they’re saying is that it oxygenates tissues 30% greater than a hyperbaric chamber. All of these things we’re doing to enhance the oxygenation after we’ve prepared the body’s ability to accept oxygen into the cell. We’re doing that.
Now, some other things we’re doing at the Gerson Clinic at our Gerson Clinic is, we’ve added pure unadulterated aloe vera, harvested from the Dominican Republic, frozen, sent to us two day ship, arrives to us frozen and we’re putting that in each of our patients juices. Talk about a potent healer of epithelial tissue, particularly the digestive tract, the pure unadulterated aloe vera from the heart of the leave. And it has to be from the heart of the leave because there’s other parts of the leave that are actually toxic, or they act as a laxative. And you don’t want that.
You only want that gelatinous structure in the heart of the leave. And so we’re putting that in our patient’s juices. The other thing we’ve added is raw, living spirulina, it’s alive. It’s like yogurt. There’s a man in Florida named Tim White at rawlivingspirulina.com. He’s revolutionize the production of spirulina and it’s live. You can literally put it under a microscope and see it swimming around up until what he’s been doing, the only way you could get spirulina was in its dry organic form, either encapsulated or powdered.
And let’s face it, it stinks, it doesn’t taste very well. And why? Because it’s dead. When you put it in that form, it’s dead. And it’s still powerful, even in that form but it’s dead because it’s a bacteria and you’ve freeze, dried it or dehydrated it or baked it, whatever. Tim is producing pure, unadulterated spirulina harvested from his pond, harvested from his poly tunnel ponds on a Monday, arrives to us on a Wednesday in cold shipping, we have to use it within two weeks or it loses its power and that’s going into the patient’s green juice. These are things that we’ve integrated with Dr. Gerson’s Foundation.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. I think, it’s about time for me to close. How can patients get a hold of you if they’re interested?
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. Our website is www.gersonclinic.com. Gerson is G-E-R-S-O-N, gersonclinic.com and they can reach me directly at director@gersonclinic.com.
Dr. Weitz: Now we have a lot of practitioners that listen, do you have practitioner training programs?
Dr. Vickers: What I do as a courtesy, any practitioner, whether it’s a medical doctor, a chiropractor, a nurse, I allow them to come down and experience the therapy for free. Learn it for free. I don’t have training seminars where we congregate as a group. I’ve considered it, but I’m just so stretched already that I can’t offer that. I always offer, for a practitioner, a colleague to come down and spend a week and learn how to do the therapy, and experience the therapy themselves.
Dr. Weitz: Great. Thank you, Dr. Vickers.
Dr. Vickers: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Dr. Ben.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please go to Apple Podcast and give us a five star ratings and review. That way more people will be able to find this Rational Wellness Podcast when they’re searching for health podcasts. And I wanted to let everybody know that I do now have a few openings for new nutritional consultations for patients at my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition Clinic. If you’re interested, please call my office (310)-395-3111 and sign up for one of the few remaining slots for a comprehensive, nutritional consultation with Dr. Ben Weitz. Thank you and see you next week.
