The word autolysis is of Greek origin and literally means “self-digestion”.
Autolysisis the property of biological objects to decompose their own structures hydrolytically under the action of enzymes (enzymes) and phagocytes. In order to understand this mechanism more easily, let’s consider it on the examples that exist in nature. The plant kingdom abounds with examples of autolysis, but for our purpose it is sufficient to cite a few. All bulbous plants, of which the common onion is an example, contain within them a new plant surrounded by food sufficient to survive a period of rest during which they take no nourishment from the soil and air. An onion may germinate in a bucket or bag where it is stored. It puts out sprouts, and soon almost the entire bulb turns into green shoots. The bulb itself gradually becomes soft, and finally just a shell remains as the growing plant digests the shoot and uses the bulb’s contents. Beets, turnips, and many other root crops grow in the same way. By autolytic absorption of the contents of the root vegetable the substance for growth is obtained, and even taken out of the ground, these plants produce stems and leaves and grow.
The example of the tadpole is very interesting. Before the tadpole becomes a frog, it grows four legs. After they are fully formed, the frog no longer uses its tail, which served so well in the tadpole stage, and begins to get rid of it, but not by discarding it, as it is usually represented, but by absorbing it. The tail is made up of muscle, fat, nerves, skin, etc. And to absorb these structures, the frog digests them in its digestive tract just like other fats and tissues. With the help of appropriate enzymes, proteins and fats are broken down into amino and fatty acids. Only then are they suitable for reintroduction into the bloodstream. Only as fatty acids and amino acids can they be used again to nourish other structures of the frog’s body. During the entire time the young frog is digesting the tail of the former tadpole, she does not eat. In fact, she stops eating as soon as she develops legs. Starvation may be necessary for the digestion of the tail; at least it hastens the process, for it forces the frog to consume the tail as food with which to nourish the vital organs of the starving frog. The embryonic development of the animal in the egg requires the utilization of the food accumulated there. An egg, large or small, has a living embryo, microscopic in size, which is the only living part of the egg. The rest of the egg consists of the accumulated food material from which the emerging animal builds its organs. This food material is adapted for consumption by the young animal just as it is by the adult. And before it can be used to build tissues, it must be digested, which is accomplished by enzymes produced by the embryo.
A starving salamander with a severed tail grows a new tail. To do this, it uses its food supply to obtain the substances from which the new tail is created. These substances must first be broken down (digested, digested) by autolysis and then used for the growing tail. Here we observe a process somewhat the reverse of that seen in the frog eating its tail. In the one case substances are taken from the body and used to build the tail, while in the other case they are taken from the tail in order to nourish the body. It is well known to any reader how an abscess protrudes on the surface of the body and how it draws outward its poisonous contents. But not all know that its appearance on the surface of the skin is only possible because the flesh between the abscess and the surface is digested by enzymes, i.e., autolyzed and removed. The absorption of periosteal tissue appearing at the edges of a fracture is also made possible by the autolytic decay of this periosteal tissue.Man has generalized reserves, found in the bone marrow, liver, blood, and fatty tissues, and private reserves possessed by each cell. Both can be used by living beings as reserves for their own nutrition, if it is impossible to obtain food from external sources or because of the inability (in disease, for example) to assimilate them. Glycogen stored in the liver must be converted into simple sugar before it enters the bloodstream. This conversion is accomplished by enzymes. Many examples of autolysis could be given. But these are sufficient to show that it is a common phenomenon of daily life. Now it remains to say that the body controls this process like all other life processes, that autolysis is not a blind, uncontrolled action, like the behavior of an elephant in a china shop. A remarkable example of this control is the softening and self-absorption of the supporting bone ring around the fracture site. Only part of the bone ring disappears, the rest is retained to reinforce the weakened structure.
The cases of starvation give many examples of the control exercised by the organism over the processes of autolysis. For example, tissues disappear according to their degree of usefulness – first fats and pathological growths, and then other tissues. In all living beings, from the worm to man, during the period of starvation, the various organs and tissues vary greatly in their ability to reduce their weight. The liver usually loses more weight than other parts of the body, especially in the initial period, due to the loss of glycogen and fat. The lungs lose almost nothing; even less is lost by the brain and nervous system. Vital organs are nourished at the expense of accumulated reserves and less important tissues so that abstinence from food can do harm only after the reserves of the body have been used up. The body has the power of moving its chemical elements, of which starvation furnishes many remarkable examples. The assimilation and reorganization of the parts of the organism, observed in living beings when deprived of food, the digestion and redistribution of reserves, surplus and secondary tissues, observed in all animals during their enforced starvation, represent, in the author’s opinion, some of the most marvellous phenomena in biology. The organism is not only capable of building tissue, it is also capable of destroying it. It can not only distribute its nutrient reserves, but it can also redistribute them; autolysis is precisely what makes redistribution possible.
The process ofautolysiscan be turned to great practical advantage and made to serve us in getting rid of tumors and other growths in the body. It is always first of all those substances which are of the least value for economy that are seized and removed, so that all pathological growths –ovarian cysts, fattytumors, benign tumors, adenoma of the prostate, abscesses – are rapidly reduced and often entirely disappear as a result of strict and prolonged abstinence from food and fasting.” To understand this fully, it is necessary to know that tumors may consist of tissue, blood, and bone. There are many names for different kinds of tumors, but the name itself indicates the kind of tissue of which the tumor is composed. For example, osteoma is made up of bone tissue,myomais made up of muscle tissue, neurinoma is made up of nerve tissue, lipoma is made up of fatty tissue, etc. Since tumors are composed of tissue like other body structures, they undergo autolytic disintegration, the same as normal tissue, under a variety of circumstances, but especially during fasting. We are able to understand how starvation causes a reduction of body fat, how it reduces the size of muscles, will also be able to understand how it leads to a reduction in the size of a tumor or induces it to disappear altogether. He only needs to understand that the process of disintegration (autolysis) of tumors is much faster than that of normal tissues.
In his “Notes on Tumors,” a work for students of physiology, Dr. F. C. Wood wrote: “Spontaneous disappearance for more or less long periods of time has been noted in a very small proportion of malignant tumors in man. The greatest number of cases of such disappearance have occurred after partial surgical removal of the tumor. They have occurred most frequently during acute febrile process and less frequently in connection with certain profound metabolic changes like exceptional cachexia (general emaciation), artificial menopause, and others.” But there can be no more profound change in metabolism than that induced by starvation, and this change is of a character best given to induce autolysis of tumor, malignant and otherwise. The conditions noted by Dr. Wood as causing the spontaneous disappearance of tumors are, in most cases, of the nature of accidents, and are beyond arbitrary control. Starvation, on the contrary, may be performed and carried out under control and at any time desired. And operations are usually followed by still greater growth of the tumor. Spontaneous disappearance of a tumor after its partial removal is a rare case. The same can be said of artificial menopause.
Withfeverwe often see rapid autolysis in many tissues of the body and its great healing work. But we cannot induce fever at will. Pregnancy and childbirth cause many profound changes in the body, but it certainly cannot be recommended to sick women as a means of healing a tumor. Even if it were desirable, it would be an “eye-opening” remedy. And the results of fasting are definite. There is nothing “by eye” about it. It always acts in one direction. The fever is a healing process and does help to remove the cause of the tumor. But none of Dr. Wood’s other cases of spontaneous disappearance of tumors help to remove the cause. And fasting is very helpful in removing the cause. Many people who have practiced fasting have gotten rid of tumors by autolysis.
Herbert Shelton, a physician with a very extensive practice of fasting, writes about it: “Let me cite two exceptional cases to show the wide range of this process. A woman in her early forties was found to have a fibroma in her urinary tract the size of a medium-sized grapefruit. The fibroma disappeared completely in 28 days of complete abstinence from food (drinking only). This was an unusually rapid disappearance of the tumor. Another woman had a similar mass the size of a goose egg. A single fast for 21 days reduced the size of the tumor to the size of a walnut. The fasting was interrupted due to the appearance of hunger. To complete the complete disappearance of the tumor, a second fast – lasting 17 days – was required a few weeks after the first fast. But this was an unusually slow process.
Tumor-like masses of the breast (mastopathy) in women, varying in size from a pea to a goose egg, disappear during fasting from three days to several weeks. The following remarkable example of this kind, which will prove both interesting and instructive: a young woman of 21 years of age had a hard mass on her right breast, a little smaller than a billiard ball. For four months it caused severe pain. Finally she went to a doctor, who discovered cancer and advised immediate surgery. No matter which doctors she went to afterward, she received the same diagnosis and advice everywhere. But not wanting an operation, the woman resorted to fasting without eating anything, and exactly three days later the cancer and all its accompanying pains disappeared. And in thirty years she has not had a recurrence, I believe we have a right to consider this a cure.
Hundreds of such cases during fasting have convinced me that many of the “tumors” and “cancers” removed by surgeons are not tumors or cancers at all. They make us very skeptical of published statistics supposedly proving that early surgery prevents or cures cancer.
Tumor removal by autolysis has several advantages over surgical removal of the tumor.
Surgery is always dangerous, and the process of autolysis while undergoing dry fasting is a physiological process and carries no danger. Surgery suppresses the vital forces and thereby increases the perversion of metabolism which underlies the tumor. Starvation, by which autolysis is enhanced, normalizes nutrition and promotes the removal of accumulated toxins, thereby helping to eliminate the cause of the tumor. After surgery, tumors tend to recur. And once the tumor disappears as a result of autolysis, the possibility of recurrence is small. Tumors after surgery often reappear in a malignant form.
The tendency to degenerate into a malignant tumor is eliminated by fasting.
The author has no definite information on bone and nerve tumors. But since they too are subject to the same laws as other tumors, he is inclined to believe that they can undergo autolysis as effectively as other tumors. Of course, the process of autolysis has its limits, and if the tumor has managed to grow to a considerable size, it will only shrink in size and not all the cells will thus be absorbed. It is advisable, therefore, to go through the necessary fasting or starvation while the tumor or cyst is relatively small. Another limitation should be noted: tumors that block lymphatic ducts will continue to grow despite starvation (due to the excess lymph accumulated by these tumors).
In cases where complete tumor uptake is not achieved, the tumor is significantly reduced to a size that is not dangerous. And in the future, proper lifestyle will prevent new growth. I have seen a number of cases in which the subsequent reduction of tumor size was due to a proper way of life after fasting.
