TrueNorth reflection

By Jamie Oskin, ND

A 52-year-old female began treatment one week ago with a blood pressure of 184/96mmHg, the aid of two medications, a beta-blocker, and an ACE-Inhibitor. What kind of natural treatment do you think could lower her blood pressure down to 126/90mmHg in only one week? An herb? An amino acid? A nutrient? A combo product? Would you believe doing nothing could have the most profound effect on someone’s health? This is one of many cases of hypertension I saw reverse while completing an internship at the TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, California.

The TrueNorth Health Center is a beautiful in-patient, doctor supervised, water-only fasting facility that has been directed by Alan Goldhamer, DC since 1984. Patients come here from all over the world to engage in restoring their health through water-only fasting. This August, I had the opportunity to spend two weeks interning at the TrueNorth Center and learned firsthand about water-only fasting with patients of a wide variety of chronic health concerns ranging from cardiovascular disease to auto-immune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.

At TrueNorth, the patients live on-site in apartment style homes during their treatment. They all share in the experience with a sense of community and have access to 100% organic, whole-food vegan, low fat (no added oil), and low salt cooking before their fasts as well as for reentry eating after the fasts. During the day, the patients have the opportunity to watch videos on nutritional topics as well as attend daily lectures by the doctors on staff. The lecture topics include discussions on nutrition, recent research in natural medicine, exercise, as well as the psychology of our relationship with food. Twice a week the patients are able to attend cooking lectures to learn how to make tasty low-fat, low-salt, vegan recipes so that they can continue their newly learned health promoting lifestyle after they return home.

Dr. Goldhamer is a natural hygienist. Natural hygiene is a medical movement employing diet and lifestyle modifications to restore health that began in the 1830’s and had a significant influence on the early development of naturopathic principles at the turn of the twentieth century. The hygiene movement and water-only fasting was revived in the early twentieth century by Herbert Shelton. In the 1920’s Shelton published the books Fundamentals of Nature Cure and An Introduction to Natural Hygiene. Since 1984, Dr. Goldhamer has supervised over 7,000 patients who have safely and effectively completed water-only fasts and he has co-authored a book, The Pleasure Trap, as well as published two of the most profound research articles in the medical literature for reversing hypertension.

Humans have the capability to survive for extended periods of fasting, which has helped the species endure through periods of famine during the hunter-gatherer days. Unfortunately, we now live in a modern world full of excesses of processed refined foods and animal products that were not readily available during the days of the hunter-gatherers. In other words, our human genes have not changed in ten thousand years, but our environment and diet has changed considerably. As a result, the current leading causes of death in industrialized nations like the United States are diseases of lifestyle excesses including heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. The diet and lifestyle modifications advocated at the TrueNorth Health Center are at the root of treating the cause of many chronic diseases of lifestyle.

Fasting is a period of deep rest; including time for the body to self heal in a variety of physiological mechanisms. Water-only fasting has a strong naturetic effect, allowing the body to eliminate excess sodium and water, reducing increased edema and blood volume associated with high blood pressure. Weight loss is a predictable consequence of fasting and occurs at approximately a loss of a pound per day. Fasting has a marked effect on improving insulin resistance. It helps the taste sensors neuroadapt to a low salt diet, which can help facilitate the adoption of a health-promoting diet after the fast is completed. Detoxification of endogenous (e.g. cholesterol and uric acid) and exogenous substances (e.g. dioxin, PCB’s) occurs naturally while the liver has time to rest from digestion and devote its time fully to detoxification. One of the best modern books on fasting is Fasting and Eating for Health by Joel Fuhrman, MD. Oh and by the way, Dr. Fuhrman was trained in water-only fasting by Dr. Goldhamer at the TrueNorth Health Center.

Hypertension (high blood pressure) is the leading contributing cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized societies and is the leading reason for visits to doctors for prescription medications. It is diagnosed with a patient’s blood pressure is greater than 140/90 mmHg. A person with a blood pressure of 140/90mmHg is five times more likely to die from a heart attack or stroke than an individual who has a systolic blood pressure of 110mmHg.

The doctors at TrueNorth Health Center teamed up with research colleagues at Cornell University, including T. Colin Campbell, PhD (author of the China Study) to publish a study “Medically Supervised Water-Only Fasting in the Treatment of Hypertension” in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in 2001. The study involved 174 hypertensive patients, all of whom were admitted to the center for water-only fasting. The results of the study were dramatic. Every patient experienced blood pressure reductions enough to eliminate the need for medications and over ninety percent of the patients achieved normal blood pressure. The patients with the highest blood pressure (Stage III Hypertension where systolic pressures are greater than 180mmHg) had the greatest reduction in their blood pressure over 60 points. These results are the largest effect size ever shown in the medical literature for lowering blood pressure, and they are estimated to be five times the effect expected of medication alone.

As a result of the attention TrueNorth received for publishing their first hypertension study, in 2001 the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) included the center’s water-only fasting as a fully covered medical benefit for all union members and spouses who have high blood pressure or diabetes. Based on data from the first group of subjects with one-year follow-ups, the average cost reduction for fasting patients compared to medical care patients saves over two thousand dollars per person per year in medication and related health care expenses. This is a dramatic cost savings for big unions like the IUOE due to the patients’ significant increase in overall health. This old-school nature cure treatment appears to have more dramatic health effects and cost savings than the most advanced modern medications to treat hypertension.

The TrueNorth Health Center is looking to offer internships to naturopathic medical students and residents that can serve as offsite training to learn about water-only fasting. Interns receive free room and board while living on-site at the facility. Additionally, TrueNorth is interested in hiring a naturopathic doctor as an on-site staff clinician who has the opportunity to earn a salary plus a percentage of patient visits as well as free room and board for at least a one-year contract. They will have responsibilities to the in-patients at the facility and will also have the opportunity to build a naturopathic private practice at the TrueNorth Health Center as well. Learn more about the TrueNorth Health Center at www.healthpromoting.com. After my experience learning firsthand about water-only fasting, I highly recommend naturopathic students and residents to take the opportunity to do an internship at the TrueNorth Health Center. This is a chance to work directly with in-patient care and experience wonderful clinical results from a fundamental nature cure therapy.