Chapter 6
Healing Miracles With Wheatgrass

In the future man will use the sunshine element of plants to regenerate and heal the human body. - George Crile, M.D.

Around the 1940s the use of chlorophyll in medicines, toothpastes, and breath fresheners came in vogue. Leading newspapers and magazines, including Readers Digest, ran articles on the promise of chlorophyll in medicine and personal hygiene. In July of 1940, a comprehensive report written by Dr. Benjamine Gurskin, director of experimental pathology at Temple University, was published in the American Journal of Surgery. For the first time, chlorophyll was singled out as an effective and important drug. The paper was prepared by Dr. Gurskin and two colleagues, Drs. Redpath and Davis, both ear, nose, and throat specialists. Some 1,200 cases of patients treated with chlorophyll were mentioned. The complaints ranged from deep internal infections and ulcers to skin and gum problems. Dr. Gurskin commented on his associates' experience with chlorophyll: "It is interesting to note there is not a single case recorded in which improvement or cure has not taken place."

Since then, other researchers have also had success in treating a variety of disorders with chlorophyll extracts. In a study of twenty patients with colon problems, including ulcerative colitis (the problem I suffered with for a time), of chlorophyll were employed as a retention enema once a day. Patients were instructed to retain the juice for up to five hours. Doctors H.A. Rafsky and C.I. Krieger reported improvement in a majority of cases, with no side effects or irritation in any of them.

Dr. Carroll Wright, professor of dermatology at Temple University in Philadelphia, employed a chlorophyll ointment in combating several types of skin diseases. He found it to be especially useful in the treatment of chronic skin ulcers and impetigo.

Dr. W.S. Morgan, also working in Philadelphia, reported using chlorophyll to treat forty patients with eleven different types of skin problems. One of the first things the patients noticed was that chlorophyll relieved itching and burning on the skin almost immediately. A number of weeks after the study began, all but six of the original forty patients were cured—some of them freed from chronic problems they had suffered with for years.

Homer Judkin, D.D.S., of the Paris Hospital in Paris, Illinois, sent shock waves through the dental community when he announced his success in controlling Vincent's angina (trench mouth) and advanced cases of pyorrhea through the injection of chlorophyll into the gums. Discussing the recovery of a group of his patients, Dr. Judkin remarked, "In less than thirty days the gums tightened up entirely, and have remained clean ever since."

But despite all the interest in chlorophyll and its successes in clinical trials during the 1940s, there seemed to be little room for its highly unstable nature in the commercial evolution of modern medicine. Though a few companies did synthesize chlorophyll, the results of its use were inconsistent.

As it turns out, "crude" or raw chlorophyll is difficult to work with and even more difficult to store. In a matter of hours after its extraction and exposure to light and air, it loses its biochemical activity and green hue. Scientists soon learned how to obtain a synthetic chlorophyll, called chlorophyllin, by decomposing natural chlorophyll and binding it with a copper ion.

Chlorophyllin kept its color, and was stable enough to store indefinitely. The only trouble was that it didn't work like the real thing. In fact, the impostor gave rise to side effects like anemia and nausea. It was abandoned for medical purposes but remains on the market as an ingredient in deodorants and as a synthetic colorant.

Slowly, chlorophyll, especially wheatgrass chlorophyll, is coming back into the medical spotlight. I have made it my life's work to bring the simple truth of grasses and other healing live foods to those in need. Along the way I have been witness to thousands of people who have improved their health and their lives. I have also collected much data regarding the particular problems that chlorophyll and wheatgrass juice can help.

Now let us turn to a brief discussion of the uses of wheat- grass in some serious but common disorders. In Chapter 8, I will present more details on the internal and external applications of wheatgrass juice.

WHEATGRASS AND OVERCOMING CANCER

For many years I have taken a great interest in the problem of cancer. My reasoning has been that if wheatgrass and live foods can help the most feared and uncontrollable medical problem, cancer, no questions should remain about its ability to heal, nourish, and balance the body. With twenty years of teaching cancer patients behind me, I know that—contrary to popular belief—all types of cancer can be overcome. However, my own opinion is that we will never find a "cure" for this dreaded problem because it can't be cured. The body of the cancer patient must heal itself in the very same way any body rebounds from a cut, bruise, or common cold. Although there are drugs which seem to help by destroying this or that cancer cell, all they can do is help. The body must replace the lost cells with new cancer-free ones.

Once you understand the logic of self-healing and self- cleansing it is easy to understand how the body can reverse even a serious problem like cancer. All that is needed is sufficient will to live and fight the disease, and enough life energy in the body—a strong enough immune system. How do you build up the immune system to overcome or prevent cancer? First, by eliminating the things that reduce your immunity: stress at home or at work, and processed and cooked foods. Once you have taken some of the pressure off your immune system in this way, you must learn how to rebuild it. Thus, your second task is to cleanse the toxic residues of stress and bad food choice from your system with a cleansing live food diet and wheatgrass.

Live foods and wheatgrass juice will begin the process of cleansing and rebuilding the immune system as long as you stay clear of the stresses and foods that create a high risk of cancer in the first place. If you do not avoid stresses, you are like a person with a broken leg who continues to walk on the leg without a cast and crutches. You won't heal regardless of how calm you are or how well you eat. Until you get off the leg and rest it nothing will help. Similarly, if you don't take a vacation (I recommend a permanent one) from the foods that congest and clog your body, your chances of recovery will be that much poorer.

While wheatgrass juice helps to build immunity, its beneficial effects range much further. Preliminary studies have identified a number of substances in wheatgrass juice that are formidable anti-cancer agents. One of these is called abscisic acid. I first learned of abscisic acid from Eydie Mae Hunsberger, a former Hippocrates guest who used the Hippocrates Diet and wheatgrass juice to heal herself of malignant breast cancer. As she relates in How I Conquered Cancer Naturally, her doctor took an interest in her case and researched many past studies to find the active ingredient in wheatgrass that helped make her well.

What he discovered was abscisic acid, a plant hormone known to prevent seeds from germinating until environmental conditions are just right. In tests on laboratory animals, he found that even small amounts of abscisic acid proved to be "deadly against any form of cancer." Tumors disappeared quickly in animals given injections of abscisic acid. Eydie Mae did mention, however, that research with abscisic acid is in its infant stages and it is still too early to tell whether it will become a "cure." But as she says, "Poor eating habits cause more diseases than cancer. We may be able to reverse cancer with abscisic acid pills, but then die from a heart attack or something else." Only sound preventive nutrition and a healthful lifestyle can save us from all illness. Eydie Mae's decision to switch from the "condemned person's diet" to wheatgrass and other live foods on the Hippocrates Diet certainly paid off for her—within one year after she was given up by the medical establishment, the cancer was in remission—and it remained that way.

Another possible anti-cancer property of wheatgrass juice, first brought to my attention in a lecture given by the well- known biochemist and researcher, Dr. Ernst Krebs, Jr., is Vitamin B17 (laetrile). In his research, Dr. Krebs extracted laetrile from apricot pits, but it is also found in whole foods and especially wheatgrass. This vitamin has shown the ability to selectively destroy cancer cells, while leaving non-cancerous ones alone. While laetrile as a cancer treatment is still hotly debated in this country, the facts speak for themselves: the modern American diet contains about four hundred times less Vitamin B17 than the diet of the natives in countries where the incidence of cancer is extremely low.

At the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine, Dr. Arthur Robinson studied the various effects of live foods, wheatgrass, and synthetic Vitamin C on cancer in laboratory mice. Skin cancer was induced in the mice through exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The control group received the standard laboratory chow diet. Two other groups of mice were given the chow diet and different dosages of Vitamin C. Another two groups of mice received a raw foods diet restricted to apples, pears, carrots, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, bananas, and wheatgrass. One of these groups was also given one hundred grams of Vitamin C.

In a March, 1984 article entitled "Living Foods and Cancer," Dr. Robinson summarized the findings of his research as follows: "The results were spectacular. Living foods [including wheatgrass] alone decreased the incidence and severity of cancer lesions by about 75 percent. This result was better than that of any nutritional program that was tried. It was possible to duplicate this cancer suppression with ascorbic acid [Vitamin C] only by giving doses so high as to be nearly lethal for the mice and far beyond any rational range of human consumption. In fact, ascorbic acid in the amounts usually recommended for colds and cancer doubled, increased by 100 percent, the incidence and severity of the cancer."

In my own opinion, if the group of mice receiving only wheatgrass and raw foods had been given sprouts rather than fruits and vegetables, the decrease in cancer would have been even more dramatic.

The severity of cancerous lesions in Robinson's mice was caused to vary greatly by nutritional means alone. I believe that this indicates that cancer research of the future must look to diet for the answers.

The cancer-nutrition connection is becoming more evident to researchers and physicians. Recently, the prestigious National Cancer Institute commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to study the relationship between diet and cancer. The study pointed out many carcinogenic foods and their link to cancer. You may already be aware of some of them—processed items such as luncheon meats, smoked meats, high-fat cheeses, and refined oils. The study also found that some vegetables, especially green and yellow varieties, seem to have anti-cancer properties. Nevertheless, many of the foods singled out by the National Academy of Science, including carrots, squashes, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and leafy greens, are less potent in overall nutrition than wheatgrass—and none of them contain active enzymes when they are eaten cooked.

OXYGEN INTAKE AND CANCER

One very interesting theory offered on the problem of cancer has come from Nobel prize winner Otto Warburg, M.D., who showed that cancer cells thrived in an oxygen-poor environment. He viewed cancer not as a virus, but as a process of cell mutation caused by oxygen deprivation on the cellular level. Warburg arrived at his discovery more than fifty years ago, yet his theory still stands uncontradicted, while dozens of others are discredited every year.

We now know that things like smoking, high protein intake, air pollution, poor breathing and lack of exercise, and years of high fat consumption can starve the body of up to 25 percent of its available oxygen. According to Warburg's theory, it's no wonder that Americans suffer from one of the highest cancer rates in the world—our lifestyle, food, and environment all tend to reduce the flow of oxygen to our cells. Fresh juices, deep breathing, and wheatgrass all bring oxygen into the body, stimulating better circulation of the blood and increasing the body's oxygen carrying capacity. They also create an increase in the number of red blood cells.

We may not know the exact mechanism that helps wheat- grass juice destroy cancer cells, but we do know that in the few short years since scientists have began to look into the nutrition-cancer link they have already come up with a number of possibilities.

CAN WHEATGRASS END THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE?

Most people don't want to get fat, but few regard obesity with the panic and fear that accompany the thought of cancer. Yet there is little doubt that obesity is the biggest health problem people of western nations face today. Not because of the mental anguish fat people must face, but because being fat is not healthy. The truth of this statement is easily understood when you consider the numerous problems, including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, and cancer, which increase in both incidence and severity in people who are overweight.

Whereas excess weight used to be looked upon as a symbol of the leisure class, today it affects all sectors and age groups of our society. It does its damage quietly. At present there are more than fifty million obese people in America alone, and the problem seems to be getting worse rather than better.

Most people put on weight slowly as their metabolism fails to use or eliminate the excess nutrients they consume. The best way I know of to turn this process around is to increase the metabolic rate by becoming more physically active, by eating foods that stimulate better circulation, and by avoiding all processed foods, including sugar, red meats, dairy products, poultry, oils, and fish. Of course, using wheatgrass juice will also help, but it won't make you slim all by itself.

One of the most satisfying discoveries I have made since beginning my work in nutrition is the dramatic weight loss obtainable while using wheatgrass and following the Hippo crates Diet. The Hippocrates Diet consists of vegetables, fresh fruits, sprouts, baby greens, sea vegetables, and sprouted seeds, nuts, and grains, all eaten raw, and prepared in tasty combinations.

Since this book is about wheatgrass, though, and since I have talked about the diet for weight loss in The Hippocrates Diet and Health Program, I will focus this discussion on the ways in which wheatgrass is instrumental in problems of weight control.

Wheatgrass helps dieters by speeding up blood circulation and metabolic rate, and by enhancing digestive powers, thereby melting the excess fat in the body. If you take a moment to consider the many roles played by enzymes, you will realize that if you lose one pound (or gain another one) it will be because of the activity (or lack of it) of the enzymes in your food and body. In his book Enzyme Nutrition, enzymologist Edward Howell, M.D., mentions that measurements of the enzyme content of body fat in people weighing three hundred pounds or more revealed a deficiency of fat-splitting enzymes. Even if you are not a "heavyweight," chances are that if you want to reduce, the enzymes in wheatgrass juice and raw foods can help you.

The effectiveness of live foods and fresh juices, especially wheatgrass juice, has bankrupted many complex theories about why we become fat and how to reduce quickly. At the Hippocrates Health Institute, I have never stressed weight loss because it is as natural to wheatgrass and the living foods diet as swimming is to a duck. Nevertheless, among our guests at the Institute, the average weight loss per week is between four and fifteen pounds. I am convinced that the rich supply of enzymes in wheatgrass and live foods is the deciding factor.

At one time, obese patients were given thyroid hormones to stimulate weight loss. However, in the long run these drugs actually weaken the thyroid. If you follow my instructions for growing your own wheatgrass in soil enriched with sea kelp (see Chapter 7), and drink the juice, you will be adding an excellent source of iodine to your diet. This will have a tonic effect on the thyroid gland, and can be a tremendous aid in losing weight safely.

Common sense alone will tell you that if you eat only low- calorie, clean, and lean food you are bound to lose plenty of weight safely and quickly. In addition, the abundance of bulk in the living foods diet clears out the channels of elimination so that they operate more efficiently. The liquid content of the diet cleanses the kidneys and blood, replacing stale body fluids with naturally distilled water from vegetables, sprouts, and fruits.

Of course you don't have to change your diet completely to lose weight using wheatgrass. You can achieve a gradual weight reduction merely by taking wheatgrass juice on a regular basis while emphasizing foods that are fresh and light. The myth that bananas, avocados, and other fruits and vegetables are fattening is not based on fact. It is not these foods themselves that cause you to put on weight, but rather the way in which they are prepared (cooked and canned fruit differ from raw, fresh fruit) and what they are served with (for example— bananas with ice cream). Even foods which are not generally considered fattening, such as strawberries, can lead to weight gain if they are consumed with other food products, such as shortcake and whipped cream.

FILLING UP BUT NOT OUT

If your problem isn't overweight, but underweight, I know of no better remedy than wheatgrass juice. Many overly thin people have overactive metabolisms that don't allow them to properly assimilate the nutrients in the foods they eat. In many cases what is needed is digestive stimulation (enzymes) and relaxation.
I have seen underweight people gain two or more pounds per week after adopting the Hippocrates Diet and using wheat- grass juice. Wheatgrass will help you if you need to gain weight by clearing any accumulations of mucus from the intestinal tract, allowing more food to be absorbed, and by relaxing the nervous system. In both animal experiments and my own observations at the Institute, the addition of small quantities of wheatgrass juice to the diet stimulates balanced body weight and improved blood quality. Whether you want to shed pounds or add them, the Hippocrates Diet will fill you up—but it won't fill you out unless you need and want it to.

Perhaps the most important reason to use wheatgrass during any weight control program is its ability to fill nutritional deficiencies. As we discussed in the previous chapter, wheat- grass is a complete food, containing all the known nutrients (and probably some we don't yet know about). Using it on a daily basis while trying to reshape your body is like taking out an insurance policy against any possible deficiency that could arise. In the next two chapters I will discuss the growing methods and practical uses of wheatgrass in more detail. But before I do so I would like to talk briefly about one more use of wheatgrass as a protective measure. It can help us cope with our increasingly polluted world.

ARE YOU PROTECTED FROM THE HAZARDS OF MODERN LIVING?

Even if you can easily avoid meats, fats, and sugar in the diet, there are other menaces to health that have been created during the past one hundred years. Here I refer mainly to pollution of our air, water, and soil; radiation poisoning from nuclear waste; television and radio waves; and emissions generated by electric and electronic appliances. Can you protect yourself from these?

As I mentioned in Chapter 3, I believe there is a way we can protect ourselves from all of these health risks—and within the past few years an increasing number of scientists and researchers have begun to agree with me. One solution, of course, is to turn to wholesome live foods and sprouts, and to use wheatgrass juice daily.

We have already discussed wheatgrass's ability to destroy harmful germs and microbes, its effectiveness as an antioxidant in preserving cells, and as a stimulant in the transport of oxygen to the cells. Pollution of all types, including lead from exhaust, sulfur oxides in industrial waste, and various gasses, tends to accumulate in the body. As an antioxidant. wheatgrass can minimize the damage that these corrosive and irritating substances have on the body, both directly and indirectly.

A few years ago I was concerned about the chemical sodium fluoride, which is commonly used as a rat poison, and was being put in our water. I asked Dr. G.H. Earp Thomas of the Bloomfield Laboratories in High Bridge, New Jersey, to do an experiment for me. He placed a small amount of wheat- grass juice in a jar of regular tap water and then tested for fluoride and other chemicals present in the water. Both of us were surprised by the results. He concluded, "Fluorine rapidly combines with calcium phosphate and other kinetic elements to lose its toxic properties, and harden teeth and bones. That is why fresh grass would act as a catalyst to speedily change the acid fluorine into a beneficial component with a positive reaction. By using wheatgrass, which is comparatively rich in calcium phosphate, it would remove any free fluoric acid and change its negative charge to an alkaline calcium phosphate fluoride combination with a positive reaction." I was amazed. Not only did wheatgrass neutralize the toxic effect of fluorine—but it converted it into an ally in maintaining healthy bones and teeth! I don't recommend that you drink tap water, though; pure spring or filtered water tastes better and is much better for you. But if you cannot obtain spring or filtered water, pour a little wheatgrass juice into regular tap water, and it will make it more healthful.

The best form of protection you can have against pollution is a stronger, healthier body. Indirectly, wheatgrass protects you from pollutants by strengthening your own body's defenses against them.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if nature has programmed into the human body the ability to adapt to everything that human ingenuity can devise. Whereas we have shown a reasonable adaptation to smog and other pollution (though at an unreasonable cost in terms of poorer health) there are some things to which we seem especially vulnerable. One of these is poisoning by radiation.

For many years scientists have known that radiation from X-rays in large enough dosages can cause cancer and even death. The destructive effect of radiation is at once a boon and a thorn to the modern medical treatment of cancer. It is a boon because it destroys cancer cells, and a thorn because it also kills healthy cells and may stimulate future cancer growth. In fact, radiation is one of the many methods used to induce cancer in experimental animals.
Nuclear radiation is even more dangerous. As we are all aware, should it leak into the atmosphere slowly, or be released suddenly in an explosion, the effects on the human body would be deadly.

But even the smaller doses of radiation given off by a television set can cause illness and cancer. For this reason, Congress put into law the Radiation Control Act of 1968— which protects us from our own inventions. But this legislation only limits the amount of radiation given off by sets, it does not eliminate it. Appliances, fluorescent tube lighting, and other modern conveniences can also disrupt health by altering the electromagnetic field surrounding the body. Apart from relying on federal guidelines and industry standards, consumers really do not have a practical means of monitoring radiation levels in the home.

Knowing the threat radiation is to human health and life, scientists have been busy trying to find an antidote for it. At this very moment research is being proposed to test the protective power of wheatgrass chlorophyll against radiation. The recent interest is a result of some studies performed in the 1950s and '60s by various investigators. In one project, sponsored by the United States Army, Harry Spector, Doris Calloway, and others fed several groups of guinea pigs a standard chow diet, and then exposed them to lethal doses of radiation. All of the animals died within fifteen days. The investigators then tried introducing different foods into the diet before exposing animals to the same levels of radiation. Beets did not make any difference, but cabbage and broccoli kept more than half the animals alive longer than fifteen days. The best results were obtained by feeding the guinea pigs cabbage and broccoli before and after radiation exposure. Autopsies of the vegetable-fed animals revealed larger, healthier livers, with greater stores of Vitamin A and minimal fatty degeneration.

They also showed superior gonadal development, indicating that green vegetables can protect reproductive functions. In addition, characteristic symptoms of radiation poisoning, including malnutrition and weight loss, were delayed and reduced in severity when they did appear. J.F. Duplan, a reseacher at the Academy of Sciences in Paris, France, also found that cabbage minimized weight loss and reduced the mortality rate in X-radiated animals.

Although wheatgrass wasn't used in these tests, there is good reason to believe that it would have outperformed cabbage and broccoli as protection against radiation. One reason for this is that the positive liver and gonadal changes seen after an animal's diet is supplemented with broccoli or cabbage are, according to Dr. Schnabel, even more dramatic following supplementation with wheatgrass.

Chapter 7 - How To Grow and Juice Wheatgrass

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