The Oldest Cure in the World
Adventures in the Art and Science of Fasting
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“An illuminating exploration of the rich and varied history—and myriad health benefits—of fasting.” —Wall Street Journal
When should we eat, and when shouldn’t we? The answers to these simple questions are not what you might expect. As Steve Hendricks shows in The Oldest Cure in the World, stop eating long enough, and you’ll set in motion cellular repairs that can slow aging and prevent and reverse diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Fasting has improved the lives of people with epilepsy, asthma, and arthritis, and has even protected patients from the worst of chemotherapy’s side effects.
But for such an elegant and effective treatment, fasting has had a surprisingly long and fraught history. From the earliest days of humanity and the Greek fathers of medicine through Christianity’s “fasting saints” and a 19th-century doctor whose stupendous 40-day fast on a New York City stage inaugurated the modern era of therapeutic fasting, Hendricks takes readers on a rich and comprehensive tour.
Threaded throughout are Hendricks’s own adventures in fasting, including a stay at a luxurious fasting clinic in Germany and in a more spartan one closer to home in Northern California. This is a playful, insightful, and persuasive exploration of our bodies and when we should—and should not—feed them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fasting, long regarded as being "on the wrong side of respectability," deserves serious consideration as a medical treatment, argues journalist Hendricks (The Unquiet Grave) in this thought-provoking survey. Hendricks writes that the practice has been shown to help with illnesses as varied as asthma, psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome, and migraines. But it's "simply too counterintuitive to think not eating could make you healthier," and the medical community has yet to embrace it. That's a mistake, Hendricks insists: it's cheaper than drugs and has fewer side effects, and he touts it as an "astoundingly and variously useful" method that's been hiding in plain sight for millennia. The author weaves a fascinating personal narrative (fasting helped his idiopathic hypersomnia) with a comprehensive history of the practice, from prehistoric humans who fasted from necessity up to modern-day clinics that use it. While enthusiastic, Hendricks is careful not to oversell fasting's benefits (there's much it "cannot do, no matter how many incautious boosters say otherwise"), and he pulls no punches when highlighting flaws in research, as with studies that emphasize "profit rather than health." His levelheaded, irreverent approach and sharp reporting set the book apart. The result is a winning mix of captivating storytelling and fascinating science.
