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Calgary Herald, May 29th, 1998

Cleaning out toxins from our Bodies very popular in Calgary. For increasing numbers of Calgarians, spring cleaning is more than rounding up the dust bunnies and cobwebs around the house and wrangling them out the door. It also means tidying up inside their bodies after a long winter of heavier eating and less activity, which clogs up the circulatory system and impairs function of the liver, kidneys and lymph system.

"You've got to tune up the organs," said Ted Cole, a 44-year-old Calgary realtor who says a regular cleansing regimen over the last six years has given him "constitutionally, the body of a 20-year-old."

Retired oilman Harold Wagner, of Devon, credits a detoxification cleanse with saving his life after doctors told him he would succumb to cancer in six months to a year.

Across North America, more and more people are using cleansing techniques to bolster their immune systems or cure disease- with spring the busiest season for cleansing.

The trend is not so much the result of new information, but of people returning to an age-old practice, said Terry Willard, owner of the Wild Rose Clinic in Hillhurst.

"It was common for our ancestors to do a spring cleanse," he said, following the example of nature which is busy this time of year renewing the environment. The practice waned this century until a mild resurgence in the 70's and 80's, said Willard. The 90's has cemented the trend, with a 10-to-20-fold increase in the number of people doing cleanses.

Where once cleansing was done mostly by those observing holistic health practices, "it's now starting to go into the major population base," said Willard. The Wild Rose Clinic started helping people do cleanses in 1975, and now the eight practitioners "easily do 150 to 160 cleanses a month," he said.

The increase isn't just due to population growth. In the mid-80's the clinic sold about 100 do-it-yourself detoxification kits per month, compared to 1,000 to 1,500 per month now; in order to keep pace with these numbers, Calgary's population would have had to balloon to 10 times its size over the past decade.

Calgary naturopathic physician Dr. Patricia Wales credits people's increasing willingness to be responsible for their own health for the growth in the trend.

Natural hygiene guru Harvey Diamond, author of a series of self-help health books titled "Fit For Life," also credits people's growing belief that prevention of diseases like cancer and heart disease is worth a pound of cure.

"I am convinced we can live without pain and disease," said Diamond, in Calgary recently on a publicity tour.

His latest book, "Fit for Life 3, the New Path to Vibrant Health", discusses how to prevent and fight disease, even life-threatening illnesses, by cleansing the lymph system with periodic monodieting, avoiding animal products and maintaining a positive attitude to life.

"You don't go from being healthy one day to having cancer the next," he said. But modern life has groomed us into ignoring the warning signs of developing illness, masking, putting up with or treating symptoms until serious illness develops.

Regular cleanses can short-circuit the disease process, he said.

To maintain good health, Diamond recommends regular cleansing in a regimen comfortable for the practitioner. He describes several different approaches:

• Drinking only fresh fruit and vegetable juices for one to three days;
• Eating fresh fruit and vegetables and drinking their juices for three to five days;
• Drinking only fresh fruit and vegetable juices and eating only fresh fruits and vegetables or salads made with them for a week to 10 days. Drinking only fresh fruit and vegetable juices and eating only fresh fruits and vegetables or salads made with them for a week to 10 days.

When Cole did his first cleanse six years ago, "I was a 220-pound, poor-eating, heavy-drinking kind of a guy, who got interested in cleansing because he had a girlfriend starting to get into herbology."

At first "I didn't believe it," but following a detoxification cleanse during which he had effortlessly lost 25 pounds and after which he felt a lot better, he became hooked. Soon followed cleanses of the liver, adrenal glands and colon and digestive tract. He came out a different man. Not only had his weight dropped to 165 pounds, but he felt healthier, more alive. "I play hockey and I'm not the greatest guy on the ice," he said. After his cleanses, his motor skills and mental functioning had improved so much, "people thought I'd gone to hockey school over the summer."

He changed his diet radically at first. "If you go back to your old habits, you'll return to ill health quickly," he said. Gradually he added back some favorite foods, but still watches what he eats. And he does a cleanse once a season. "It's a really good way to keep yourself healthy."

Wagar used cleansing to return himself to health when everyone thought he was headed for his funeral. In February 1966, when Wagar was working for Imperial Oil in Leduc, he felt a sharp pain in his groin the seemed to radiate higher. So he went to the company doctor.

The next morning he had exploratory surgery that found cancer of the lymph glands. Three weeks later, another operation revealed it had spread near the kidneys, and doctors told Wagar's family he had but six months to a year to live. He had already lost a grandfather to stomach cancer and his sister, at only 29, to brain cancer. He didn't want to be next.

He had already lost a grandfather to stomach cancer and his sister, at only 29 to brain cancer.

Then 36, Wagar "started hunting for a cure of my own." He found a booklet in a health food store describing a cleanse a California woman claimed had cured her of cancer, and decided to follow it.

For 36 consecutive days, he consumed nothing but four quarts of carrot juice a day, supplemented with red clover extract and 4,000 milligrams of Vitamin C. Then he slowly added in vegetables, fruits, salads and cottage cheese. His doctors were surprised that he was getting stronger, and "wondered why I was getting this horrible color (megadoses of carrots turn the skin orange).

The deadline passed, and 32 years besides. For a number of years, he carefully watched what he ate and drank. Today, he's less vigilant, but says "I'm not a vegetarian but I don't have meat every day." And for a couple of weeks every fall, he adds carrot juice to his diet, though he no longer does periodic fasts or cleanses. He encourages others to take control of their health. "Most people think if your doctor doesn't think of it, it shouldn't be thought of. Or they think it's a hoax or impossible." "But it's very possible, and I proved it. I guarantee I survived cancer. I know carrot juice gave me my life."

But he also credits his will to live and positive attitude. "I never gave up; I had it in my mind it was going to help me." He stumbled upon Diamond's formula for health cleanse, cut back or eliminate meat and keep a positive attitude nearly 30 years before the author wrote his books.

Diamond himself used the method he advises to cleanse his system of Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant he was exposed to during the U.S. war in Vietnam, which has claimed the lives of thousands of veterans and put an equal number into wheelchairs.

About 20 years after exposure, muscles in the body begin to wither. Within a decade, arms and legs no longer work. Diamond has lost retractor muscles in his arms and hands and has been left with a limp, but credits detoxification cleansing with halting progress of the poison.

His theory as to why detoxification cleanses work is that limiting the diet to readily-digested nutrients, like those in fruit and vegetable juices, frees up the energy the body usually uses for digestion for cleaning the system and healing disease.

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