There is a story where a 100 dollar bill laid all day on a sidewalk without anybody bothering to pick it up. Each passerby reasoned that it must be false; because if it were real somebody else would have already picked it up. This seems is the case for the Gerson therapy which, notwithstanding its remarkable track record, is still been generally neglected by the medical establishment.

Dr. Max Gerson was a physician who immigrated to America escaping Nazi persecution. He developed a simple nutritional therapy essentially comprised of supplements and high nutrient vegetable juices. Due to the success of his practice, in his newfound lands, Dr. Gerson was again persecuted by the then infamous head of the AMA, Dr. Morris Fishbein.

The reason these Gerson juices are unique is that they are extracted first by mulching the vegetables, then are pressed with a high power press. This process produces a higher nutritional value in the juice than using conventionally extraction. The prolific medical writer, Dr. Norman Walker, designed a specific consumer extractor to produce this kind of juice (Norwalk Juicers) but it is an expensive apparatus beyond the budget of many.

FAIM would like to call attention to those who have a soul for tinkering, that one can home-build a press using an inexpensive 2-ton hydraulic bottle jack, the kind used to lift cars in repair shops. This kind of juice-press is also commercially available as a stand-alone unit. It can be combined with an expeller-type juicer (i.e. Champion) for the mulching phase of the juice preparation.

The more controversial part of the Gerson Therapy is the use of coffee enemas. Their function is to stimulate the liver to break down and release toxins. This breakthrough developed by Dr. Gerson, when molecular biology was in its infancy, has now some scientific evidence. Investigations show that two forms of palmitic acid contained in coffee – cafestol and kahweol palmitate – promote by more than 700% the activity of glutathione S-transferase (GST), a key enzyme system that detoxifies from the bloodstream a vast array of electrophiles (nasty toxic disease-causing "electron-loving" free-radicals!). GST is responsible for neutralizing these free radicals and harmful chemicals now commonly implicated in the initiation of cancer.

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Charlotte Gerson

The work of Dr. Gerson is energetically and wholeheartedly continued by his daughter Charlotte. She is author of a series of books and publications and runs the Gerson Institute. The institute certifies physicians worldwide and also runs the homonymous clinic in Tijuana, Mexico.

We highly recommend two excellent candid documentaries by Alaskan filmmaker Stephen Kroschel. The first is The Gerson Miracle and the second, which re-uses some of the footage, The Beautiful Truth.

Surprisingly, the NIH's National Cancer Institute has a series of non-dismissive web pages reviewing the Gerson Therapy. It is presented in two parallel versions – for patients and for health professionals.

With this short introduction we hope to spur people on a quest to discover for themselves the legacy of Dr. Max Gerson. FAIM would like to inspire people to feel empowered that health can always be improved using non-toxic and inexpensive methods. The Gerson Therapy is sensibly one of these, whether one is actually ill or one wants to use it to maintain health.