Now Charles backs coffee cure for cancer

Angry doctors warn of dangers as Prince of Wales lends

support to controversial alternative treatment. Health
Editor Jo Revill reports
 Jo Revill
 The Observer, Sunday June 27 2004

Prince Charles has never made a secret of his love affair with alternative medicine. Now he has
infuriated the medical profession by backing a controversial cancer treatment which involves
taking daily coffee enemas and drinking litres of fruit juice instead of using drugs. Charles gave
an enthusiastic endorsement last week to the Gerson Therapy, which eschews chemotherapy in
favour of 13 fruit juices a day, coffee enemas and weekly injections of vitamins.

Cancer specialists have told The Observer that there is no scientific basis for the theory and that
it can be dangerous because patients who are seriously ill often come off their normal treatment
to try something unproven which may leave them badly dehydrated.

Speaking to a room of 200 healthcare professionals at a conference, Charles said: 'I know of
one patient who turned to Gerson Therapy having been told she was suffering from
terminal cancer and would not survive another course of chemotherapy. Happily, seven
years later, she is alive and well. So it is vital that, rather than dismissing such experiences,
we should further investigate the beneficial nature of these treatments.'

Charles's spokesmen last night refused to say whether the patient he referred to is a close friend
or someone he met in his role as patron of four cancer charities. What has become clear is that a
tight network of friends and associates are advocates of the therapy. Dudley Poplak, an interior
designer who has a client list of the great and the good, is the man who is thought to have first
alerted Charles to the treatment. Poplak redecorated Highgrove House for Charles and Diana and
designed their apartment in Kensington Palace. He gave Charles a copy of the book A Time to
Heal: My Triumph over Cancer - Beata Bishop's story of how she beat malignant
melanoma 23 years ago by following the strict dietary regime.

Bishop would not comment yesterday on whether the prince had read her book, but said: 'For
years the orthodox medical profession has been totally ignorant of the immense potential of
nutritional therapy. Finally they have admitted that if you eat the right food you can prevent
serious illness, but they still say that if you are ill, you can do nothing. I am not the only one who
has survived on Gerson; there are many others like me.' Max Gerson, a German-born
physician, gave his name to the rigorous diet, which he initially used to cure his own
migraines. He gained a huge following and moved to the US after practising in Paris, but
incurred the wrath of the American medical profession for presenting five patients alive
and well to a US congressional committee, years after they had been sent home to die.
He believed that cancer was the symptom of a diseased, polluted body in which tumors form
when the liver, pancreas and other organs are out of balance, and reasoned that animal and
dairy products and other chemicals must be banned. The coffee enemas are used to strip the
gut of harmful bacteria and pollutants, but specialists argue they often lead to other problems
such as dehydration.

Today the Gerson Institute, run by Max's 82-year-old daughter Charlotte, has an office in
California but runs its main clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, because the US forbids doctors to
practise it. Treatment costs $4,900 a week and usually lasts for around three weeks.

Another of Charles's associates, the hereditary peer and crossbencher Lord Baldwin of Bewdley,
went to the Tijuana clinic in 1996 when his wife Sally was seriously ill with breast cancer. She
spent eight weeks at the clinic, followed by another two years of using the regime at home. Her
disease recurred and she died three years ago.

Lord Baldwin, who has known the Prince of Wales for many years, invited Charlotte Gerson to
address the House of Lords in 1999 and expound her theory. From his home in Oxford, Baldwin
said yesterday: 'The subject does arouse passions on both sides but there is an enormous need for
proper studies into these treatments. I watched my wife's tumors shrink away but the treatment is
a very difficult one to follow. The drugs companies have millions to spend on research, but
there's nothing to spend on research into how nutrition might work.'

Charles set up the Foundation for Integrated Health, an initiative to integrate different systems of
medicines and therapies, six years ago and has managed to persuade ministers to put millions of
pounds more funding into alternative medicine in the NHS. Surveys suggest it is growing in
popularity with some 20 per cent of people using an alternative treatment such as acupuncture
between two and five times a year.

In his speech, delivered on Thursday in London, Charles argued that it was impossible to
separate the mental and physical states of wellbeing, and that the NHS should be developing
more funding to different approaches. 'We must commission and produce research that looks at
the efficacy of complementary medicine. For example, many patients use and believe in Gerson
Therapy, yet more evidence needs to be available as to who might benefit or what the adverse
effects might be.'

One of the patients, Frances Carroll from Cheshire, said at the conference she had benefited from
Gerson Therapy for the past seven years. Carroll was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years
ago and turned to the therapy after she did not appear to respond to conventional treatment. She
said: 'It is a means of staying alive. I think it has extended my life expectancy. One might say
I've beaten the odds.'

But the American Cancer Society warns that the therapy may be dangerous. On its website it
states: 'Gerson Therapy can be very harmful to the body. Coffee enemas have been associated
with serious infections, dehydration, constipation, colitis (inflammation of the colon), electrolyte
(salt and mineral) imbalances, and even death.'
One prominent British proponent of Gerson Therapy is the Oxford don Michael Gearin-Tosh,
who wrote a book about his 'medical mutiny' after he was diagnosed with cancer nine years ago.
He converted to the Gerson Therapy and has stuck to the rigorous regime of fruit and vegetables.

Professor Tony Goldstone, head of the North London cancer network, said there was evidence
that some patients reached a 'natural plateau' in their disease which could last for years. He
attacked the raising of 'false hopes' which 'lead patients in the wrong direction'.

Other cancer doctors pointed out that many units, including Goldstone's, are now offering an
array of complementary therapies alongside conventional treatment, because it is popular with
patients and because it can be relaxing and mentally helpful for them.

But there is still an enormous lack of evidence, as Prince Charles pointed out, to show what
works. One eminent cancer specialist who asked not to be named said: 'If I start to see patients
coming off treatment to embrace this therapy, I'm going to be very angry. Charles is abusing his
position to put around wacky ideas which have no scientific credence. Imagine the row there
would be if Tony Blair did something like this.'

Yet leading cancer specialist Professor Karol Sikora says the role of diet in treating cancer is
extremely important and needs more research. 'There is no rationale for the Gerson diet, which is
quite radical. Why would a coffee enema work? It's very popular among the higher end of the
middle classes, partly because it's expensive and because there's an element of religious mania to
it.

'I think that some of what the prince has done in calling for assessment of complementary
medicine is a good thing because it can help improve the quality of life. But the idea that huge
amounts of Vitamin C can cure you of cancer is simply wrong.'

· Additional reporting by Mark Hudson

The Gerson regime

What is it? A gruelling nutritional regime which would typically consist of 13 glasses a day of
fresh organic carrot apple or broccoli juice, vegetarian food, weekly injections of liver extract
and vitamin B12, and five coffee or camomile enemas a day. Yoga is also recommended.

How popular is it? An estimated 1,000 people are following it worldwide, but the cost of the
injections - more than £20,000 a year - means many cannot afford the treatment.

So what is the theory? Its creator Max Gerson believed cancer was caused by poor nutrition
and long-term exposure to pesticides, chemical fertilisers, air and water pollution, and that
the right foods and enemas boosted the body's ability to eliminate these toxins - and the
cancer.

Is there any evidence for this? There is growing evidence that eating lots of fruit and
vegetables has a protective effect against cancer, but studies on the role of food during treatment
are sparse. Scientists say there is no evidence that huge doses of vitamin C or enemas can destroy
tumors completely.

COFFEE: THE ROYAL FLUSH

From The Cancer Chronicles #6 and #7

© Autumn 1990 by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

So what's the story? Is the coffee enema crackpot faddism or is there some rationale behind this
procedure?

An enema is "a fluid injected into the rectum for the purpose of clearing out the bowel, or of
administering drugs or food." The word itself comes from the Greek en-hienai, meaning to "send or
inject into." The enema has been called "one of the oldest medical procedures still in use today." Tribal
women in Africa, and elsewhere, routinely use it on their children. The earliest medical text in existence,
the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, (1,500 B.C.) mentions it. Millennia before, the Pharaoh had a "guardian of
the anus," a special doctor one of whose purposes was to administer the royal enema.

The Greeks wrote of the fabled cleanliness of the Egyptians, which included the internal cleansing of
their systems through emetics and enemas. They employed these on three consecutive days every
month said Herodotus (II.77) or at intervals of three or four days, according to the later historian
Diodorus. The Egyptians explained to their visitors that they did this because they "believed that
diseases were engendered by superfluities of the food", a modern-sounding theory!

Enemas were known in ancient Sumeria, Babylonia, India, Greece and China. American Indians
independently invented it, using a syringe made of an animal bladder and a hollow leg bone. Pre-
Columbian South Americans fashioned latex into the first rubber enema bags and tubes. In fact, there is
hardly a region of the world where people did not discover or adapt the enema. It is more ubiquitous
than the wheel. Enemas are found in world literature from Aristophanes to Shakespeare, Gulliver
Travels to Peyton Place.

In pre-revolutionary France a daily enema after dinner was de rigueur. It was not only considered
indispensable for health but practiced for good complexion as well. Louis XIV is said to have taken over
2,000 in his lifetime.Could this have been the source of the Sun King's sunny disposition? For centuries,
enemas were a routine home remedy. Then, within living memory, the routine use of enemas died out.
The main times that doctors employ them nowadays is before or after surgery and childbirth. Difficult
and potentially dangerous barium enemas before colonic X rays are of course still a favorite of allopathic
doctors.

But why coffee? This bean has an interesting history. It was imported in Arabia in the early 1500's by the
Sufi religious mystics, who used it to fight drowsiness while praying. It was especially prized for its
medicinal qualities, in both the Near East and Europe. No one knows when the first daring soul filled the
enema bag with a quart of java. What is known is that the coffee enema appeared at least as early as
1917 and was found in the prestigious Merck Manual until 1972. In the 1920s German scientists found
that a caffeine solution could open the bile ducts and stimulate the production of bile in the liver of
experimental animals.
Dr. Max Gerson used this clinically as part of a general detoxification regimen, first for tuberculosis, then
cancer. Caffeine, he postulated, will travel up the hemorrhoidal to the portal vein and thence to the liver
itself. Gerson noted some remarkable effects of this procedure. For instance, patients could dispense
with all pain-killers once on the enemas. Many people have noted the paradoxical calming effect of
coffee enemas. And while coffee enemas can relieve constipation, Gerson cautioned:

"Patients have to know that the coffee enemas are not given for the function of the intestines but for
the stimulation of the liver."

Coffee enemas were an established part of medical practice when Dr. Max Gerson introduced them into
cancer therapy in the 1930s. Basing himself on German laboratory work, Gerson believed that caffeine
could stimulate the liver and gall bladder to discharge bile. He felt this process could contribute to the
health of the cancer patient.

Although the coffee enema has been heaped with scorn, there has been some independent scientific
work that gives credence to this concept. In 1981, for instance, Dr. Lee Wattenberg and his colleagues
were able to show that substances found in coffee—kahweol and cafestol palmitate—promote the
activity of a key enzyme system, glutathione S-transferase, above the norm. This system detoxifies a
vast array of electrophiles from the bloodstream and, according to Gar Hildenbrand of the Gerson
Institute, "must be regarded as an important mechanism for carcinogen detoxification." This enzyme
group is responsible for neutralizing free radicals, harmful chemicals now commonly implicated in the
initiation of cancer. In mice, for example, these systems are enhanced 600 percent in the liver and 700
percent in the bowel when coffee beans are added to the mice's diet.

Dr. Peter Lechner, who is investigating the Gerson method at the Landeskrankenhaus of Graz, Austria,
has reported that "coffee enemas have a definite effect on the colon which can be observed with an
endoscope." F.W. Cope (1977) has postulated the existence of a "tissue damage syndrome." When
cells are challenged by poison, oxygen deprivation, malnutrition or a physical trauma they lose
potassium, take on sodium and chloride, and swell up with excess water.

Another scientist (Ling) has suggested that water in a normal cell is contained in an "ice-like"
structure. Being alive requires not just the right chemicals but the right chemical structure. Cells
normally have a preference for potassium over sodium but when a cell is damaged it begins to prefer
sodium. This craving results in a damaged ability of cells to repair themselves and to utilize energy.
Further, damaged cells produce toxins; around tumors are zones of "wounded" but still non-
malignant tissue, swollen with salt and water.

Gerson believed it axiomatic that cancer could not exist in normal metabolism. He pointed to the fact
that scientists often had to damage an animal's thyroid and adrenals just to get a transplanted tumor
to "take." He directed his efforts toward creating normal metabolism in the tissue surrounding a
tumor.

It is the liver and small bowel which neutralize the most common tissue toxins: polyamines, ammonia,
toxic-bound nitrogen, and electrophiles. These detoxification systems are probably enhanced by the
coffee enema. Physiological Chemistry and Physics has stated that "caffeine enemas cause dilation of
bile ducts, which facilitates excretion of toxic cancer breakdown products by the liver and dialysis of
toxic products across the colonic wall."
In addition, theophylline and theobromine (two other chemicals in coffee) dilate blood vessels and
counter inflammation of the gut; the palmitates enhance the enzyme system responsible for the
removal of toxic free radicals from the serum; and the fluid of the enema then stimulates the visceral
nervous system to promote peristalsis and the transit of diluted toxic bile from the duodenum and out
the rectum.

Since the enema is generally held for 15 minutes, and all the blood in the body passes through the
liver every three minutes, "these enemas represent a form of dialysis of blood across the gut wall"
(Healing Newsletter, #13, May-June, 1986).

Prejudice against coffee enemas continues, however. Although this data was made available to Office of
Technology Assessment it was largely ignored in their box on the procedure. They dismissively state
"there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that coffee enemas detoxify the blood or liver."

No medical procedure is without risk and OTA is quick to point out alleged dangers of the coffee
enemas. For instance, they cite one doctor's opinion that coffee "taken by this route is a strong
stimulant and can be at least as addictive as coffee taken regularly by mouth." This may indeed be true.
Yet one wonders where the data is on this, and whether OTA would issue a similar warning about the
perils of coffee drinking.

Another potential danger, they say, is physical damage to the rectum—"fatal bowel perforation and
necrosis" which have been associated with "various other types of enema." The risk of perforation
comes from the insertion device used. At the Gerson clinic, for instance, they use a short nozzle which
couldn't inflict much harm; Gonzalez uses a soft rubber colon tube. In neither case would this caveat
seem to apply. On thin evidence, OTA also suggests enemas can cause colitis.

The agency also cites the case of the two Seattle women who died following excessive enema use. Their
deaths were attributed to fluid and electrolyte abnormalities. One took 10 to 12 coffee enemas in a
single night and then continued at a rate of one per hour. The other took four daily. As OTA points out,
"in both cases, the enemas were taken much more frequently than is recommended in the Gerson
treatment."

In general, coffee enemas are an important tool for physicians who try to detoxify the body. This is not
to say they are a panacea. They certainly require much more research. But coffee enemas are serious
business: their potential should be explored by good research—not mined for cheap shots at alternative
medicine or derisively dismissed as yet another crackpot fad.

###

Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. is the author of eight books and three documentaries on cancer-related topics. He
is an advisor on alternative cancer treatments to the National Institutes of Health, Columbia University,
and the University of Texas. He researches and writes individualized Healing Choices reports for people
with cancer. For information on Healing Choices, you can contact coordinator Anne Beattie in the
following ways:

Address: 144 St. John's Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217 Phone 718-636-4433 Fax 718-636-0186 E-mail
mail@ralphmoss.com Web site http://www.ralphmoss.com