Why you should stay away from Gerson's therapy and apricot kernels.

What's wrong with Gerson?

Gerson's therapy is a popular alternative healing approach to cancer treatment, heavily promoted by private clinics in Mexico and other places. But does it work?

No serious scientific studies exist to definitely prove their efficacy, however the therapy raises a number of red flags: 

• It advocates an extremely unbalanced diet, with extremely low amount of proteins and fat. Not only it risks creating health-threatening deficiencies, but what's left are actually carbohydrates, which convert into the body as glucose. This will, according to the metabolic approach to cancer, fuel tumor growth. Also remember, you need fats and proteins for your immune system, your hormones, your brain, etc to function properly.
• Juicing will spike up your blood sugar and is not a healthy habit for anybody, and particularly when you have cancer. You need the fibres to slow down the absorption of food and prevent upping your blood sugar. Also you need the fibres to feed your gut bacteria, which will strengthen your immune system and decrease inflammation.
• Raw juicing the wrong vegetable could lead to a build up of goitrogens or oxalate, which again is detrimental to health. Goitrogens could impact your thyroid and energy metabolism, oxalate build-up will lead to kidney stones.
• Coffee enemas are promoted as a detox mechanism. This is wrong. There are better and more natural ways to promote the body detoxifying system. What pumping coffee the wrong end could do for you though, is increasing your cortisol levels beyond what you need. Long term, it will promote the breakdown of muscles to... make glucose (sugar). Again, we know that cancer loves "sugar".

You can read a more in-depth critique of the Gerson Therapy here.

What's wrong with apricot kernels?

Apricot kernels is another infamous alternative medicine approach to cancer treatments, for their compound laetrile (also called amygdalin, or incorrectly vitamin B17). Unfortunately they just don't work. The only scientific studies ever made on those showed no improvement or worsening of the condition. More worringly, this compound breaks down in the body into cyanide, and several cases of actual poisoning due to eating apricot kernels have been reported.

So please, do yourself a favour, and avoid something risky which may very well bring you to an emergency room.