Daniel Reid - The Tao of Detox: The Secrets of Yang-Sheng Dao; A Practical Guide to Preventing and Treating the Toxic Assualt on Our Bodies

This book is dedicated to V. E. Irons, for getting to the bottom of the problem and showing us the way to fix it, and to Marlene and Julia, for keeping his good work going.

CONTENTS

APPENDICES

PREFACE

Despite the wonders of modern medicine, the state of human health throughout the world today continues to erode at an alarming rate. This deterioration prevails as much in the wealthy, industrially developed parts of the world as it does in poor, underdeveloped regions. America, for example, has one of the highest per capita rates of cancer mortality on earth, and the immune deficiency syndrome known as AIDS has spread to every corner of the planet, striking the rich as well as the poor, old and young alike. Debilitating diseases and chronic degenerative conditions that only a hundred years ago rarely manifested except in the weak and elderly have today become increasingly common conditions in the young and mainstream adult sectors of the population. Chronic pain and fatigue, indigestion and insomnia, hypertension and heart failure, and all sorts of other maladies are now par for the course in the lives of men and women all over the world, degrading the quality of their lives and causing untold misery.

So whats the problem here?

The problem is toxicity, plain and simple, the same sort of toxicity that attracts flies to garbage, kills fish in rivers, and lays waste to the environment, except in this case were talking about the toxic waste that pollutes the blood and tissues of the human body. Modern Western lifestyle, particularly the highly touted American way of life, has spread like an oil slick across the entire sea of humanity, smothering traditional ways of life that once kept the human body in a relatively healthy state of balance. Fast food and junk food, preservatives and additives, chemically contaminated air and water, mad-dash lifestyles and indiscriminate use of drugs, both medical and recreational, have all contributed to the overall degradation of human health and the relentless pollution of the human body.

Most people today take far better care of their cars than they do their own bodies. Imagine what would happen if you indiscriminately poured petrol, diesel, kerosene, propane, and a cup of sugar altogether into the gas tank of your car. That is precisely the way most people eat today, mixing meat, bread, milk, fat, sugar, and other digestively incompatible foods at the same meals and pouring them into their stomachs at the same time. And what if you never changed the motor oil, neglected to clean the filters, and let the carburetor get crusted up with soot? The result would be obvious: the fuel would burn inefficiently, producing foul-smelling toxic wastes and gases, the engine would soon begin to wheeze and splutter, vital moving parts would seize up and malfunction, and finally the whole machine would grind to a shuddering halt and need to be hauled to the nearest repair shop. All of this could be easily prevented, and expensive repair work avoided, simply by keeping the engine properly tuned, periodically changing the oil and replacing the filters, cleaning the carburetor, using the right type of fuel, and properly maintaining the vehicle on a daily basis.

Many of todays most common and deadly diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and cirrhosis of the liver, are caused not by viruses or other germs but rather by long-term accumulation of toxins and acid wastes in the body, which create the conditions of tissue toxicity that germs require to infect the body. Similarly, most chronic degenerative conditions, like arthritis, arteriosclerosis, and immune deficiency, are acquired primarily as a result of blood and tissue toxicity produced from things that people put into their own bodies. As these acidic toxins fester and decay in various tissues, they damage organs and glands, corrode joints and arteries, enervate the nervous system, and inhibit immune response and other vital functions. This debilitating state of tissue toxicity is almost always self-inflicted, and it cannot be corrected with pills, injections, surgery, or any other quick-fix medical procedures. The one and only way to counteract self-toxification of the body is by self-detoxification, and the only one who can do that for you is the same person who allowed it to happen in the first placeyou. As the saying goes, Its a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Fortunately, a systemic detox can be done simply, quickly, and efficiently. Unfortunately, life is toxic by nature, though, so just as fire invariably produces smoke and ash, so the metabolic processes of life quickly begin to retox your body the moment youve finished a detox program. Therefore, the secret to enjoying a long and healthy lifeand being able to eat, drink, and be merry while also working, prospering, and remaining fitis to practice the discipline of periodic detox and to apply the principles of rational retox to your daily life.

In the Far East, where people like to work hard, play hard, and enjoy every aspect of life, health and longevity have always been cultivated as the two most precious treasures of life. Health and longevity form the cornerstones upon which the enjoyment and accomplishment of everything else worth doing depends.

Regardless of how busy people in traditional Asian societies became in their relentless pursuits of fame and fortune, food and sex, prosperity and pleasure, they always took the time to relax their bodies and rest their minds, to replenish their energies and to rebalance their systems. In addition, they designed their diets and other basic habits in ways that protected health and prolonged life, rather than choosing habits that hastened degeneration and death. By following these basic principles, traditional Eastern cultures developed a knack for healthy living that in current-day Asian cultures continues to enhance rather than diminish the enjoyment of lifes pleasures, and to assist rather than interfere with the demands of hard work. The Japanese, for example, who work harder by day and play harder by night than anyone else on earth, and who live with the most intense forms of modern industrial pollution, continue to enjoy the longest average lifespan in the world, simply by continuing to follow traditional ways in their personal habits. What they and other East Asian cultures have learned is the ancient Chinese art of longevity by means of toxic-damage control, a system known as the Way of Nurturing Life (yang-sheng dao). In other words, they practiced the Tao of Detox/Retox.

The Way of Nurturing Life is a comprehensive system of self-health care that is as relevant to the human condition today as it was when first developed over three thousand years ago in ancient China, and the life-prolonging benefits for those who practice this way of life are greater today than ever before. In my 1989 book, The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity, I introduced this system of self-purification as follows:

The essential principle is to combat the debilitating, deathly effects of environmental poisons and self-pollution with the rejuvenating, death-defying antidote of personal hygiene and self-purification.... The purpose of regular regimens of self-cleansing is simply to stay a few steps ahead of the inexorable process of pollution and decay. Aging is not a matter of time alone; it is the