Author:
Joanna Evans
Author:
Joanna Evans
Eating nothing but fruit and a bit of positive thinking helped Hilde Larsen overcome debilitating rheumatoid arthritis.
Hilde
had been plagued with health problems for most of her adult
life—stomach ulcers, constipation, kidney stones, hives, urinary tract
infections, sciatica—but she had never considered herself as anything
other than normal. "Everyone had some sort of ailment, some sort of pain
or discomfort," said Hilde, who is from Norway but has a second home in
Florida. "I could see that I had more than most, but I was strong, I
could handle it."
This
diagnosis, however, Hilde could not handle. "I was in shock," she said.
"I felt sick to my stomach and lost. What I knew to be my future had
been turned upside down."
Hilde
had been admitted to a hospital specializing in rheumatic diseases
after suffering for years with painful, swollen joints. It started in
one foot but soon spread to her fingers, elbows and the rest of her
joints, making it increasingly difficult for Hilde to work—as an
interior architect in the day, running her own business, and as an
aerobics and spinning instructor in the evening.
The
hospital confirmed that Hilde had severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an
autoimmune condition in which the body's own immune system attacks the
cells that line the joints, causing pain and inflammation. Hilde was
informed that she would need to take medication for the rest of her life
and would probably end up in a wheelchair.
Hilde
was already taking Vioxx (rofecoxib), a potent nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drug, or NSAID, that has since been withdrawn from the
market because it was found to cause heart attacks. But three more
drugs were prescribed to treat her condition: the chemotherapy agent
methotrexate, the corticosteroid prednisone—both immune system
suppressants—and Enbrel (etanercept), a drug designed to block the
overproduction of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), an
inflammation-regulating protein thought to be behind the symptoms of RA.
At
the time, Hilde felt lucky to be on the drugs—especially Enbrel, which
she was told was a new, very expensive drug with great results. She
believed she was receiving the very best that medicine had to offer.
Hilde
had to administer Enbrel via injections to her stomach, which became
sore and red around the injection sites and "looked like the world map
after a while," she said, but she persisted. And, sure enough, her joint
pain started to improve.
"The
swelling was going down, and I could move freely again. I was even able
to wear my high heels," she recalled—a boon for this self-confessed
"shoe-freak."
Hilde
resumed her busy work schedule and active lifestyle, enjoying the
freedom of having a fully functioning body again. But something wasn't
the same.
"I felt like a dark cloud was hanging over me," said Hilde. "And my energy levels had dropped big time."
Hilde
found herself depressed and anxious, with an irregular heartbeat. She
also suffered from severe stomach pain, had flu-like symptoms, and felt
constantly nauseated and dizzy.
She
consulted her regular doctor as well as her rheumatologist numerous
times about whether her symptoms were side-effects of her medication,
but each time her concerns were dismissed.
After two more years on the medication, she had become so sick that she had to give up her business and stop working altogether.
Seeing clearly
The
turning point came when Hilde had a vivid dream in which she was
confronted with an enormous barrel filled to the brim with syringes—all
the drugs that she had injected into her body. "I woke up with an
amazing sense of clarity," said Hilde. "I thought: you're literally
killing yourself!"
Hilde
made up her mind to stop taking all of her medication and threw all her
drugs away, even though her doctors warned that she would die without
them. At that point, Hilde discovered that she had only gotten worse,
even with the so-called wonder drug. "I went downhill steadily," said
Hilde. "Soon I couldn't bend my fingers, elbows or knees, and needed a
wheelchair to get around. I was in inflammation hell."
This
sudden deterioration scared Hilde, but it also fueled her to find a way
to get well. She read for 16 hours a day, researching why she was so
sick and how to get better.
What
followed was many years of trying out all kinds of alternative
treatments and techniques, from elimination diets and liver flushing to
hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and various electromagnetic and infrared technologies. "I was my own guinea pig," she recalls.
Back to nature
What
eventually worked was a back-to-basics approach that didn't center on
popping handfuls of vitamin pills every day or using special machines,
but instead on trusting nature and enabling the body to heal itself.
A
cornerstone of this approach was a fruit-only diet. Hilde had been
following a raw-food diet for three years, eliminating cooked foods
completely in favor of raw greens, nuts, seeds and plant oils. This
helped to some extent, said Hilde, but her body was still inflamed and
in pain.
While
looking for answers online, Hilde came across the YouTube videos of
Robert Morse, a naturopathic doctor and master herbalist who believes
that all disease stems from a stagnated lymphatic system—the body's
waste-disposal system. He advocates a fruitarian diet to remedy this, as
fruits are highest in astringent and antioxidant substances that can
get the lymphatic system moving and encourage detoxification. Other more
complex foods will simply slow down this all-important process, claims
Morse.
While
there has been little to no mainstream research into the possible
benefits of a fruitarian diet—or even a raw vegan one—Morse believes
that fruit is the optimal food for humans because it requires little
energy for the body to digest and has a very high water content.
According to Morse, water within raw food has added benefits over simply
drinking water because it can carry the plant's enzymes, antioxidants
and other health-giving molecules directly into cells.
Although
medical evidence to support these claims is thin on the ground, there
is some compelling research from evolutionary biology and anthropology
to suggest that, like our cousins the great apes, we humans have the
physiological features (especially the teeth and digestive tract) of an
"unspecialized frugivore [fruit-eater], having a flexible diet that
includes seeds and meat."1
In
other words, we evolved to be nutritional 'opportunists,' with fruit
front and center in our diet, accounting for the majority of our
calories, while happily gobbling tasty herbs and fat- and protein-rich
morsels like nuts, insects and small mammals when the opportunity arose.
Hilde
made an appointment to meet with Morse in Florida and followed his
advice for gradually transitioning to a fruitarian diet. Out went all
the green juices and salads smothered with olive oil, and in came a
colorful array of fresh, organic fruits to eat and drink. Morse also
prescribed several herbal tinctures to assist with detoxification.
What
happened next "was like being on a rollercoaster," Hilde said. "I'd
start feeling better, then suddenly my fingers would swell up to twice
their size. I'd feel better again, then something else would swell up."
Hilde
believes this was all part of the healing process. Indeed, as time went
on, she began to notice consistent changes. She was ecstatic the first
time she could walk down the stairs unaided and even more thrilled when
she discovered she could swim in the ocean again. "It was a very slow,
subtle process," said Hilde. "Getting sick happens over years. Healing
is the same."
Mind over matter
In
addition to switching to a fruitarian diet, Hilde also consciously
changed her mindset, which she believed was just as important in her
healing process as nutrition. She'd grown interested in the work of the
late Louise Hay, the bestselling self-help author who wrote numerous
books on the transformative power of thoughts, and started saying
'affirmations'—positive self-talk—daily, such as 'I am feeling better
and better every day,' 'I am healthier now than in a very long time,'
and 'I am worthy of health.'
"An
affirmation is simply words that are used to generate a feeling," Hilde
explains. "I could believe those words, and they lifted me."
To bolster this positive state of mind and combat stress, she also turned to meditation and visualization techniques.
This
simple, natural approach of eating fruit and thinking positively is
what Hilde credits with getting her better—as well as 'earthing' or
'grounding,' which involves walking barefoot outdoors in direct
contact with the earth. A growing body of research has shown that earthing has quantifiable effects on inflammation, sleep and pain reduction.2
contact with the earth. A growing body of research has shown that earthing has quantifiable effects on inflammation, sleep and pain reduction.2
The
theory behind this popular therapy is that the earth is a natural
source of electrical and magnetic fields considered essential for the
proper functioning of physiological processes in the human body,
including circulation and biorhythms.
As her symptoms improved, Hilde found she could get outdoors and reconnect with nature more and more.
Coming to fruition
Today,
five years after starting her own body-mind regime, Hilde is a picture
of health, with no symptoms to speak of. Now a health and mindset coach,
she is on a mission to inspire others to take control of their own
health, even though she has inevitably received a fair amount of
criticism from friends and doctors alike.
"I
had a serious accident a few years ago which nearly tore off my foot.
Five different doctors and nurses came to my bedside to lecture me on
how I wouldn't heal on my current fruit-only diet. But my body handled
it beautifully. One doctor told me he'd never seen such rapid healing."
Hilde
also gets compliments from her dentist, who always remarks on her
healthy, white teeth. In fact, all that acidic fruit doesn't appear to
have had a detrimental effect at all on her dental enamel, possibly
because Hilde practices 'oil pulling' daily, a technique in which
natural oils are swished around the mouth to clean the teeth and gums.
She also makes sure she rinses her mouth out with water after eating or
drinking.
A
fruit-only diet may not be for everyone, but Hilde has hit on a
holistic approach that appears to work for her—and it certainly comes
with fewer side-effects than the cocktail of drugs that her doctors
wanted her to take for the rest of her life.
Hilde is happy, healthy and pain-free—and who can argue with that?
Fruit for life
Hilde's
daily diet consists of organic fruit and nothing else—no nuts, seeds,
vegetables, meat or fish—as she says fruits are the most cleansing and
natural foods for the body. However, many fruitarians do include some
vegetables, pulses, and/or nuts and seeds in their diet as well. As a
fruit supplying all important fats, avocados are also a staple of many
fruitarian diets.
Hilde
will typically eat all kinds of fruit daily, including watermelon,
berries, grapes, dates, mangoes and plenty of orange juice, but there
are certain rules about which types of fruits go together, as Hilde
explains in her book Know the Truth and Get Healthy (iUniverse, 2016):
Eat acidic fruits alone or with sub-acidic fruits.
These mainly include the citrus fruits, such as orange, lemon and lime, as well as pineapple. The acidic fruits are the most astringent and aggressively detoxing fruits.
These mainly include the citrus fruits, such as orange, lemon and lime, as well as pineapple. The acidic fruits are the most astringent and aggressively detoxing fruits.
Sub-acidic fruits can be paired with acidic fruits and sweet fruits. The sub-acidic fruits include apples, pears, grapes, mangoes, kiwis, berries and peaches. These are the medium-astringent fruits.
Sweet
fruits can be eaten together with the sub-acidic fruits, but not with
acidic fruits. The sweet fruits include bananas, dates, papayas and
figs, and are considered the least detoxifying.
Melons have a separate set of rules. Eat them alone or leave them alone. They do not digest well with other fruits.
The power of positive thoughts
Hilde
believes that positive thinking and visualization played a crucial role
in her recovery from crippling rheumatoid arthritis—and there's
mounting evidence to show that good thoughts can have powerful effects
on all kinds of illness.
Researchers
led by cardiologist Daniel B. Mark from Duke University School of
Medicine in North Carolina found that how we perceive our own health can
be as important to medical outcomes as how doctors measure it.
The
team studied 2,885 men and women who underwent cardiac catheterization,
a procedure used to diagnose and treat some heart conditions, and found
that the patients who described their health as poor were almost three
times more likely to die from any cause, and over three-and-a-half times
more likely to die of heart disease, than patients with the same
disease severity and risk factors but who were most optimistic about
their health, describing it as 'very good.'1
According
to American psychologist Martin Seligman, the brain registers optimism
and makes changes via chemical and neural pathways that affect cellular
function throughout all the body's systems. In fact, a positive attitude
is associated with stronger immunity and lower levels of the stress
hormone cortisol.2
In
cancer patients, visualization, or guided imagery, the technique of
using positive mental images to create a desired physical outcome, has
been found to improve stress, anxiety and depression, as well as some of
the side-effects of chemotherapy.3
Some
studies even suggest that guided imagery can directly affect the immune
system. Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland
found that breast cancer patients who practices guided imagery for
eight weeks increased their levels of natural killer cells—specialized
immune cells that play a major role in tumour rejection.
However,
this increase was not maintained three months after the treatment
ended, suggesting that the technique needs to be practiced long term to
have lasting positive results.4
Research
also shows that a person's ability to generate mental images and become
absorbed in them as if they were real is a useful predictor of success
with guided imagery.5
