Dr Max Gerson believed that ‘supernutrition’ could help cancer patients. His pioneering diet of salt-free organic vegetarian food, litres of fresh fruit and vegetable juice, enriched with Vitamin B12, has transformed thousands of lives. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Dr Gerson, has even been described by a celebrated former patient, humanitarian Dr Albert Schweitzer, as ‘one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine.’

My introduction to Gerson diet came 20 years ago when a friend with lymphatic cancer was told he had three months to live. We helped raise funds for him to travel to the Gerson Clinic in Mexico. My friend pulled through. This dramatic success inspired my wife and me to work with our daughter who was diagnosed with a pre-cancerous condition during her last year at university in 1995. And so began a 40-hour-a-week routine of preparing enough fruit and vegetables, for 13 glasses of juice a day and copious amounts of ‘Hippocrates soup’, a Gerson vegetarian speciality. The ‘supernutrition’ diet harmonises the body’s biochemistry, elevates the workings of a suppressed immune system, and rectifies the malfunctioning of essential organs. It worked for our daughter. The pre-cancerous cells in her cervix disappeared. And last New Year’s Day she gave birth to our first grandchild.

The Gerson Institute is now run by Dr Gerson’s daughter Charlotte in San Diego, Calfornia. The UK support group can be contacted at www.gersonsupportgroup.org.uk Telephone: +44 (0)1372 817652.

Mark Winter