Fasting: A Medical Miracle-I

The human body is exposed to many harmful substances and toxins which may accumulate in its tissue, most of which come from the food one eats excessively, especially these days when many societies lead luxurious lives and there is a great abundance of foods of different kinds. New techniques play an important role in enhancing, preparing and making food pleasant. People, in turn, consume them excessively, which causes imbalance in the greater part of the vital processes inside the body's cells. This, without doubt, is the cause behind the emergence of what are called the diseases of modern civilization like obesity, arteriosclerosis, hypertension, heart attacks, cerebral stroke, pulmonary embolism, cancer, allergies, immunity diseases, and so on. 

Medical references mention that almost all foods in this age contain toxic substances in small quantities, added to the food during its preparation or preservation in the form of flavors, colors, antioxidants and preservatives, or chemically to plants or animals in the form of growth promoters, antibiotics, fertilizers and their derivatives. Some plants contain, in their composition, harmful materials and others have a ratio of microorganisms which secrete their toxins into them and expose them to pollution.

In addition, there are the pollutants that we breathe in with car exhausts and factory gases, and also the medicines that people take without medical supervision, together with the toxins produced by the infinite number of microorganisms dwelling in our bodies. Finally, there are the internal combustion toxins swimming in the blood like carbon dioxide, urea, creatinine, ammonia, sulfates, uric acid, and so on, and the toxins of digested food and the toxic gases percolating from its fermentation and putrefaction like indole, skatole and phenol.

However, fortunately, Allah, The Almighty, has made for the body an exit for these toxins. The liver, which is the main organ for cleansing the body from toxins, deactivates a lot of these substances and transforms them into beneficial ones like urea, creatinine and ammonia salts. But the liver’s capacity is limited and it may be deficient because of diseases or natural causes like aging, as a result of which some of these substances are deposited into the body's tissues – and especially into the fat deposits.

The liver transforms a large spectrum of toxic, mostly fat-soluble particles into non-toxic water-soluble particles to be secreted by the liver through the digestive system or be expelled via the kidneys.

Fasting is a Blessing

During fasting, great quantities of fats stored in the body are transferred to the liver to be oxidized and benefitted from. The toxins dissolved in them is extracted and after having toxicity removed from them, they are discharged from the body along with waste matter. The cholesterol in these fats which gather in the liver from their stores helps to increase the production of bile compounds in the liver, which, in turn, dissolve these toxins and expel them with the excrement.

Fasting, moreover, serves the liver cells. By oxidizing fatty acids, these cells are able to get rid of their stored fat and become active to perform their task in the best manner. They neutralize many toxic substances by adding sulfuric and gluconic acids, thus they become ineffective and the body gets rid of them.

The liver absorbs any tiny substances like those of carbon, which enter the blood stream when their particles are swallowed, via special cells called Kupffer cells which line the hepatic sinuses and are secreted with the bile.

While fasting, these cells become at the highest level of activity to perform their functions and devour the bacteria after being attacked by compacted antibodies.

Since during fasting the catabolic (breaking down) processes in the liver exceed the anabolic (building up) processes in the metabolism, there is a better opportunity to get rid of the toxins accumulated in the body cells during this period, and the hepatic cells become more active in eliminating the toxicity of many toxic substances.
Thus, fasting is a health-certificate of soundness for the body systems. According to Dr. Bernarr Mcfadden - a practicing physician concerned with studying fasting and its effects, everybody needs to fast, even if not sick, because the toxins of food and medicine gather in the body and make it sick and too heavy to work. But if one fasts, he gets rid of the burden of these toxins, and feels more active and stronger than before.

The lazy person in Ramadan who prefers sleep to work and idleness to movement

According to medical references, muscular movement during the period of post-absorption of food during fasting oxidizes some particular amino acids like leucine, isoleucine, and valine, which are included under the “branched-chain amino acids”. After the muscular cells get the energy coming from that oxidation, this produces within the cells alanine and glutamine, two of the most important amino acids. The former is essential in manufacturing new glucose in the liver; whereas the latter is a constituent part in manufacturing nucleic acids, and some of it transforms into the primary acid. Activity and movement trigger glucose oxidation in the muscular cells, a process that produces both pyruvic and lactic acids, which are considered the primary fuel in manufacturing hepatic glucose.

The branched-chain amino acids oxidize in the muscles; and the alanine is the most important amino acid to be formed in the muscles during fasting, as it rises up to about 30% of the oxidation of some amino acids in addition to the pyruvate, and it transforms into pyruvate via the glucose manufacturing cycle in the liver, and glucose oxidation in the muscles.

The muscular system consumes the glucose coming from the liver to get energy. If the movement increases and the available glucose becomes insufficient to provide the muscles with energy, they will get their needs from the oxidation of free fatty acids coming from the decomposition of fat in the fatty tissues. If the fatty acids decrease, the muscles get their necessary energy from the acetone/ketone bodies resulting from fat oxidation in the liver. This confirms that activity and movement trigger oxidation of all compounds which provide the body with energy, as well as the decomposition of fat, the manufacturing of glucose in the liver from the Glycerol resulting from the decomposition of fat in the fatty tissue, and from lactate resulting from glucose oxidation in the muscles.
To be continued … 

-islamweb.net