Where to go for treatment

Our Current Work

If a scientist is lucky, there might come a time when he finds his labors adsorbed into a new and larger paradigm. In this new paradigm, one's life's work can find a new context in which one simultaneously sees both its historical roots and its tremendous possibilities for the future. Such was my experience with Dr. Josef Issels.

As an American, I had not been aware of his monumental contributions until our mutual interests brought us together. As we sat together and Josef spoke, I came to realize that I was now in the presence of a scientifically-grounded clinical genius who had devised a way to clear the jumble of distorted proteins and molecules underlying the disease process. As he explained his profound understanding of the biology of disease and his strategies to overcome it, I was astonished to envision my own two decades of study and publication in Gerson's dietotherapy suddenly shrinking in importance. At the same time, I began to see how the diet therapy, which I had studied as a first line treatment, could be better used in support of Josef's complex management. Josef had always included an effective nutritional approach as part of his treatment, but he was sufficiently impressed by outcomes we had published that he had thought deeply about the possibilities. He proposed that we work to modify our diet therapy (already modified from Gerson's) to incorporate it into his masterfully constructed treatment.

As we worked together over the next several years, a great deal of my time was spent studying Josef's methods of diagnosis and treatment, and the deep science which informed his approach. The first responses we observed in people with cancer surprised even Josef who remarked, "I have never seen such rapid tumor response." I watched with wonder and excitement as people recovered from diseases so advanced that I had no positive expectations. This, truly, was a physician in the tradition of Asclepius (Hippocrates himself was an Asclepian healer). With his treatment, he had already been capable to reverse advanced cancers in a substantial percentage of cases, but he jumped at the chance to enhance his treatment with an eye on curing even more people. He was satisfied that his judgement had been sound, and that this enhanced version of the treatment was an improvement.

I am still a "Gerson expert," and this website still contains the fruits of my research and publication on the subject. But I am now an Issels scientist, and my current waking hours and dreams are filled with the heady scientific disciplines harnessed by Josef into a legitimate and unique medical treatment system. Indeed, should you take the time in this website to look at and listen to my online lecture and slide presentation on Josef's work, you may find yourself taken by the same transport of scientific rapture that has captured me.

My wife and research partner Christeene and I now spend our days working with attending physician Yolanda Mejia, MD, in our current project, the Issels Treatment Center of the Oasis of Hope Hospital. It is eight years since my first conversation with Josef, but I continue to learn more every day about how prescient his insights were. Every day the scientific journals are filled with findings predicted by Josef. We miss the great man since his death in February of 1998, but we still have the pleasure of working with him every day.

— Gar Hildenbrand, San Diego

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WARNING:

Dr. Gerson's therapy is best done under the supervision of a physician experienced with the process. When you embark on the process of correcting the sodium/potassium/water balance in all of the cells of your body, your cells will be releasing stored toxins, tissues will function better, and your immune system may mount a defence against pathogens and in some cases malignant cells that the body has previously been unable to target. An immune response to disease can be painful and uncomfortable, and it can be serious enough to warrant medical attention. It can even be life-threatening. The therapy can be ineffective at best, or even dangerous, if it is done incompletely, incorrectly, or if it is administered to the wrong patient for the wrong medical reasons.

Dr. Gerson's therapy is not static, nor is it something that you do for the rest of your life without modification. Depending on your progress, the therapy needs to be changed to meet your needs. Knowing when and how to modify the program for yourself may be difficult or impossible without both medical training and a thorough grounding (clinical experience) in the therapy. We strongly recommend that you spend some time at a medical treatment center to get yourself grounded in the therapy and to establish contact with experienced medical professionals before continuing the therapy at home. The home therapy is really extended care and requires ongoing medical and diagnostic follow-up.

If you feel you must try to do the therapy completely on your own, that is your decision. You will not be the first. But please, do try to get in contact with a doctor who can help you through it.

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