This volume provides both an introduction to and a summary of over 50 years of cancer research and treatment. Johanna Budwig (1908-2003) who was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times was one of Germany's leading scientists of the 20th Century, a biochemist and blood specialist with a special interest in fats. Working with Otto Warburg's research into cancer and cellular oxygen-deficiency, she identified in 1951 the precise biochemical breakdown point which results in cancer. Studying the blood of cancer sufferers, she identified cancer principally as a "fat" problem.
She was one of the first to help define the categories of fats into the types that are accepted today. Dr Budwig theorized that restricting the ingestion of the "bad fats" (trans-fats, hydrogenated and saturated fats), while at the same time ingesting plenty of the "good fats" (along with a diet of fresh living foods and juices) would rejuvenate even cancerous cells, oxygenating them once again and healing the sufferer in a healthy way from the inside. Her work therefore stood in opposition to medical orthodoxy with its preference for chemotherapy and irradiation and to the interests representing these.
She chose flax oil as the source of the most abundant supply of the good fats. She knew also that these must be bonded to sulpherated proteins for them to be made water-soluble and easily assimilated by the cells of the body. For this she used quark or cottage cheese (which contains an abundance of such proteins) in a certain ratio to the oil.
In using this Oil-Protein formula with her patients what she found was gratifying indeed. Over a period of approximately 3 months tumours gradually receded. The blood became a healthy red colour, anaemia disappeared and life-energy was restored. Because of the influence of the powerful oil-processing industry in Germany, Dr Budwig was denied publication in medical journals. Nevertheless she continued to publish her research and to treat seriously ill patients with a Protocol that she specially designed. In 50 years of treating cancer sufferers (including many given up by conventional treatment as "terminal") she claimed a success-rate of greater than 90% as long as the Protocol was used correctly.
This volume collects various presentations, interviews and letters to and from Dr Budwig over a 50-year period. Some scientific explanations for her theories and practices are presented which may be difficult to comprehend for the non-scientifically-minded. It is clear that Dr Budwig understood the human being as a being of body, soul and spirit... and that she fully understood that Science and Medicine must learn once again to speak the language of Nature's laws and to cooperate with them if true and lasting healing is to be achieved in the realm of illnesses such as cancer.
Dr Budwig published 15 books in German but only three have so far appeared in English. This volume complements the other two which are currently available, namely "Flax Oil as a True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and Other Diseases" and "The Oil-Protein Diet Cookbook".
However, sadly in terms of the translation from the German and basic editing this volume falls somewhat short of the standards expected of modern scholarship and publishing (hence only 4 stars given). One hopes for the sake of Johanna Budwig's legacy and her most important contribution to humanity that any future editions will have addressed these shortcomings.