There are many in the world of natural health, mostly writers, who are not sure about the Budwig Diet’s core protocol. They see it as illusory and irrelevant for reversing cancer. She has also added additional dietary conditions to her protocol. Johanna Budwig also includes effective stress management and sunlight control to heal the condition.
Her core protocol comprises cottage cheese and flaxseed oil. The lady used quark in place of cottage cheese. Quark is a flaky textured white cheese used in Scandinavia, German-speaking areas, and Eastern Europe. It resembles ricotta. Interestingly, it has not made it to the American continent. So Budwig’s core protocol has cottage cheese here in place of quark.
Dr. Andrew Weil has also mocked the Budwig Diet, saying that it is nothing more than ‘wishful’ thinking that someone could cure cancer using cottage cheese.
Despite all these critics, Johanna Budwig has a solid cancer-curing record in Germany. Approximately 4,500 patients suffering from different kinds of cancer approached her for treatment and more than 90% of them were cured. It is only spectacular that many of them have reached the terminal stage.
Scientific Evidence Behind Curing Cancer with Flaxseed Oil & Quark/Cottage Cheese
Before we elaborate on the scientific evidence behind the effectiveness of this protocol, it will be worthwhile looking at who Johanna Budwig is. Johanna herself is a senior scientist who worked with the German Federal Health Office (GFHO). She was a physicist and biochemist. The GFHO is the equivalent of the FDA and without all the bureaucratic corruption that is prevalent in our American agency. Johanna’s role was to oversee the ingredients in the cancer-curing medicines developed by German pharmaceutical companies.
It was during her job that she came across an application from a pharma company. The application was for one of the sulfhydryl groups – amino acids (proteins) containing sulfur. She noticed that the company applied this sulfhydryl group for cancer medication.
Johanna learned from the company’s application about the challenges involved in the oxygenation of cancer cells using diet. It is a well-known fact that cancer cells cannot live in oxygen.
Dr. Otto Warburg, the Nobel Prize Winner (1931) had worked to resolve this challenge. The professor had found that cancer cells required an anaerobic environment for survival. They couldn’t live in an environment with oxygen. His work involved finding some respiratory enzymes that could help in the oxygenation of cancer cells.
Warburg was far ahead of his time. He knew that fats were somehow related to slowing down/improving the absorption of oxygen at a cellular level. The only limitation that prevented further findings was that fats had not yet been classified for their biochemical structure/function at that time.
But Budwig was able to discover techniques to determine various fatty acid properties in 1951. She received funding to work on her research to categorize the various properties of fatty acids. Her work involved the examination of the molecular properties of different fats. She was able to differentiate between unsaturated and saturated fats. She was also able to differentiate between fats that isolated lauric acid and linoleic acid. She was also successful in studying the inhibiting/enhancing properties of fats in cellular oxygen absorption.
Interestingly, what we know most about fatty acids today is based on Budwig’s work over 6 decades ago.
Dr. Budwig’s Research Work
Dr. Johanna Budwig published a paper in 1952 that elaborated on the results of her research work. She stated that the absence of these fatty acids inhibits the functioning of respiratory enzymes. This causes the person to suffocate even when they are provided with oxygen-laden air. If there is a deficiency of these unsaturated fatty acids, several vital body functions get impaired.
She states in her paper that the deficiency of the fatty acid will decrease the supply of available oxygen in the person. She further adds that we humans cannot live without food, air, and these fatty acids.
Dr. Budwig found during her studies that a combination of organic cold-pressed flaxseed oil with quark (or cottage cheese) would ideally replenish our fatty acids needs. Quark is an easily digestible protein-sulfur and flaxseed oil is the most appropriate fat and it helps the respiratory enzyme in penetrating cancer cells. She learned that the two foods combined and generated oxygen within cancer cells and restored normal conditions.
Thus, the Budwig Diet was created after rigorous research work. In fact, she couldn’t create it until her work and discoveries were completed with regard to understanding the properties of fatty acids.
Quark or cottage cheese and pure cold pressed flax oil meant for treating cancer should not be seen as just a culinary trait.
The Story of Dr. Johanna Budwig
Dr. Johanna Budwig was born in 1908 and lived until 2003 at the ripe age of 95. She died because of injuries from a fall. Her research work earned her 7 nominations for the Alternative Nobel Prize. This is Europe’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
When she began treating so many cancer patients (including terminal ones) naturally, she started facing stiff and harsh resistance in Germany. She was pulled to German courts on two occasions but the court verdicts stood in her favor. She furthered her qualifications and earned a PhD in Natural Sciences to become a Naturopath. This gave further authority to her practice.
Her progressive studies and education further helped her understand the relation sunlight and bio-electrical energy have with living beings. In her work, she has also talked about the absorption of energy from the sun by seeds like flaxseeds and how it is connected to our intelligence in converting bio-electric energy for our organic needs. This concept has led to her therapy that relates to the consumption of flax oil.
Another challenge Dr. Budwig faced was that she was blacklisted by the medical community. She went public with her opposition to radiation and chemotherapy for cancer patients.
She also faced the ire of the salad/cooking oil manufacturing industry because she was exposed to the adverse health effects of consuming chemically treated and heated hydrogenated/processed oils. These oils were imposed on the public in the 50s.
Even until recently, most people had been consuming these oils. Budwig had exposed that these oils contributed to the creation of cancer. What is concerning is that Dr. Budwig’s work was hidden from going public. Otherwise, several lives would have been saved over the decades.
If you are going to rely on Budwig’s Diet, make sure to know everything about it. for more information about it, visit this site to read testimonials and about her books. If you don’t follow the guidelines, you cannot succeed with this protocol.
Resources:
- Here’s the Budwig diet covers with testimonials and access to all of her books:
The Budwig Diet Cottage Cheese and Flaxseed Oil - Primary Introduction to Dr. Budwig`s Diet, Fats, Essential Fatty Acids, and Related Subjects
1) Cancer: Essentially A Problem of Right and Wrong Fats & Lack of Sunlight?
2) The Oil-Protein Diet Cookbook - Lothar Hirneise is a probationer to Johanna Budwig and translator of her books.
Translated German Interview of Johanna Budwig Circa 1990
Via KHN