Nutrition

Dr. F.X. Mayr’s research into the link between dietary habits,

thorough chewing, intestinal/digestive function and health & beauty

This section devoted to the link between diet, nutrition and health would miss an essential piece of the puzzle without including an overview of the important research done by Austrian natural health researcher and pioneer Dr. F.X. Mayr, M.D.

While (only seemingly) unrelated to cancer, his work centering on the link between digestion and intestinal and overall health certainly has a great bearing on disease prevention (as well as physical beauty), and to my knowledge is unequalled in its detailed and in-depth attention to these matters anywhere.

The intimate connection between intestinal & digestive health and overall health

Dr. F.X. Mayr (1875–1965) succinctly posits: the intestines are to man what the roots are to the plant. Only when these roots are kept in optimal condition and cleanliness, will the plant (man) itself thrive and remain in optimum health.

Thus Dr. Mayr counts among the few medically-trained nutrition experts who acknowledge that the human body is never built on what it ingests but solely on what it digests and absorbs.

In fact, Dr. F.X. Mayr made it a lifelong study to investigate and map in intricate detail the intimate relationship between intestinal health and cleanliness and overall health as well as beauty, and here particularly the beauty and smoothness of the skin.

He found an intimate connection between health of digestion/digestive tract and dermal beauty, making the appearance of the skin and complexion a clear barometer or gauge indicating the overall health and inner cleanliness of the body. The more toxin-laden the digestive tract (and consequently other parts of the body), the more health is endangered and the more the skin will show signs of what is commonly (but erroneously) attributed to aging such as sagging and formation of wrinkles.

Damaging food choices and habits

What damages health and skin according to Dr. F.X. Mayr’s research results are primarily the following factors, all related to wrong food choices and dietary habits:

too much food for the body’s energetic requirements
food that is not properly (insufficiently) chewed and thus not pre-digested
food that overburdens individual digestive capacities or is hard to digest, such as too much raw food, whole grains, cabbage etc.
unwholesome processed food and recreational drugs such as sugar, cigarettes, alcohol etc.
food consumed at the wrong times (such as late at night).

Each of the above can or will lead to intestinal and consequently/eventually bodily toxicity (i.e. stored toxin overload).

It follows from the foregoing that there is little use in eating “tons” of “healthy” things when all the nutrients contained therein might just be destroyed in a polluted, overburdened digestive tract unable to digest them.

What happens instead is that any such undigested food items will fall prey to alcoholic fermentation (starches and sugars) and putrefaction (proteins) respectively, with toxic by-products of these processes flooding the body via various internal pathways. Hence the primordial interest to optimise digestion. (Compare It’s not what you ingest, but what your cells actually absorb.)

Intestinal health & physical beauty: the Mayr diagnostics

Apart from the above-mentioned wrinkling and otherwise skin-damaging effect of unhealthy dietary habits and digestion, bodily posture is also a strong indicator of intestinal and hence overall health. In fact, Dr. Mayr established his own detailed diagnostic system based on bodily signs readable from the state of the facial skin as well as the physical posture.

The cover of the book written by his foremost pupil Dr. Erich Rauch shows the various common forms in which chronic indigestion will posturally express itself according to Dr. F.X. Mayr. While the tall central figure depicts the bodily profile and erect posture of a woman in perfect intestinal health (note the absence of a protruding belly), the smaller figures show the outlines of persons displaying varying degrees of serious intestinal unhealth and toxicity.

The “Mayr cure”: intestinal cleansing, rest and regeneration

Dr. F.X. Mayr developed an intensive but gentle detoxification and “intestinal rest” cure named after him. Spanning seven days to several weeks, the Mayr cure, designed to help cleanse the digestive tract while simultaneously reeducating the taste buds and acquiring healthy eating habits, is very popular in German-speaking countries where many take advantage of it to both take preventative health action, heal various illnesses and improve their looks and appearance.

Mastication = essential pre-digestion with multiple benefits

A major part of the Mayr cure consists in teaching people to properly masticate, i.e. pre-digest their food by thorough chewing (even including drinks such as milk) in order to facilitate and optimise digestion by relieving the digestive tract of part of its burden.

People are instructed to only take small servings into their mouths at a time, to thoroughly masticate and swallow only after complete liquefaction of the food has been attained, and then to wait a moment before the next small serving is taken, and so on.

Careful chewing as above described allows starches to be predigested via the ptyalin secreted in one’s saliva as well as each serving to receive maximum contact with the mouth and esophagus, saving the stomach part of the digestive burden as nature intended (in fact, fractions of the food thus solubilised may even be partly absorbed through the buccal/esophageal mucosa).

Incidentally, such very thorough mastication of small servings was earlier popularized in the US by Horace Fletcher, father of "Fletcherism", who healed himself of a serious “terminal” illness of the kidneys using this method. Among other healings achieved with this apparently simplistic method is the release from alcohol and nicotine addiction.

Essential role of mastication confirmed by modern research

Recent studies validate and further deepen Mayr's insights into the importance of proper chewing. Thorough chewing not only triggers the secretion of gastric and pancreatic juices but breaks down food into increasingly smaller particles. This enlarges the surface area available to the gastric and digestive juices to work on. The result is better extraction and enhanced absorption and assimilation of the nutrients contained in food, making them more "bioavailable"^[1].

This applies to proteins (amino acids)^[2], certain minerals and vitamins, especially from raw fruits and vegetables^[3] and even fats^[4].

There are other important benefits to chewing thoroughly:

Weight loss

Chewing triggers the release of important neurotransmitters such as histamin and the hormone leptin which play a role in appetite regulation. It takes up to twenty minutes after the beginning of a meal for the brain to receive a signal indicating satiety. If one's meals are gulped down in under 20 minutes, the feeling of hunger is likely to persist and/or resurface.

As a result, individuals who thoroughly chew their food have been found to be slimmer. Thorough chewing in fact is the simplest way to reduce one's calorie intake by up to 30%.^[5]

Diabetes type 2

Individuals who eat fast incur a 2.5 higher risk of contracting diabetes and this independently of all other risk factors.^[6] It's likely that food which is gulped down leads to a spike in blood glucose level since the sugar passes too quickly into the blood, a similar effect as after ingesting food items high on the glycemic index scale.

Dental benefits

To read about the essential advantages of thorough chewing for teeth, gums and jawbone, see Tooth remineralisation & demineralisation, saliva & pH (scroll to "Dental health prerequisite number 6)".

And we continue with the Mayr cure...

Internal cleansing

The Mayr cure is combined with the intake of a gentle laxative (Epsom salts), stomach massages etc. and thus helps release pockets of old fecal matter and similar intestinal impurities while draining the body overall of stored toxins.

As an interesting side note, Dr. Mayr found that a perfectly healthy digestion and internal milieu, once re-established, can also be seen by the absence of a need for toilet paper.

Proper food choices, mealtimes... and keep on chewing

The successful Mayr cure is followed up and its health benefits maintained at home by observing individually determined proper food choices and mealtimes. This includes avoidance of all items hard on or interfering with digestion or deleterious to the intestinal tract (and body) such as sugar, cabbage, legumes, too many wholegrain products and raw food items, alcohol, eating late at night etc.

It also includes psychological factors such as avoiding distractions while eating, taking meals in a relaxed atmosphere and so on.^[7] The primordial importance of thorough chewing (no gulping) always needs to be kept in mind.

Extensive details on Dr. F.X. Mayr’s research into healing and prevention via digestive optimisation are found in the book listed below. The German website fxmayr.com formerly featured a picture which showed him on his 80th birthday with wrinkle-free skin.

Book

Did you know? You can support the work of this humanitarian site at no extra cost to you by buying this book or any other item through its Amazon affiliate links or through the link provided on this page.

Health Through Inner Body Cleansing:
The Famous F. X. Mayr Intestinal Therapy from Europe
by Erich Rauch MD

[Amazon partner link — commissions earned — thank you for yor support]

... and for the best, easiest, and least expensive ways I know to heal cancer

after studying the subject for some twenty years, click here.

Footnotes

1 More on the subject under Bioavailability of minerals.

2 See Postprandial whole-body protein metabolism after a meat meal is influenced by chewing efficiency in elderly subjects.

3 See Particle size reduction leading to cell wall rupture is more important for the β-carotene bioaccessibility of raw compared to thermally processed carrots.

4 See Mastication of almonds: effects of lipid bioaccessibility, appetite, and hormone response.

5 See "Effects of oral and gastric stimulation on appetite and energy intake" (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22592331), Effect of bite size and oral processing time of a semisolid food on satiation, and Increasing the number of chews before swallowing reduces meal size in normal-weight, overweight, and obese adults.

6 See Fast eating and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. A case-control study and Effects of changes in eating speed on obesity in patients with diabetes: a secondary analysis of longitudinal health check-up data.

7 In addition to agreeing on the importance of mastication, psychic Edgar Cayce went so far as to state that food taken when upset, angry or distressed would not be digested and become toxic to the body. See A Summary of Edgar Cayce's Readings. We do know that stress inhibits digestion (such as by lowered motility of the digestive system).

Related sections

Detoxification

Nutrition