Heather Auty-Johns, 48, had always enjoyed good health. But all that changed when she went on holiday to Florida in May 2004. Instead of a pleasant break Auty-Johns spent the two weeks feeling “really uncomfortable in my stomach and extremely tired”.

Back home in London, she went to her GP because on the first day of her holiday she had also started to pass blood from her bowel. Her GP treated her as an emergency, and Auty-Johns had a sigmoidoscopy, an examination of the lower part of the colon, followed by several colonoscopies, enabling doctors to look at the whole of her large intestine.

“These procedures were horrendous as my colon was so inflamed and sore. The bleeding was worse and I started to pass a lot of mucus. Some days I felt too scared to eat anything, as the pain afterwards was so intense. I felt drained and was going to bed as soon as I got home,” says Auty-Johns. Four colonoscopies later and over a year after the symptoms began, tests showed that her bowel was covered with ulcers. The diagnosis was ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the large intestine or colon. It is a type of auto-immune disease in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues. It seems only to affect those who are genetically susceptible, and the susceptibility is passed down in families. What triggers the condition is unconfirmed; it may be particular types of bacteria getting into the digestive tract.

Auty-Johns was prescribed Asacol, an antiinflammatory drug, at the beginning of 2005, but six months later her symptoms hadn’t improved. “If anything, they’d got worse,” she recalls. “I also started to get severe pain under my ribs. One morning I walked into my boss’s office and passed out with the pain.”

Her consultant offered her surgery, to remove her gall bladder and part of her bowel. But then her husband came across a book on the internet called Self-healing Crohn’s and Colitis, by an American called David Klein who practised “natural hygiene”, a healing technique that uses fasting.

In January 2006 Auty-Johns, a human resources manager, was put in touch with Gina Shaw, a natural hygiene practitioner. Shaw explained that the recommended fasts could be juice-only or water-only, and that such fasting removed the body’s need to use energy for digestion. “This, along with complete rest, gives the body the opportunity to focus on detoxifying and repairing itself,” she says. “This works especially well on bowel diseases such as colitis, Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome.”

First, she used iridology as a means of diagnosing Auty-Johns’s bowel trouble, inspecting the iris of the eye to determine health problems. She noted that the gall bladder, liver and kidneys all had a “weakness” too. “It made sense that she needed to detoxify to take the burden away from these organs and be on the road to self-healing,” says Shaw. She took a full history of dietary and lifestyle details, blood pressure and pulse, and Auty-Johns organised three months off work to focus on getting herself well again. “I had finally found someone who understood what I was going through,” she says.

In March last year, under Shaw’s guidance, she came off all medication and started an initial two-week fast, when her only food intake was fruit and vegetable juice, such as carrot, spinach, beetroot, celery, apple, orange. She says that at the start she missed the social aspects of eating, but generally she found the whole thing quite easy.

Then she moved on to a one-week vegetable juice fast, and then a three-week vegetable juice and water fast. In total, she fasted for six weeks. Every day, she took her own blood pressure, pulse and temperature. Some days her blood pressure was very low and her blood sugar levels were so erratic that she felt really weak, and couldn’t get out of bed.

“I reassured her that this was to be expected and that her body was using all its energy to get better, and that staying in bed was helping her to allow her body to get on with things,” says Shaw, who spoke to her on the phone twice a day. However, approach juice-fasting with caution says Alice Wyatt, a spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Assocition. “People can go for quite a long time without food, but there is a risk of malnutrition with this type of fasting.” She recommends that anyone considering juice-fasting should speak to their GP or consultant, and especially before coming off medication.

For Auty-Johns however, the third week was a turning point. “For the first time in years, I was without pain. Despite feeling and looking awful — I lost 2st [12.7kg] — I knew for sure that I was going about this the right way.” Shaw says: “When her symptoms had disappeared and she felt extreme hunger again, it was obvious that it was time to break the fast.”

At the end, Auty-Johns went back to her normal diet, gradually reintroducing different types of food. It took Auty-Johns a few weeks to regain her appetite and strength, but by mid-June she was able to return to work. “Almost a year on, I can’t remember the last time I felt so well,” she says. “People keep commenting on how healthy I look.”

The raw data

What is it?

Natural-hygiene practitioners believe that the body is self-healing when given the right conditions. They advocate exercise, a raw-food diet, rest and fasting. They say that this helps with all conditions, but is especially good for digestive diseases and depression.

Claims

Fasting relieves the body of digestive processes, which helps to remedy disease. Fasting is not recommended in all cases and can be dangerous without experienced supervision. The British Dietetic Association says to see your GP or consultant before embarking on a fast.

Cost

One-hour consultation, £45. Iridology, one hour, £35. Distance-supervised fast consultation, £220 a week. Residential fast or group fast, £260 a week.

Contact

British Dietetic Association: bda.uk.com; British Natural Hygiene Society: 01636 682941; www.bnhs.ms11.net/bnhs

WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE? DR TOBY MURCOTT

Can fasting help ulcerative colitis?
There is no good evidence that fasting can reduce the symptoms. In fact, malnourishment is a complication with ulcerative colitis due to a poorly functioning bowel. Any fast should be supervised by a qualified medical practitioner. Heather Auty-Johns’s fruit and vegetable juice fast provided some nutrients but not necessarily all those required.

Could the juice have done anything else?
The advice from Colitis UK is that ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease could benefit from avoiding insoluble fibre (in the peel of fruit, veg and whole grains) which can irritate the bowel, and increasing soluble fibre (white rice and the body of fruit and vegetables). The juices Auty-Jones drank may have been low in insoluble fibre.

Is it safe?
There are no good studies showing harm, but fasting is a dramatic intervention, particularly with ulcerative colitis.

Would the iridology have helped?
Iridology is used as a diagnostic tool, but clinical trials have failed to find evidence that it is effective.

Dr Toby Murcott is a former BBC science correspondent

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