Juice therapy, an age old concept is now considered as an alternative for medicine. Juice therapy involves drinking raw juices of fruits and vegetables to detoxification and cleansing of the body. It can also help in curing or preventing certain diseases. Juice therapy can be a part of fasting or just regular diet.

Following are few health benefits of juice therapy:

• Raw juices help in eliminating toxins and cleansing body organs, namely lungs, liver, kidney and skin. Juice fasting provides physiological rest to digestive system.
• Raw fruit and vegetable juices are rich in vitamins, minerals, essential nutrients and natural sugars. They help in healing and are directly assimilated in blood.
• Juices are generally rich in alkaline element and hence they help in normalizing acid–alkaline balance in blood and tissues.
• Raw juices help in restoring biochemical balance and thus prevent premature ageing of tissues and cells.
• Also, fresh vegetables and fruits are full of structured water and enzymes, and so they are very helpful in providing the much needed hydration to body.
• Each fruit or vegetable juice has a certain benefit associated with it and hence it is beneficial in treating a certain disease.

For example – Apple juice relieves weakness of nervous system as well as acts as natural protector for teeth.

Bitter gourd juice is recommended in case of diabetes and also as a blood purifier.

Gooseberry (Amla in Hindi) juice proves helpful in conditions of sterility and semen weakness.

Melon juices are diuretic. It soothes stomach and can also be used for curing constipation.

Few precautions to take while juice fasting are –

• Never overdo a juice diet, 2 weeks at a given time is maximum.
• Prefer only fresh fruits and vegetables and not the canned or frozen ones.
• If the juice is too sweet dilute it with water.
• Avoid storage of juice as it leads to lose of medical value.
• When combining two or more types of juices make sure you know whether the juice is acidic, sub-acidic or alkaline and mix accordingly, certain combinations can cause more damage than benefit.

Juice diet provides minimal calories and little fat or protein. Hence it may not be suitable for all. Patients with certain disease conditions should avoid this kind of diet. Children, pregnant or lactating women or those recovering from major surgeries or illness should not opt for this program.

Juice therapy has lots of advantages however it is not a substitute to medicines. Do not stop your treatment while juice fasting. Always consult your GP before you start this kind of diet as it might be contraindicated in some cases.