November 2018.
I am very excited about what I have learned about heat and light for health.
HEAT – hyperthermia
People with cancer often have a lower basal metabolism – for example, my temperature is typically 97.7 rather than 98.6. That might not seem to be a big deal, but i turns out that even one degree warmer basal metabolism improves the natural immune system significantly.
https://thetruthaboutcancer.com/hyperthermia-treatment/
“For instance, did you know that if your overall body temperature is lowered by just one degree, there is a corresponding decline in immune system function by 40%?”
So, whether taking a hot bath, sunbathing, taking a sauna or exercising – anything that raises your basal temperature is good for your immune system.
Heat also kills cancer cells much more readily than normal cells.
https://https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2987268/
Update: Turning the Heat on Cancer
The use of elevated temperature, hyperthermia, is not a new treatment for cancer. Hippocrates was aware of the potential of heat to cure or shrink tumors. Tumor shrinkage after a high fever due to an infection was reported in 1866
Heat has profound effects on cells.
Clinical trials have shown that the outcome measured by patient survival and tumor regression is often much better when heat and radiation are combined.5 The combined effect of heat and radiation is referred to as heat or thermal radiosensitization. Hyperthermia may be the most potent radiosensitizer known to date. A similar effect is observed with many chemotherapeutic drugs.6 Heat damages proteins required to repair DNA damage. Normal cells typically recover faster than cancer cells when exposed to either heat or the combination of heat and radiation. Additionally, normal tissues have more blood flow than cancerous tissue so that they dissipate heat better
hyperthermia does not damage, and may actually enhance, the immune system, when compared to other cancer therapies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861392/
HT has cytotoxic effects on tumor cells. The sensitivity of tumor cells to heat are higher than normal cells, so they would be destroyed after HT treatment at 42 °C for two hours. Owing to their great thermosensitivity, the temperature of tumor cells is 3–7 °C greater than that of adjacent normal cells when heating. Hence, suitable HT will directly eradicate tumor cells without damaging nearby normal cell
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2828267/
Hyperthermia as an immunotherapy strategy for cancer
Elevated body temperatures have been recognized as beneficial components of the defense immune response against pathogenic stimuli since ancient times [1], with the notion of treating human cancers with heat dates back to the writings of Hippocrates.
Early studies in hyperthermia focused upon the cytotoxic effects of high temperatures and the direct killing of tumor cells.
This review delineates aspects of fever-range to moderate-level hyperthermia
Hsps are a family of stress-induced proteins
The immune system has evolved to take advantage of the ability of Hsps to act as ‘danger signals’, thus allowing the generation of an amplified immune response
NK-cells (natural killer cells) have been reported to be responsive to hyperthermia.
In mice treated with fever-range whole-body hyperthermia, tumor growth was significantly inhibited and NK-cell infiltration increased compared with control-treated animals.