office hours
Practice Member Login
Integrative Cancer Coaching in West Palm Beach
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self- evident." Arthur Schopenhauer
"Sixty-six percent of all department chairs at universities in America have financial contracts with pharmacy device companies, so it makes sense that the pharmaceutical industry in this country is about developing artificial remedies that you can patent. That's why you won't find research on non-patentable natural cures and healing. " Khalil Mahmud, MD, FACP(retired oncologist)
Hyperthermia/Thermotherapy
Currently there are three options to treat cancer: Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Even though cancer patients are treated in the early stages with the three methods, the recurrence rate is almost 60 to 70%. Surgery is only able to remove visible cancer, but cannot remove cancer at a cellular level. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy not only attack cancer cells, but normal cells as well. Therefore, it is very difficult to completely remove cancer from our body.
Even in large hospitals, doctors still say, “We cannot do anything for you anymore”, when these three treatment options are no longer effective. They end up prescribing opioid drugs to relieve pain and ask the patients to live out their last days with their families. In these cases, the side effects of anti-cancer drugs reduce the patient’s quality of life. They end up dying in pain that may be due to the anti-cancer drugs rather than the disease.
Hyperthermia stimulates the body’s own immune system to work harder at fighting disease
Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D. suggests that therapeutic hyperthermia can be used to treat cancer, HIV and hepatitis C. Recent research findings indicate that hyperthermia stimulates the body’s own immune system to work harder at fighting disease. As more drug-resistant strains of cancer, AIDS and other viruses appear, the importance of improving a patient’s own immunological defenses becomes increasingly clear.
Clinicians can induce hyperthermia in which the body temperature rises to at least 104 degrees F using artificial heat sources that circulate a patient’s blood through an external heat exchanger. Modern technology allows for control of body temperature to within 1/10th of a degree. The clinician controls precisely the rate at which the body is heated and the duration as called for in the treatment protocol while monitoring the patient’s vital signs. Researchers and practitioners have achieved impressive results by inducing body temperatures of 107.6 degrees F (42degrees C). The heat is applied to the body to weaken cancer cells. Our treatment method also combines effective supplements that fight the cancer from various angles.
Why do we need hyperthermia in an age of modern pharmaceuticals, radiation therapy, and genetic engineering?
Hyperthermia treatments offer primarily three benefits:
- Increased effectiveness of chemotherapy and/or radiation therefore reducing the need for high dosages and side effects of the drugs. (This allows the chemotherapy and/radiation to work much better than if offered alone with less of a chance for recurrence).
- Heats the internal body temperature to 104-107 degrees F which physiologically shrinks tumor masses/cells.
- Increases the body’s immune system through heat sensitive proteins allowing the body to heal itself much faster.
Fever is one of the body’s vital natural defenses against disease
We now accept that fever is one of the body’s vital natural defenses against disease. We shouldn’t always fight it, and inducing fever has many benefits. In the 1940’s, most physicians regarded fever as desirable. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, induced fever to treat certain cancers, as part of an overall treatment involving surgery and radiation. If we combine chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy with hyperthermia, we can achieve the same effect with a dosage where there are minimal side effects.
Research into the workings of the human and animal immune systems indicates that heat-sensitive proteins on the walls of certain white blood cells are a vital component of the immune system. Heat actually stimulates white blood cells and other parts of the immune system to more aggressive activity to fight disease.
Hippocrates noted that fever therapy might be beneficial when medicines or surgery did not suffice.
Up until the 1930’s, whole body hyperthermia was induced using serum injections to cause a fever induced state. In the middle 1800’s, the German physician Dr. William Busch observed spontaneous remission of bone tumors in patients who experienced prolonged fever episodes.
In 1927, Julius Wagner-Jauregg, an Australian physician, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his successful work using malaria serum fever induction in patients plagued with neuro-complications of syphilis. Dr. Kettering expanded on the idea of “fever therapy” and, by,applying state-of-the-art engineering, produced a humidified heat chamber. His chambers were widespread use until the early-to-mid 1950’s.
Disseminated cancers can be the hardest to treat with chemotherapy or radiation. Solid research and clinical practice records in the United States and Europe suggest that hyperthermia is worth considering as a treatment in combination with other therapies. In fact, the National Cancer Institute currently lists its research protocols involving disseminated cancer and hyperthermia. As Hippocrates made clear, a physician’s duty is not to any particular treatment, but to the patient’s well being. Two thousand years later, after many medical advances, this basic truth remains unchanged. (1).
The goal of cancer treatment is to have a symbiosis with cancer
The aim is to weaken the cancer to prevent it from spreading and to lengthen the patients’ lives. If human lives were destroyed in the course of killing cancer cells, then the therapeutic methods would have no purpose.
Hyperthermia is inexpensive, effective and since there are no side effects, it can be used frequently.
The result of chemotherapy is highly dependent on an intact immune system. Anti-cancer drugs not only attack cancer cells but normal cells as well. That is why anti-cancer drugs have severe side effects. If we adjust the dosage, we can minimize the side effects. If we improve our body’s immune system, we will be able to minimize the dosage of anti-cancer drugs. This can be very effective in fighting off cancer. However, it is important to know about the anti-cancer drugs in order to minimize the dosage while still allowing them to be effective on the cancer cells.
Hypothermia is related to life. Since most cancer patients’ body temperatures are under 36 degrees C, we need to increase the body temperature in order to improve the patient’s immune system. When the body temperature is decreased by 1 degree the following occurs:
36% of immune function declines!
12% of basic metabolism declines!
50% of enzyme activities decline!
It is well known that cancer cells are heat sensitive. That is why thermotherapy that heats up the body from the outside is very effective. When the tumor mass is at 42 degrees C, it will become inactive. Even though normal cells can handles temperatures of up to 47 degrees C,cancer cells can only handle temperatures up to 42 degrees C.
However, since a normal cell’s temperature is limited up to 40 degrees C due to the cooling effects of blood flow, they will not be as affected as the tumor cells. Therefore, when the temperature is increased to more than 42 degrees C, cancer cells are more likely to die naturally.
When a cancer cell’s DNA is damaged by radiation and chemotherapy, it will become weak for a period of time but will soon recover. However,when the cells reach 42 degrees C in temperature, their repair functions will be disabled and they will die off. Even though it may resist heat for a short period of time, repetitive treatment will cause its resistance to weaken. Therefore, repetitive hyperthermia will cause immune functions to improve and cause the cancer cells to die away.
When the body temperature is at 39-40 degrees C, the body’s immune system is improved 2-20 times. When people sweat, dioxins, lead, mercury, chemicals and heavy metals deposited within the body will be secreted as well.
Heat shock proteins (HSP) reverse disease
Another reason why hyperthermia is so effective is because of its activation effects for heat shock proteins (HSP). Heat shock protein is known to protect cells from thermal stress when thermal stress is applied to the cells.
In order for our body to prevent HSP secretions and allow it to recover, our brain actively secretes hormones called endorphins. People sometimes feel happy when they run or exercise. Such effects have to do with the B-endorphin that provides positive emotions and relieves pain. Therefore, it is believed that when hyperthermia is performed on patients, B endorphins are secreted to protect our patient’s body from pain. 80% of cancer patients are prescribed morphine to control their pain. However, in hyperthermia patients typically do not need the pain medications.
In addition, heat shock proteins activate lymphocytes called natural killer cells and promote the synthesis of anti-cancer interferons to strengthen the body’s immune system. When the body is heated with hyperthermia, heat shock proteins basic function is to protect the body from stress and repair damaged cells. It also activates other immune cells by detecting foreign bodies within the body and makes cancer cells vulnerable to other immune cells. Since heat shock proteins are made by heating up the normal cells, we do not need to heat up the body as much as when we treat cancer.
A chance for a cure and the lengthening of your life
If you can walk and have a good appetite, there is a chance for a cure and the lengthening of your life. You do not have to give up just because you were diagnosed with late-stage cancer. It is important for you to believe that you have a natural immunity that can “cure” your own body. Life is not something that doctors can decide on and make rulings about; if you have a strong motivation to cure disease and become healthy, your genes will start to cure your disease with natural immunity.
Hyperthermia may be applied to any patients with cancer (with the exception of brain tumors) who are well enough to intake food orally and take a hot bath.
The fight against cancer does not end with the three standard treatment options. It is valid to say that we have options as I am certain that hyperthermia will be beneficial to those diagnosed with cancer. There are a plethora of references (too many to list) to support the clinical efficacy of hyperthermia. For a detailed reference list, contact our office at (561) 964-9191.
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom." Benjamin Rush, M.D.
References:
C. Everett Koop, M.D. Healing with Heat. October 1999 No.II.
Additional Information
The Cancer-Protective Benefits of Progesterone
email doctor