Better in their words…

This is a very interesting piece. mrossol

Source: Heat vs Cancer – by Dr. Colleen Huber

Heat therapy in medicine dates back to at least 5000 years ago in Egypt, as described in surgical papyrus. [1] Arguably, it has been used since the discovery of fire. Evidence of hot compresses have been seen in artifacts of the Yin dynasty of 1600 to 1046 BC. [2][3] Later, Bian Que, also known as Qin Yueren, used hot compresses and burning herbs such as mugwort placed near the body, a practice known as moxibustion, to treat human ailments in the 5^th to 4^th century BC China. [4] To give some idea of how important heat as a therapy may have been to the ancient Chinese, one of the most celebrated and enduring ancient Chinese medical texts was the Treatise on Cold Damage. [5] Heat therapy has also been used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine.

Regarding cancer, the ancient Greeks applied heat to malignant tumors. 2,400 years ago Hippocrates mentioned use of heat in treating a breast tumor.

In the late 19^th century, American physician William Coley induced fever in cancer patients and reported spontaneous regression of tumors. However, his methods of inducing fever would likely be seen as frightening by today’s standards, because of deliberate exposure of the patient to Streptococcus bacteria, inducing the erysipelas infectious disease. It has not been completely understood whether the microbe or the fever induced by the microbe was the causative agent of tumor regression. [6] [7]

In 1971, American scientists A. Westra and W.C. Dewey wrote of their experiments in hyperthermia in animals. Their work earned the attention of the radiation biology community of the time. In 1975, 100 participants gathered in the International Symposium on Cancer Therapy by Hyperthermia and Radiation. More international symposia followed, and the North American Hyperthermia Society was founded in 1981, later becoming the Society for Thermal Medicine. That organization and its medical journal are linked in the New Developments section below.

In U.S. clinics, heat therapy is used for arthritis patients, cancer patients, and painful conditions as an alternative to pain medication.

To use heat effectively against cancer, we have to know how each type of cell (cancerous and normal) processes heat.

If there is one thing I have learned in twenty years practicing naturopathic oncology with cancer patients of all stages, and all types of cancer it is this:

The more we know about the differences (biochemical, physiological, histological) between cancer cells and normal cells, and how to target the former without harming the latter, the more we can “crank up the heat,” one might say, while seeing the best observed results.

At least that has been our experience and goal at Nature Works Best Medical Clinic in Tempe, AZ, since our inception in 2006. As I’ve discussed with patients over the years, the Holy Grail so to speak of cancer treatment is to observe those differences between normal cells and cancer cells, and to exploit that difference, in order to support the normal cells while eliminating the cancer cells.

How much heat?

Temperatures over 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) have been used to ablate tumor cells. [8] However, clinically, it has been observed that temperatures between 108.5 and 113 degrees Fahrenheit have killed cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. Others have found that 104 to 113 Fahrenheit (which is 40 to 44 degrees Celsius) is adequate to kill cancer cells. [9] Lethal effects on cancer cells have appeared in less than one hour, sometimes as soon as ten minutes. [10]

In a study that is no longer viewable on the internet, unfortunately, most normal (non-cancerous) cells were shown to be unharmed during over an hour exposure to 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Unfortunately, this study was removed from the internet, and only the abstract remains. [11] Only neural tissue was found to be more sensitive to that temperature for that duration, and should not be subject to such long exposure at that temperature.

How it works – Mechanisms of action

It is thought that several peculiar vulnerabilities of cancer result in effective attack by way of heat. Cancer cells grow so quickly that they cannot acquire enough fuel for metabolism in normal temperature, let alone the increased metabolism that is stimulated by heat. The chaotic and frenzied growth of cancer cells renders them vulnerable to the even further reaches of hypermetabolism that targeted heat induces in tissue. As a result of heat application, we see changes in the cell membrane and nucleus, denaturation of proteins and changes in the calcium permeability in the calcium channels. [12] [13] Changes in the cytoskeleton and membranes result that then overwhelm the heated cancer cells.

At first glance, this process sounds destructive. How can it be helpful to cancer patients while fighting against the cancer process?

The reason that heat is so helpful to the cancer patient, and so destructive against cancer is that there are more vulnerabilities of cancer than of normal tissue in the presence of heat. Even better, there is selectivity of malignant tissue over normal tissue in heat therapy. Heated tissue to the above temperatures results in 30% increase in intracellular temperature above normal. It so happens that malignant cells generally have rigid membranes due to increased phospholipid concentrations. So an increase in externally applied heat, results in an increase in pressure, which results in further rising internal temperature. This effect selectively destroys malignant cells rather than normal ones,[14] particularly in the liver, brain and pancreas,[15] as well as the bladder, cervix, rectum, lung, esophagus, vulva and vagina as well as for melanoma. Those improvements were not only noted in reduction and destruction of tumor tissue, but also in overall survival from cancer. [16] Our clinic has also found heat therapy of great benefit against colon, ovarian, uterine, endometrial and prostate cancers, in addition to the above types of cancer.

Heat at the cell membrane depolarizes and destabilizes it. This uses up ATP, which is in short supply in a cancer cell, anyway, because of its relatively few and damaged mitochondria, and this is why the stressed cancer cell dies. Without ATP, it cannot survive.

Cancer cells are hypoxic and are thus acidotic. This enables a further one-two punch from heat against cancer.

Hypoxia causes cancerous tissue to rise to a higher temperature than normal tissue. Acidity of cancerous cells also was a factor in cancer’s vulnerability to heat. With pH below 7.4, exposure of tumor cells to heat increased apoptosis, especially cells in S phase, by more than a factor of 100. Hypoxia also increased apoptosis, with hyperthermia, even though tumor hypoxia is a factor in its resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These features, acidity and hypoxia, are both characteristics of cancer cells, and both are vulnerabilities of cancer cells to the effects of heat.

Although heat increases blood flow, it inhibits angiogenesis, by destruction of, and inability to form, new blood vessels.[17] [18] This is yet another means of attack on cancer by use of heat.

In these ways, heat exploits the vulnerabilities of cancer cells to destroy them. Normal cells, on the other hand, are resilient to the effects of moderate heat.

Heat shock proteins

Yet another very helpful effect of heat against cancer are heat shock proteins. These are distress signal proteins that cancer cells display on their surface after heat is applied to them. But normal cells do not express this. As I said before, the “holy grail” of cancer treatment is to find and use those treatments that are toxic to cancer cells while being harmless or even nourishing to normal cells.

Heat shock proteins are one such tool. The cells that expressed heat shock proteins on their surfaces were found to be more susceptible to destruction by lysis from natural killer effector cells. [19] [20] And then, as a further result of the heat shock protein display, macrophages and dendritic cells join in the coordinated destruction of cancer cells. [21]

That is, in a way, heat applied to cancer cells causes those cells to wave obvious flags of surrender to the allied forces of the immune system (NK cells, macrophages and dendritic cells especially). And then the destruction of the cancer cells begins.

New developments and further reading in the treatment of cancers with heat

The International Journal of Hyperthermia reports developments in the therapeutic uses of heat, including tumor ablation and high intensity and frequency ultrasound (HIFU) as applied to tumors. It is an “open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing research and clinical studies on thermal energy-based disease treatments.”

The Society for Thermal Medicine holds conferences on hyperthermia treatment for cancer and other diseases, and “strives to encourage the advancement of thermal medicine in all areas of natural and medical sciences.”

Hyperthermia encompasses factors of tumor temperature, heat dose and non-thermal effects, the analysis of which may become quite complex mathematical physiology. An in-depth discussion of the thermodynamics equations may be seen in Szasz, Physical Background and Technical Realizations of Hyperthermia. [22]

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