Hyperthermic or fever therapy for Cancer

by Dr Keith Scott-Mumby

So often in the science of healing we come around to the fact that Nature knows best and if we just leave well alone, we can do the most good. So it is that high fever is often a very beneficial response to disease and doctors are wrong to fight it with medicines like aspirin and paracetomol. Biological enzyme systems, and that includes those acting as part of the defence process, work best at around 1030F, at which level they are around 10 times more active than at 98.40F (370C). Thus fever actually helps the immune system fight efficiently and we should be very chary indeed about interfering. Otherwise we get a disease which has never properly resolved the natural way and can go on for years smouldering away.

The new discipline of electro-acupuncture shows us how often childhood diseases, such as measles, just hang up in time and then haunt us later as damaged immune systems. Cancer, let me remind you, is very much a disease of weakened immunity. Yet scientific studies show that where measles has been allowed to progress naturally and resolve itself, the children actually emerge as healthier than those kids treated heavily by intervention.

Probably the only time a fever should be blocked is in the case of febrile convulsions. Fits are always bad and should be held in check. But we can always sponge the child down! Sometimes the simple remedies make the most sense.

An exciting new anti-cancer alternative treatment is to deliberately create a fever. When I say new, this approach has been around for over 100 years but has been promptly dumped in favour of noxious and expensive chemo-therapy. We are just rediscovering how valuable this ingenious therapy can be. We call it hyperthermia (as opposed to hypothermia). US natural medicine clinics such as the Dr. Robert Atkins Center in New York report marvellously exciting results.

It is based on a simple and easily verifiable scientific FACT: that a temperature of 1080F kills cancer cells but not normal human tissue cells. All we need is some way to raise the body’s temperature and we create a selectively negative environment for the renegade cancer cells, which can be mopped up by the immune system. Most of us would consider 108F a bit high. But even at 103- 1040F the advantage still manifests.

Coley’s Toxins Treatment

Hyperthermia as a general treatment was suggested long ago. French doctor Hyperthermia as a treatment specifically for cancer was first proposed by nineteenth Century US physician Dr. William Coley, M.D. He used very toxic bacteria waste products from Streptococcus pyogenes to generate the high temperature. The results were very encouraging and the treatment still, rightly, bears the name of Coley=s toxins therapy. It isn=t pleasant, by any means, and the patient feels just as you would expect: feverish, chills, shaking, muscle aches and even nausea. But it passes, and is considerably less unpleasant than chemo-therapy!

Viscum Fever Therapy

I prefer to use a slightly different approach but with the same general aim in mind. This is arrived at on a separate but parallel track to Coley’s essentially allopathic idea. It is the use of homeopathic Viscum or potentized mistletoe preparations. I use Viscum compositum from HEEL-GMbH in Germany.

The BIG advantage, to my mind, over Coley’s toxin therapy is that even if you don=t get the unpleasant fever, you are still doing an immense amount of good against the cancer (see below), whereas bacterial toxins have little else to offer beyond raising the temperature.

Because of the essentially low-dose composition of the homeopathic medication, we can give it in a sustained way, pushing the defences until they get mobilized. This is seen by the onset of the patient’s own curative fever, which is a sure sign that the body is fighting back (another important medical principle which drug-handy doctors seem to overlook).

This fever is so valuable that I do not give even bio-logical or herbal remedies to counter it but try to pour the fuel on somewhat and get it higher! The exact details vary from patient to patient and need not concern us here. But by alternating with another very powerful immune stimulant Echinacea comp. Forte (a fortified homeopathic preparation, not the common herbal drops you may buy at the health shop or pharmacy), we can generally stoke up the fire quite well. It’s one of those odd moments for a doctor when the patient feeling rough is what we want.

Viscum And Other Ingredients

Viscum comp. also contains two other active ingredients which are important. The first is adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), which is there to bring cell metabolism back into line. Cancer cells misbehave and if they can be persuaded to act more like normal cells, then we are getting somewhere. ATP stimulates hormonal and cell membrane activity right inside the cell itself.

Mercury iodide is also included, which has strongly anti-viral properties. Quite simply, almost all switched-on doctors today believe that many (but not all) cancers are mediated by viruses, such as the papilloma virus. Remember viruses are bits of DNA bad news creating mischief, like alien genes, as I’ve seen them called. It’s a small step for them to get locked into cellular DNA and when that goes wrong…why that’s all cancer is, really: unruly DNA leading to loss of cell integrity and runaway multiplication.

One further detail, mercury is administered as the iodide because that stimulates the thyroid gland (homeopathically) and speeds up the metabolic process. But it goes deeper than this; there is some unknown cross-over between thyroid disorder and cancers. Thyroid malfunction comes up time and time again with malignancy. I can’t explain it, but somebody will, some day soon. Certainly thyroid function bears importantly on the performance of the immune system, so it makes plenty of sense.

Hyperthermic Technology

Finally, the idea of hyperthermia as a treatment has been taken into the technological domain. A number of cancer centres now are offering treatment based on perfusing the tumour itself with high temperature solutions. With some tumours, such as a breast cancer, it may be possible to isolate the blood supply of the growth and connect it to micro-tubing which supplies heated liquid direct to the cancer cells. This avoids the need to heat up the whole body, with its consequent dangers.

Failing that, a limb can be perfused. Some centres carry out whole-body hyperthermia. Statistics seem to suggest that the best results can be obtained by combining hyperthermic technology with conventional radiation at far lower (and therefore safer) doses.

Alternatively, hyperthermia may be induced by focussed microwave appliances, this heated wires or implanted radio electrodes.

There are few side effects, the obvious one being burns and blisters

Which tumour patients can be treated?

Dr. Fritz Schellander MD, a UK holistic specialist, makes the following recommendations:

  • Patients with inoperable tumours
  • After a successful operation to reduce the risk of a relapse
  • Patients in an advanced state with multiple metastases
  • Patients with a high risk of relapse
  • Patients with a minimal tumour burden who refuse an operation
  • As a support measure for chemotherapy and or radiation

What other conditions can be treated with hyperthermia?

  • Chronic inflammatory conditions such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease
  • Rheumatic conditions
  • Bronchial asthma
  • Chronic and recurrent viral infections
  • Conditions requiring detoxification

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