Immune system not important in cancer?

[Guest guest]

Hi All, & Are,

 

Are Thoresen wrote:

> The importance of the immune-system in cancer is highly overestimated.

> ... I mean that in MOST of my cancer patients I find the immune system

> quite OK, and in the 90% that get cured by my treatment, I almost never

> treat or stimulate the immune system.

 

I am no expert on cancer, but, with respect, Are, I disagree on two counts:

 

(1) Regardless of where the needle is inserted, Every act of acupuncture

modulates the body's adaptive-homeostatic response system. That includes

the immune system, autonomic system and neuroendocrine systems.

 

However, the effect of some acupoints (like LI04, LI11, ST36, SP06, GV14)

on the immune response is better researched and documented than that of

less commonly used acupoints.

 

(2) Medical literature on cancer mentions two key issues that allow cancer

cells to multiply:

 

(a) failure of the apototic (self-kill) mechanism (a major interest as in your

cancer-therapy research),

 

and

 

(b) failure of the immune system to recognise and eliminate the abnormal

cells, because the immune system " is fooled " into accepting the neoplastic

cell as " self " rather than " foreign " .

 

See below a recent review on the topic. The URL for the full text is at

http://tinyurl.com/3btjxt

 

> The immune system seems to be occupied in cleaning up the dead cells,

> but it seems not to kill off cancer cells.

 

Precisely!; its failure to kill off cancer cells may be because of impaired

ability to do so!

 

> I know this is contrary to what is commonly accepted by science, but

> they are not so good in treating cancer either?

 

I agree that, apart from being very expensive, current " scientific treatment "

of cancer is unsatisfactory. In many cases it has poor clinical success; it

merely prolongs survival for a few months or short years, and it often creates

adverse reactions that seriously undermine quality of life in the period before

the death of the patient.

 

However, the immune system may also be involved in triggering apotosis, as

well as mopping up the apototic and dead cancer cells.

 

Excerpt from http://tinyurl.com/3btjxt follows:

 

" A blunted immune response to rapidly growing tumors is frequently

observed and thought to be at least partly mediated by the immune inhibitory

effects of apoptotic cell phagocytosis. Reiter et al 58 showed that exposure

of bone marrow-derived macrophages to apoptotic tumor cells (but not

necrotic) tumor cell inhibits their cytotoxicity and nitric oxide production in

response to interferon ? and lipopolysaccharide. Furthermore, unstimulated

bone marrow-derived macrophages exposed to apoptotic tumor cells

enhanced growth of live tumor cells by 40%. Therefore, treatment of cancers

with chemotherapy or radiation, which leads to massive tumor cell

apoptosis, is likely to inhibit macrophage-mediated antitumor responses. "

 

IMO, maintaining the immune system at high levels of vigilance is very

important in treating cancer patients.

 

Without you realising it, your one-needle technique probably has an

immense effect on the immune system, and releases the cocktail of

oligopeptides (as you have found) that activate that immune response and

triggers apotosis of the abnormal cells, and allows the macrophages and

polymorphonuclear phagocytes to ingest and destroy the dead cancer cells

without misleading further immune counter-attack, as in the article cited [

http://tinyurl.com/3btjxt ].

 

That is why, as well as treating the immunostimulant points, I advise friends

or patients with cancer to take antioxidant and immunostimulant

supplements, like Selenium Bioplex + Vit E, and/or herbs high in

antioxidants.

 

Are, I respect your clinical results but disagree with your statement that " The

importance of the immune-system in cancer is highly overestimated " .

 

Furthermore, the trend in cancer research today seems to focus heavily on

methods of restoring normal apotosis and on how to use gene therapy and

immunotherapy to treat cancer.

 

I admit that, relative to your practice, I treat very few patients who have

cancer. Therefore, my comments should be seen as theoretical rather than

practical.

 

Best regards,