Vancouver naturopathic physician Jim Chan, who has treated about 5,000 cancer patients, explains that far infrared therapy has the ability to break up the protective rings around harmful molecules in the body so they’re no longer cancer-causing.

It also weakens the bonds between toxins and human tissues, so stored toxins can be flushed out of the system faster and in greater quantities through the skin (via sweating), liver and bowels.

Wholistic cancer treatment involves strengthening the immune system and killing toxic cancer cells, which can be done with interventions such as diet modifications, nutritional supplements, anti-cancer herbs and the more orthodox chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Positive mental attitude and stress reduction are also often recommended. But even if you’re doing everything else right, without good detoxification, unhealthy substances remain a burden in the body and can slow or prevent recovery.

Toxins we’re all exposed to include carcinogenic heavy metals as well as pesticides and other chemicals in food, household products, water and air. Many of these toxins are stored in our body’s fat cells and accumulate over time. However, the toxic load of cancer patients is routinely even higher than in the average person.

Cancer cannot survive in an environment of temperatures more than 42°C (107.6°F). In addition to its detoxifying effects, far infrared heat actually helps kill cancer cells, increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy and reduce the side-effects of conventional therapies. At the same time, it boosts the body’s regenerative abilities and decreases pain by increasing circulation, which makes it beneficial in treating other conditions such as arthritis, gout, poor circulation, neuralgia and abnormal nerve function.

At the Cline Medical Center in Nanaimo, medical doctor John Cline supervises successful cleansing programs involving far infrared heat. “Organizations such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency have now taken a serious look at hyperthermic therapy as a means to detoxify individuals who are ill from exposure to environmental poisons and several good studies have been published,” he writes in a recent wellness bulletin.

In one cancer study by the European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology that examined five-year survival rates of patients with malignant melanoma, 28 percent of those who underwent only radiation survived five years. Of those who combined radiation and infrared hyperthermia treatment once a week, 46 percent survived. Neither group did any other wholistic therapies.