We have known for hundreds of years that sunlight is excellent for killing germs. As early as the 1880′s, researchers and doctors were delving into the germicidal properties of natural light. One such pioneer was Dr. Niels Finson, who began to explore the potential effects of ultraviolet light.

Nearly 50 years later Emmet Knott began to explore the medical uses of ultraviolet light – using a machine that he invented which allowed blood to be withdrawn from a patient’s arm, exposed to a specific frequency UV light and returned to the patient – he was able to cure a case of sepsis, a serious blood infection. By the early 1940′s, over 6,000 patients had been cured of various diseases.

Alternative medicine has embraced the technology of using ultraviolet light as a means to heal various diseases, including cancer. By exposing certain cells borne in the blood, be they cancer, viruses or bacteria, we can administer a precise amount of UV light to those cells using the UVBI machine invented by Knott and refined by modern technological advances.

Although the full and exact method in which this therapy works is still only roughly understood, we do know that exposure to a specific wavelength of UV rays damages the DNA of cells. If the DNA of the cell is sufficiently damaged, the cell will be unable to replicate, thereby undergoing apoptosis – programmed cell death.

The cells destroyed in this manner then act as a sort of vaccine, teaching the immune system to look for other cells like the ones damaged by UV light and ultimately destroying them.

According to a study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a small group of patients with advanced cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (or CLL) responded extremely well to an unconventional treatment and are all in remission one year later.  The patients were given a genetically-modified version of their immune system’s own T cells, which destroy tumors by identifying specific proteins on another cell that mark it as cancerous.

In the study, researchers removed samples of each patient’s own natural T cells and gave the cells an artificial receptor for a protein called CD19, which is found on cancerous cells in leukemia patients.  The genetically modified T cells attacked more cancer cells than they would have had they not been modified.

The patients in the study had tried other, more mainstream treatments for cancer with less success, and the results they achieved with genetic T cell therapy are demonstrating that alternative cancer therapies are often an excellent choice for patients.  Mainstream medicine is beginning to recognize alternative cancer care as a viable and successful option more than ever before.

Several of Camelot Cancer Care’s treatments also focus on improving immune function with safe and FDA-approved therapies.  Ultraviolet blood irradiation, or UVBI, is an alternative treatment option that – like genetic T cell therapy – boosts the immune system to kill cancer cells.  Not to be confused with radiation therapy, UVBI involves passing the blood through crystal tubing and exposing it to a frequency of UV light that kills bacterial and viral cells.  These dead cells serve as antigens, which trigger the immune system and help it to recognize and kill cancerous cells.  This FDA-approved treatment has few side effects and is an excellent way to safeguard a patient’s body against recurrence.

Coley’s toxins, also called mixed bacterial vaccine or fever therapy, is another treatment which triggers an immune response that recognizes tumor cells as invaders and kills them.   The therapy introduces a mixture of bacterial cultures that activate the immune system, and it has been shown to be effective in many soft tissue sarcomas and osteosarcomas.

Mainstream medicine is beginning to accept and endorse other forms of cancer treatment.  This exciting new research is bringing patients’ and doctors’ attention to alternative cancer solutions and paving the way for other therapies to take a more prominent role in the treatment of cancer.