What’s The Immune System About?
Holistic & Conventional Medicines Hold Different Views of Immunity
Conventional medical research has just made a fascinating discovery about our immune system - and the implications for alternative therapies are exciting.
Researchers in the U.S. and Australia have demonstrated for the first time that the immune system can stop a tumor’s growth without actually killing all of the cancer cells, and contain the tumor in a state of dormancy, or “stalemate equilibrium.” Before this discovery, researchers assumed that the immune system searched for and destroyed cancer cells, and if the search-and-destroy mission failed, the cancer would grow. The new findings support a more expanded function for the immune system, an “immune editing” function, which poses three possible outcomes: the immune system can destroy cancer cells before they multiply; it can fail, and allow cancer cells to escape and grow; or it can establish a stalemate equilibrium with cancer cells for a prolonged dormancy period.
As yet, no one knows how this newly-discovered third function works, but its existence will motivate conventional researchers to develop therapies that “complement current methods of cancer treatment,” according to Dr. Lloyd Old, director of the NY branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (Washington University School of Medicine. "Immune System Can Drive Cancers Into Dormant State." ScienceDaily 19 November 2007).
Of course, “current methods of cancer treatment” involve drugs, radiation and surgery, so we can expect any new research to try and replicate the “stalemate equilibrium between the immune system and cancer cells” through these same methods.
How can alternative therapies fit into this picture? Can this new discovery expand the role of alternative therapies in treating cancers?
The notion of “stalemate equilibrium” is key, and throws a bright light on the differences between conventional and holistic medicines.
Phytotherapist David Hoffmann (Medical Herbalism 2003) sees human immunity as “a vital component of the interface between the individual and the world.” He argues that immunity is not simply about resistance to environmental dangers, but it is primarily about harmony. Hoffmann’s notion of harmony is different from conventional medicine’s “stalemate equilibrium,” which is a static, dormant state, and most likely temporary. Instead, true harmony is dynamic, flowing, interactive, creative. Harmony – a dynamic balance between mind, body, spirit, and world – is the optimal state of health.
In the cycle of health and illness, conventional medicine steps in only after the immune system shifts into imbalance. At this point, conventional medicine offers treatments to destroy invading pathogens – immunity as resistance. Holistic medicine begins during health to create balance and strengthen the immune system-immunity as harmony – and its goal during illness is to restore the body’s natural balance.
If, as the recent research shows, the immune system, once compromised, still has the power to destroy or retard tumor growth, then its power to create health must be even greater. That’s the promise and hope of alternative therapies, from herbs to acupuncture to homeopathy to mind-body therapies. Creating immunity and health is all about harmony.
