Far infrared rays are made up of a combination of electromagnetic waves, energy waves, and long frequency waves found on the infrared spectrum.
Most commonly, far infrared rays are received from the sun.
They are invisible to the human eye, yet their benefits are innumerable to the body.
Other things that naturally emit FIR are your hands and gemstones.
When heated, the gemstones (usually amethyst, tourmaline, jade, and obsidian) dramatically boost the amount of infrared exposure produced.
What makes infrared heating pads better than regular heating pads is that this improved experience is able to penetrate up to six inches below the surface of your skin.
This allows for a much greater influence on your health and can help your body make changes from the inside, rather than just the outside.
Far infrared benefits are mostly associated with pain relief, detoxification, a decrease of swelling, and a decrease of stiffness, to name a few.
However, it would be more accurate to say that these are just the common, better-known benefits.
The full measure of effects far infrared rays can have on your health is not completely understood.
Over the years these rays have been used to improve cases of arthritis, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue, depression, cerebral ischemia, diabetes, and other diseases.
Dr. Yoshimizu saw infrared heat therapy as a solution that was a possibility worth exploring.
He thought it could possibly kill cancer cells while simultaneously strengthening the immune system.
If this were true, it could change the way we approached the treatment of cancer.
According to Dr. Yoshimizu, far infrared heating mats have proven very useful in treating cancer because the rays both attack the cancerous cells and reinforce the immune system.
One symptom of a compromised immune system is hypothermia or low body temperature.
This is caused by poor constriction of the blood vessels, which results in poor circulation.
This can frequently be attributed to excessive stress.
When hypothermia is present, enzymatic activity is reduced. This allows cancer cells to proliferate.
He explains that when the temperature of the body is increased by as little as one degree, immunity is increased by as much as forty percent.
Raising the temperature to 109.4 degrees Fahrenheit kills cancer cells.
A temperature between 104 and 109.4 degrees can reduce or eliminate viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells.
A decrease in body temperature of as little as one degree has the opposite effect of an increase in temperature.
Enzyme activity will decline by half, metabolism will decline by twelve percent, and immune system effectiveness decreases by nearly forty percent.
Dr. Yoshimizu’s main criticism about the standard Western cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and prescription medications is that they simultaneously depend upon and attack the immune system of the patient.
Chemotherapy does weaken and damage cancer cells, but it also does the same to healthy cells.
This is why the use of thermotherapy is an intriguing alternative.
It helps eliminate cancer cells quickly, without compromising healthy cells.
Healthy body cells are not damaged or killed by temperatures of 116.6 degrees Fahrenheit; however, cancer cells are.
In fact, they are compromised at temperatures as low as 107.6 degrees.
Cancer cells are susceptible to thermotherapy because they are in a severely acidic state, due to having very low blood flow.
Approximately eighty percent of cancer patients are given morphine to deal with pain.
Thermotherapy helps the body create natural endorphins to reduce and alleviate pain.
It does this by creating heat shock protein (HSP).
This protects the cells of the body from thermal stress, and the natural response of the body is to produce pain-relieving endorphins.
Dr. Yoshimizu’s ultimate conclusion was that far infrared heating mats are very effective in heating the body, strengthening the immune system, and weakening cancer cells.
He says that the most effective way to use a far infrared negative ion heating mat is to heat the tumor mass to 158 degrees Fahrenheit for forty minutes to an hour at least once daily.
Treatments can be performed as many as three times daily.