The Heart as Allergic Target Organ

The number of drugs should tell you that medicine doesn’t have a clue as to what the true underlying cause is for CHF. But you know. It is anything that can poison the heart; mercury from dental amalgams, fish and paints; cadmium from auto exhaust, cigarette smoke (including secondhand from others), shellfish, incinerator pollution, and industrial pollution in air, food and water. You cannot escape heavy metals or other environmental pollutants. Yet even though these toxic elements have been a recognized cause of high blood pressure and heart failure for decades, they remain ignored by medicine.

What else can silently poison hearts? You guessed it, herbicides and pesticides, which are also hidden in our air, food and water. No one is protected, while not one toxin is suspected. And the causes of heart disease do not end there. They include hydrocarbons and other environmental pollutants or toxins, from trichloroethylene in city water supplies, solvent extraction fluids used to decaffeinate coffee, toluene in painted rooms, formaldehyde in carpets, and benzene in air fresheners, to good old diesel and other common pollutants in vehicle exhaust (EPA, Bond, Theriault, Levine, Atkins, Kesteloot, Alexander, Goldsmith, Myerson, Asokan, Williams, Mee, McLeod, Wiseman, Wright, Speizer, Antti-Poika, Edling, Kobayaski, Ludomirsky, Sharp, Schroeder).

You might be tempted to fall for the story that there is no way to get all these poisons out of the heart, but you are much too smart for that by now. The far infrared sauna (FIRS) has been proven by specialists at the famed Mayo Clinic to improve heart failure, even when nothing more could be done by medicine. And in Japan, clinicians and researchers have confirmed its life-saving properties when nothing else could be done (Tei, Kihara, Imamura).

But not any old sauna was effective, for example, the regular or dry Finnish saunas actually triggered worsening of arrhythmias, increased hypertension and shortness of breath (even at rest), and most heart patients could not tolerate them. In fact, some of these heart failure patients could not even tolerate a hot bath or a hot day out of doors without drawing closer to death.

As an example of how little an increase in ambient temperature heart patients can tolerate, a July 7, 2000 Wall Street Journal front-page article reported that in Europe as temperatures reached 113 F. from a high-pressure system trapping drifting Sahara air masses, 25 people died. Later that month on July 14th, CNN reported multiple deaths for heart patients as temperatures in Texas lingered between 105 and 110 F. Clearly a regular sauna of over 140°F would be out of the question for the heart patient.

But hang onto your hats, for the far infrared sauna (FIRS) was not only very well tolerated with no adverse reactions, but it got rid of so many of the underlying chemical triggers of CHF, that these end-stage heart patients actually reversed and improved and were able to discard some of their medications (Tei, Kihar, Imamura)! This is unheard of. With CHF, the rule in medicine is you increasingly pile on medications as you deteriorate. You rarely drop any, for there is no hope of cure. It is a one-way street — at least it is if you do not do a FIRS. Currently they are evaluating cutting out a part of the damaged heart muscle (ablation) as temporary improvement for heart failure! As usual, when drugs fail, medicine resorts to cutting it out and throwing it away. They figured they do it with cancers, colitis and other problems, so why not the heart?

How is the Far Infrared Sauna Different?

Let’s look at the energy that comes from the sun. It is responsible for photosynthesis, the process by which plants make energy to grow. In essence, solar energy is responsible for all of life (since animals must have plants to eat or there are no animals).

The spectrum of energy from the sun is classified according to the length of the waves. The shortest (and most damaging) rays of the solar spectrum are gamma rays. Think of a gamma gun in a sci-fi movie that vaporizes assailants in an instant. The next longer rays of the sun are x-rays (carcinogenic), then ultraviolet (causes sunburn, corneal and lens damage and skin cancer), and then visible light. After that is the infrared spectrum, then radio waves.

At the far end of the infrared spectrum are the longest and most healing rays, the far infrared (FIR) spectrum, spanning from 1,000 to 4 microns. Between 4-14 microns in the FIR (far infrared) spectrum, fall most of the rays that are the safest and most vital to health and healing. They are responsible for photosynthesis, without which there would be no life on each.

Even our bodies radiate infrared energy through our skin between 3-50 microns, mostly around 9.4 microns. This is the basis for infrared glasses allowing Special Forces to see the enemy at night. Palm healing and other hands-on therapies are based on the healing properties of natural far infrared rays, with our palms emitting infrared energy at between 8-14 microns. Our bodies absorb 93% of the infrared waves presented to us, the basis for similar heaters being used to warm premature infants in nurseries. The FIRS uses a patented zirconium ceramic infrared heater, emitting between 2 and 25 microns, with a third of the output in the 2-5.6 micron range for deepest penetration, about 1.5 inches. Patented in 1965, it was used predominantly in Japan, and then use extended to the U.S. since 1981. Safer, more economical to operate, lower in EMF, and inducing 2-3 times the sweat volume, while allowing a much more tolerable and safer operating temperature, makes it my preferred tool for purifying and detoxifying the body. Naturally nothing stands alone, and a clean diet, environment and soul are, of course, crucial components to healing the impossible. I’ll take you through more of the “TOTAL LOAD” later.

Far infrared wavelengths have other beneficial properties. They lower lactic acid (the acid that accumulates and causes pain in muscles when you have overdone during exercising), stimulate endorphins or happy hormones of the brain, and kill organisms like bacteria and parasites. More important, they penetrate tissues, detoxify cells by vibrating ionic bonds, stop swelling, improve lymphatic flow and blood circulation, and attract calcium to cell membranes where it is needed for healing.

Far infrared wavelengths also decrease the size of water clusters, giving them greater mobility and penetration in and out of body tissues. For it is when these hyperactive or energized water molecules move in and out of cells that they also carry toxins that previously were stuck. FIR energy actually causes a resonance dance between the water and chemical molecules to mobilize and unite them.

The lungs, urine, stool, and sweat are the main vehicles the body has for getting rid of nasty chemicals. But by far sweat is the most efficacious. And Mayo Clinic studies show that FIR is the safest way to induce healing sweat, using the most heat-sensitive cardiac patients as proof (Tei).

In studies published in Circulation and the Journal of Cardiology, both respected cardiology journals, physicians at the famed Mayo Clinic used the worst classification of congestive heart failure patients to demonstrate the safety and therapeutic value of the far infrared sauna. The New York Heart Association (NYHA) classifies the most debilitated heart patients with the highest numbers, III and IV. The study used patients who were end-stage heart patients who were maximally medicated and unable to walk across the room without shortness of breath, and unable to tolerate warm baths, much less tolerate a sauna. There were no further therapeutic options available. They had reached the end of their ropes.

But not only did these serious end-stage heart patients all tolerate the FIR sauna, but they had no side effects from it. Furthermore, in getting rid of chemicals that were the underlying causes of their diseases, they improved their heart function, something that the latest in surgery or drugs was powerless to do for them. The FIR sauna literally saved their lives.

During the sauna, no patients had dyspnea (shortness of breath), angina (chest pain) or arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), nor complained of excess heat. There were no side effects, something that never happens with drugs and surgery. Diastolic blood pressure (the low number) decreased but systolic pressure (the top number) was unchanged. This means they did not get hypertensive, and in fact the work of the heart was lessened. Furthermore the stroke volume and ejection fraction increased, meaning the heart beat more efficiently with less effort.

Contrast this with warm baths that caused an increase in systemic blood pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance. Warm baths, by raising blood pressure cause more work for an already failing heart. And in a regular sauna, the arrhythmias increased 20%, whereas in the FIR sauna, arrhythmias decreased or disappeared entirely. Other cardiovascular improvements unique to the FIR sauna that would impress cardiologists include decreased pulmonary arterial and capillary wedge pressure as well as right atrial pressure, and in some cases disappearance of mitral regurgitation. The ECHO (echocardiogram) showed smaller left ventricular and left atrial dimensions, and epinephrine levels did not change, but norepinephrine increased. And FIR actually increased the core and intrapulmonary arterial temperature to 38.2 +/- 0.4 C (normal body temperature is 37 degrees Centigrade).

Because the far infrared sauna has so many physiologic benefits that improved cellular detoxification (without making the rest of the body toxic or sick in the process), no side effects were observed with the FIR sauna, even at 60 C. (140 F.). Meanwhile, recall warm baths adversely increased cardiac work for heart patients, as did regular high heat saunas which triggered arrhythmias in over 20% of patients at 90 C. (194 F.). In fact, even mere high outdoor ambient temperature can kill the heart patient. In contrast, with the FIR sauna, arrhythmias disappeared, even when these folks were exposed to the high end of heat that the FIR sauna can reach. But the FIRS can generate a total sweat at 120 F. and less, providing the opportunity for even longer and more tolerable therapeutic time in the sauna.

In regular high heat saunas, plasma norepinephrine (related to adrenaline) increased 100-160% accompanied by subjective discomfort and intolerance. Adrenaline can, of course, trigger arrhythmias or a heart attack. In contrast, FIR sauna was extremely well tolerated and did the impossible. It improved the cardiac status of folks who were at the end of their therapeutic ropes. Even though medicine had nothing more to offer, congestive heart failure was reversed by the far infrared sauna.

Part 1        Part 3