What happens when cancer cells are injected into the body? Someone did this daring experiment
There are still many unknowns about the research of cancer cells, and there are still many challenges for the treatment of cancer cells. The high incidence and incurability of cancer also make us think from another perspective. Since people have strong immunity, why can't they kill cancer cells? What would happen if cancer cells were injected into the human body?
1. Injecting cancer cells into the human body will cause cancer?
In the 1950s and 1960s, American medical scientist Chester Southam made this bold experiment.
He extracted cancer cells from a cervical cancer patient named Henri Tarax and named them HeLa cells.
Southam injected HeLa cells into mice and later found that the mice developed the same cancer . He then began human experiments, first injecting saline mixed with HeLa cells into the veins of a leukemia patient , and then injecting it into more than a dozen other patients.
Over a period of several days, some patients developed malignant tumors in their arms. After a month, some of the patients' malignancies had regressed, but one patient had died from the spread of the cancer cells.
Since the experiment on leukemia patients was not very convincing, Southam planned to conduct a control experiment on healthy people. He recruited healthy prisoners from the Ohio State Prison and injected them with HeLa cells multiple times. The cancer cells were eliminated by the own immune system , and over time the rate at which the inmate's lump was eliminated increased.
It can be seen from this experiment that the immune system can defend against foreign cancer cells , so injecting cancer cells does not make a healthy, immune-compromised person develop cancer.
In fact, cancer is not contagious, but cancer-causing viruses can be transmitted indirectly. For example, hepatitis B virus, HPV virus, Helicobacter pylori, etc., are also related to genetics, common life, eating habits and environment.
2. Can injecting live bacteria treat cancer?
In the treatment of cancer, it has always been an unsolved problem. Why can't the body's powerful autoimmunity clear tumor cells in the body?
Back in 1891 in the United States, Dr. Colley met a patient named Zola. The patient had a huge malignant tumor on his face, and several operations were unsuccessful, and he was finally sentenced to a deadline for survival.
After reading the relevant information, Coley guessed that Streptococcus may activate the patient's immune system, thereby destroying the tumor cells.
So Kohli injected Zola and other three patients with advanced tumors with live streptococcus culture solution . As a result, Zola miraculously survived for seven years, and the other two patients died of infection.
Coley later re-adjusted the formula, using heat-killed bacterial liquid, named "Coley toxin" . It was injected into patients with different advanced tumors, and some patients' tumors regressed significantly . The discovery caused a sensation, but the outside world did not recognize Coley's approach.
No one can explain why the principle of this experiment, although this experiment has not been a complete success, but it is not a complete failure. Because this experiment provides a new idea for the anti-cancer road, that is, humans may be able to defeat cancer cells with their own immune systems.
Now, instead of being injected with dangerous bacteria, immunotherapy patients are injected with antibody molecules, which is a huge breakthrough in cancer treatment.
As for why the tumor is not killed by the immune system, the main reason is that the tumor is very "cunning" and will use some "tricks" to suppress the immune system and escape the "chasing and killing".
3. After the age of 30, the immune system slowly declines
Human immunity continues to rise during adolescence, maintains a stable state at the age of 25, and naturally declines after the age of 30.
Aging, or unhealthy eating habits, will make the human immune system continue to decline. So how to slow down the rate of immune decline? Don't do these few things, you can make your immune function "age" slower.
1. Often stay up late
Often staying up late, in addition to affecting the mental state, will also reduce the body's immune system. According to a related study by the University of Chicago, people who sleep only 4 hours a night have 50% fewer antibodies against influenza than those who sleep 7.5 to 8.5 hours a day.
2. Stress, anxiety
The autonomic nerve is sensitive to mental states such as excessive stress and psychological anxiety, and is affected by these negative emotions, so these negative emotions are likely to indirectly affect immunity.
3. Not exercising or exercising too much
Human immune function can be affected by skeletal muscle exercise, moderate and regular exercise is beneficial to improve human immunity. But not exercising will reduce physical strength, weaken metabolism, and thus reduce immunity. Excessive exercise will reduce the number and activity of immune cells in human peripheral blood and damage human immunity.
4. Bad eating habits
Unbalanced nutrition will weaken the immune system. Many women eat less food in order to maintain their body, resulting in a lack of energy and affecting the normal operation of the immune system. The protein in meat is the material basis of human immune function, and if it is lacking, it will also affect the number and combat effectiveness of immune cells.
On the other hand, overweight and obese people will also affect the ability of immune cells to phagocytose bacteria and viruses due to elevated cholesterol in the body.
5. Drug abuse
Some drugs not only reduce the chance of the immune system to fight against pathogens and affect the chance of the immune system to grow itself, but some drugs may also directly affect the immune system and reduce the immunity of the body.
More research is yet to be done on using the body's immune system to fight cancer. In our daily life, we should develop healthy living and eating habits to protect our immunity.
references:
[1] "Why the immunity of the elderly and cardiovascular patients is weakened, experts teach you 6 ways to restore immunity". Chronic Diseases. 2020-02-27
[2] "100 Years of Human Fight Against Cancer: From Injection of Live Bacteria to "Immunotherapy" that Can Be Injected Under the Skin. Tencent Medical Book. 2021-11-30
[3] "Low immunity can easily lead to bacterial and viral infections, and even induce major diseases! 》.Human Health. 2020-11-08
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