Immunotherapy
Your immune system is your defense mechanism against diseases like cancer. Ordinarily, your body can detect cancerous cells and destroy them before they multiply, but if your immune system is weakened or if it is somehow unable to detect the cells, they can reproduce. Because your immune system is your primary line of defense against cancer, it’s essential to keep it running at peak condition, which you can encourage by maintaining a healthy lifestyle (eating healthily, exercising, and getting quality rest and sleep). But your immune system’s capabilities go beyond preventative action; we are starting to understand how you can leverage your immune system’s natural mechanisms to fight cancer through a medical treatment called immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy works by training your immune system to produce cancer-fighting immune cells like T-cells, a type of white blood cell which is, among other things, responsible for controlled destruction of malignant cells.
Immunotherapy’s use of a natural bodily process makes it a worthwhile alternative to chemotherapy, which directly targets cancer cells but also tends to destroy healthy cells in the process. Still, although immunotherapy research has come a long way in recent years and there is strong scientific evidence to suggest that it will, in time, revolutionize cancer treatment, there are still issues that need to be worked out, including understanding potential life-threatening side effects like autoimmune reactions or cytokine release syndromes. Despite the sustained clinical efficacy, however, only 20-40% of patients respond to immunotherapy,(1) and according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, (2) only 15-20% achieve durable results with this type of cancer treatment.
According to Statista (3) in 2023 the immunotherapy market was estimated to be worth 119 billion U.S. dollars and is expected to increase rapidly, up to 261 billion dollars by 2032.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous/immune systems; in other words, how our beliefs and attitudes can influence the health of our body. PNI is an interdisciplinary study, involving a variety of fields from immunology and neuroscience to psychology and behavioral medicine. PNI is supported by research that shows a decrease in immune function during chronic stress and that proper immune function is essential for controlling tumor disease. In many ways, PNI informs my intention for this book, showing how positive psychology and mindset shifts can have a physical impact on your cancer journey.
One of the goals of MYC - Mastermind Your Cancer is to restore the functioning of the entire body (homeostasis) through a specific, effective, and simple method that integrates psychophysiological self-regulation with the more traditional medical treatment like Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy and Radiotherapy. Neuroimmunologists focus on reducing the chasm between two critical systems of our organism: the immune and nervous systems. Both systems are crucial for our survival. Until recent years, it was thought that these systems act independently. However, new evidence (4) argues that there is an active and beneficial dialogue between these two systems.
Over the past decades, the capability of our immune system to impact our nervous system has been studied extensively. Immunity regulation and modulation offer impressive therapeutic potential for treating different brain disorders. However, MYC - Mastermind Your Cancer will focus more on the reverse interaction—how our brain and central nervous system can affect our immune system.
Mind - Body connection
The French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician René Descartes separated the notion of the mind from the physical body. Descartes’s Mind–Body Distinction thesis argues that the nature of the mind is highly different from that of the body and that, for this reason, it can be possible for the mind to exist without the body. However, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato posited that medical treatment alone might not be sufficient to generate recovery unless certain psychological interactions with the mind also occurred.
How can the Mind–Body Distinction thesis be translated into something physiological? Ben-Shaanan, Schiller, and Rolls (5) suggest using a reductionist approach. Instead of asking how emotions affect immune activity, they investigated how different brain areas associated with specific emotions and behavioral manifestations affect immunity.
Their focus is on examining three basic questions regarding the nervous system's interaction with the immune system:
- Why does the nervous system affect activity in the immune system?
- How are these interactions or signals mediated?
- Which parts of the brain control these responses?
Immunotherapy + Psychoneuroimmunology
Through immunotherapy research we know that there is tremendous value in having a healthy, well-trained immune system when fighting cancer, and through psychoneuroimmunology research (6) we know that there is a strong connection between our mental state and our immune system’s function. Therefore, the crux of Mastermind Your Cancer is the hypothesis I developed based on these two areas of research:
A cancer patient can, in addition to modern medical treatments, systematically use psychosocial and cognitive interventions to enhance the immune system by helping it locate and destroy cancer cells, thus improving the probabilities of obtaining positive cancer treatment outcomes.
In other words, a healthy mental state could be an important component of your cancer fight. Now, I want to be transparent about a couple of things. First, although this hypothesis is informed by the conclusive research being done in immunotherapy and psychoneuroimmunology, there is not currently scientific evidence that directly links mental fortitude to improved cancer outcomes. It is a hypothesis that I have developed based on my own personal “trial” and supplemented by a strong body of research in closely connected fields. It’s my vision that, in time, oncological researchers will examine this concept through trial studies, and that within the near future the Mastermind Your Cancer methodology will prove its efficacy and become an integral part of cancer treatments.
Second, and for the sake of clarity, I do not believe that the Mastermind Your Cancer methodology should be seen as a replacement for traditional cancer treatments. Oncologists are ultra-trained professionals, and they must always continue to be trusted with their guidance when it comes to defining cancer treatment plans.
Still, I truly believe that Mastermind Your Cancer methodology is worth applying. At worst, you will have devoted time to trying something new, which is never a bad thing; at best, you could find a powerful supplement to your cancer treatment plan that maximizes your odds of beating the disease.
