That runs contrary to long-time medical opinion about the fleshy little bags in the back of your throat. For decades, doctors have been quick to cut them out — often before the patients showed any symptoms of illness.
So thanks to mainstream medical quackery, many adults no longer have their tonsils. But if you've still got yours, they might be a valuable cancer-fighter! Keep reading and get the details. . .
Tonsils are the opposite of useless, according to a team of researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.
It boils down to this: Your tonsils are actually tiny T cell production factories. T cells, if you don't know, are critical to our immune systems. They're a type of white blood cell known as lymphocytes that help your body fight infections and other dangerous invaders.
And that includes serious diseases like cancer.
This exciting new research was led by Dr. Michael Caligiuri, director of the OSU cancer center and CEO of the James Cancer Hospital. His team published their riveting findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
5 different levels of disease-fighting tools
Caligiuri and his team were clued in from some earlier work that showed there was a mystery cell inside the tonsils. So they investigated. But they didn't just find a few T cells. The Ohio State study actually uncovered T cells in five different stages of development — and all within the tonsils.Until now, you could set off a fight by suggesting T cells develop anywhere outside of the thymus gland. Researchers used to think T cells only grow in this gland that sits on your heart and is a key part of your immune system. But now it looks like the thymus may not be the only source. The T cells that grow in tonsils aren't exactly like the ones that form in the thymus, but they're pretty close.
The research was carried out thanks to donations of tonsil tissue from children who underwent tonsillectomies. T cells in each of the five identified stages were then transferred to lab cultures. From there, the first four groups grew into immune cells, known as natural killer cells. The fifth group developed into mature T cells.
All of those cells have the potential to play a key role in combating major disease.
Most folks no longer have this built-in arsenal
In the 1950s and 1960s, tonsillectomies were so common, a pair of tonsils were sliced out of some kid's throat somewhere in the U.S. every 30 seconds. My older brother and sister both had their tonsils removed, although I didn't. The old 1950 best-seller Cheaper by the Dozen depicted the kids having their tonsils cut out on the dining room table, if I remember right. It wasn't fiction — it was the true story of the Gilbreth family.And to think, people ask me why I consider conventional, mainstream medicine to be the real source of most quack medicine.
This moronic medical fad translated to well over a million surgeries a year. And let's be honest — that also amounted to a lot of revenue for hospitals. At least when the doctors weren't doing it on the kitchen table (admittedly, the Cheaper by the Dozen events took place in the 1920s).
The rate of tonsillectomies today is down by roughly half of what it was. Hopefully that's because docs are putting more thought into what they should be slicing and dicing on their patients. Many doctors now prefer to leave tonsils in as long as possible.
Everybody has (or had) two tonsils, made up of soft, glandular tissue. They sit on either side of your mouth, at the back, and vary in size from one person to the next. We've long known the major function of tonsils is to trap virus-causing germs and bacteria that you inhale when you breathe. By killing these germs, the tonsils help prevent lung and throat infections. And now we've learned they play an even more important role…
What this means ...
Scientists have yet to figure out what actually happens to the T cells that develop in the tonsils. It's possible they go on to mature in another part of the body. So the next step in this research, according to Caligiuri, is to figure out how many of your mature T cells come from your tonsils rather than your thymus.The researchers involved with this study are also unsure whether tonsils regularly produce T cells or just start working when your thymus stops. They need to figure out whether T cells from the tonsils serve an upfront purpose, or exist simply as back up to the thymus.
Yet … if you're battling cancer, or any autoimmune disease, for that matter, wouldn't you want all the T cells you could get? Doctors say tonsillectomies will continue, especially for patients whose tonsils get so enlarged that it affects their breathing and sleeping. Plus, tonsils can get chronically infected to the point where all they do is fight their own infection. In those cases, tonsillectomies supposedly improve a person's quality of life.
I wonder if there's a better way — such as sound nutrition and supplements — that would do a better job than surgery of healing these chronic infections. It reminds me of the chronic ear problems that affect so many children — easily curable by sound alternative medicine, but usually treated by conventional doctors with round after round of antibiotics. Quack! quack!
The new discoveries about tonsils give us profound insight into the bungling of our current health system. Just knowing that millions of adults — and cancer sufferers — had their own personal disease-fighting, immune cell factories cut out, is enough to make me livid.
That's especially the case since we already know using T cells against cancer-causing viruses is an extremely potent weapon in defeating cancer — especially leukemia. I wrote about it last year in Issue #140.
It's nice to know you have a back-up natural killer cell and T cell factory in case your thymus ever slows down or stops working. If you still have your tonsils, that is. And if that's the case, I highly recommend you leave them in.
Kindest regards,
Lee Euler PublisherReferences:"Evidence for a stepwise program of extrathymic T cell development within the human tonsil." McClory, et al. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Vol. 122, Issue 4, 2 April 2012.http://www.jci.org/articles/view/46125"Tonsils Make T-Cells, Too." ScienceDaily. March 5, 2012.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120305173657.htm"Tonsils Make T-Cells, Too, Ohio State Study Shows." News Release, Ohio State James Cancer Hospital. Contact: Darrell E. Ward. 4 March 2012.http://cancer.osu.edu/mediaroom/releases/Pages/TONSILS-MAKE-T-CELLS.aspx"Tonsils May Be Important After All." By Staff Editor, HealthNewsDigest.com, 5 Apr 2012.http://healthnewsdigest.com/news/Health_Tips_620/Tonsils_May_Be_Important_After_All.shtml"Why You Should At Least Think Twice Before Having Your Tonsils, Adenoids or Appendix Removed." The Exalted Truth, 8 July 2012.http://exaltedtruth.com/2012/07/08/why-you-should-at-least-think-twice-
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