Cancer treatment must look beyond tumor cells to their environment

Cancer cells do not grow in isolation. They constantly interact with blood vessels, immune cells and surrounding tissue, creating what doctors call the tumor microenvironment. That environment, including low oxygen and high tissue pressure, can influence how cells behave and how treatment works.

Kim Ji-ho, director of Mediram Korean Medicine Hospital, describes the conditions around cells and tissues as a “field.” It includes temperature, oxygen, pressure, light, electricity, gravity, physical forces and biological rhythms. Even cells with identical genes can move differently depending on the conditions around them.

Physical ecological medicine does not refer to one device or a single therapy. It is a way of understanding and using the physical environment in treatment. Medication acts on particular signals inside cells, while physical therapies change the conditions in which cells exist. Lifestyle medicine follows a related logic through diet, exercise, sleep and sunlight. Other treatments precisely adjust oxygen, pressure, temperature, light or electrical conditions that people do not usually experience.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy supplies high concentrations of oxygen under increased pressure. It is used for conditions with established benefits, including decompression sickness, carbon monoxide poisoning and some difficult-to-heal wounds. Tumor-treating fields use electrical fields at specific frequencies to disrupt cancer-cell division and have received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use alongside existing treatment in some cancers, including glioblastoma. Heat treatment and photobiomodulation are also being studied, although the evidence differs by disease and method.

The article connects these ideas to aging and recovery. Microgravity changes muscles, bones, the immune system and mitochondrial function, while aging affects tissue elasticity, blood flow, oxygen and nutrient delivery, immunity and biological rhythms. It argues that future medicine will ask not only which drug can treat disease, but also which conditions can help the body withstand treatment and recover. The article cautions that physical therapies cannot replace proven surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, and says their benefits and safety should be checked with medical professionals.