“After running a few kilometers a day with a lot of sweating, you can expel the accumulated ‘heavy metals’ from your body and completely remove the root cause of cancer.” Recently, the claim about sweating and detoxification has become a hot topic of concern on Weibo and WeChat. It is said that the German sports medicine doctor, Dr. Ehrenst, collected the sweat of marathon runners and found that it contained heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, copper and nickel, and thus asserted that it was the effect of sweat detoxification that prevented marathon runners from getting cancer. Is this argument scientific or not? Sweating is a normal physiological phenomenon of the human body, the purpose of which is to regulate body temperature, and the prevention of cancer through sweating out heavy metals is subject to scientific verification; however, it is worth pointing out that abnormal sweating is not good for health. He believes that many of the cancer prevention statements circulating on the Internet are not based on science or are just the imagination of some people, and the most fundamental measure to prevent cancer is to protect the environment. Marathon runners can also get cancer At 19:15 on the evening of September 20, a friend posted this text in his WeChat circle of friends: “Today is the third day of the detoxification program, and I decided to climb at night with my friends to one of the ten scenic spots in Hangzhou, the double peaks with clouds. We started from the south gate of Hua Gang Guan Yu, hiked to Liutong Hotel, went up from the thousand year old Tang camphor, and then came down from Weng Jia Shan, running fast + hiking on the way, sweating profusely, clothes were soaked with sweat. But when I think that the more I sweat, the faster the toxins are expelled, I feel inexplicably happy.” “Sweating can detoxify” seems to be a conventional law among the people, “sweat, detoxify” has become a common phrase in people’s mouths. Recently, a post entitled “Marathon runners don’t get cancer” has pushed the “sweating prevents cancer” comment to the top of public opinion, pointing out that the main reason why marathon runners don’t get cancer is that while they excrete a large amount of sweat from their bodies, they also excrete the cancer-causing ingredients accumulated in their bodies – heavy metals. The article pointed out that the main reason why marathon runners don’t get cancer is that they excrete a lot of sweat from their bodies and at the same time remove the accumulated carcinogenic components from their bodies – heavy metals – from their bodies, completely removing the root cause of cancer. Is this statement correct? Let’s briefly analyze it. First of all, regardless of whether sweating can prevent cancer, the statement that “marathon runners don’t get cancer” alone is biased. There are numerous examples of marathon runners who died of cancer with “cancer free” in their hands, including Gretwitz, who won the New York Marathon nine times and was a silver medalist in the women’s marathon at the Los Angeles Olympics. However, she died of cancer on April 19, 2011, at the age of 57 in a university hospital in Oslo, Norway. In addition, in 2006, six dermatologists from the Graz Medical School in Austria published an article entitled “Malignant Melanoma in Marathon Runners” in the Journal of the American Medical Association – Dermatology. It begins: “The recent rapid popularity of marathoning is widely recognized as a health benefit, but may pose some health risks. Within the past decade, we have observed eight cases of malignant melanoma in marathon runners. UV exposure and immunosuppression from prolonged heavy training were the main factors people considered in the past.” They looked at 210 track and field athletes as study subjects and found through controlled studies that track and field athletes, especially marathon runners, have an increased likelihood of developing both malignant melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer, so athletes are advised to take care of UV protection during training. So far, the argument that marathon runners don’t get cancer is not broken in front of facts and theories. Sweating to regulate body temperature has nothing to do with cancer prevention Can sweating really prevent cancer? If the idea mentioned in the article is true, that sweating prevents cancer because carcinogenic heavy metals are excreted with sweat, then it means that heavy metals are deposited under the human skin and can be dissolved in sweat. However, the facts tell us that it is not possible. “Sweating is divided into physiological sweating and pathological sweating. The external environment is constantly changing and the body needs a relatively constant body temperature in order to maintain the stability of the internal environment, and one way to regulate body temperature is to sweat. This is also true of exercise sweating, where the body produces too much heat after strenuous exercise and sweats in order to reduce overheating. There is also a case of pathological sweating, such as sweating due to an increase in the number of substances that affect body temperature after certain infections have occurred, resulting in a shift in the thermoregulatory center’s thermoregulatory point and an increase in body temperature. Whether it is physiological sweating or pathological sweating, there is no such thing as cancer prevention.” There is no such thing as “sweating for health” in TCM theory, but for some diseases, such as wind-cold and cold, through some sweating drugs to make the meridian flow, the coup open, the cold evil in the body with sweating out, so as to achieve the balance of yin and yang. In this process, the purpose is to open the couples of the lung qi and relax the meridian qi, and sweating is one of the manifestations of the smooth flow of the meridian qi. In other words, if you can achieve the effect of unblocking the couples and meridians through other means, it is possible to not sweat. Similarly, exercise is also the same, the purpose of exercise is to promote physical health, excessive heat production during exercise will lead to sweating, sweating is only the result of exercise generated, not the ultimate purpose. Sweat can take away a small amount of metabolites, such as lactic acid, urea, ammonia and other waste products, but the excretion of toxins in the body is mainly done by the kidneys, not the skin. The human body itself has a very well-developed detoxification function, and most people can detoxify normally as long as they get enough sleep, balanced nutrition, drink the right amount of water, and keep their liver and kidneys functioning normally, plus exercise in moderation. A lot of people think that sweating is good for exercise, and even deliberately pursue the feeling of sweating a lot. I don’t know, after exercise sweating, if not timely hydration, can lead to a drop in blood volume, heart rate, body temperature, and even electrolyte disorders, acid-base imbalance, causing dehydration. In turn, dehydration can lead to the physiological functions of some of the body’s major organs being affected, such as an increased burden on the heart and damage to the kidneys. “From the perspective of Chinese medicine, sweat is one of the components of the body’s fluids and one of the constituent substances of life. If a lot of sweating causes the loss of fluids, resulting in an imbalance between the body’s yin and yang, it is not good for the organism.” Sweating should be moderate, trying to maintain health by sweating is not reasonable. Generally aerobic exercise to the body slightly sweating is appropriate, in order to prevent the loss of electrolytes after sweating, should be timely supplemented with light saline and calcium-containing food. And should not be high-intensity exercise, to determine whether the intensity of exercise is appropriate, should be the heart rate during exercise as a standard, generally to (220 – age) × 75% is appropriate, slightly weaker people multiplied by 50% can be, good health people can be multiplied by 80%. If you feel shortness of breath, a lot of sweat, dizziness after exercise, it means that the maximum intensity has been reached, then you should slow down or take a little break. In addition, the general advocate of sports 3D4 times a week can be, so that the amount of exercise can achieve the purpose of strengthening the body, but also does not additionally increase the burden on the body. As for the passive sweating (sweating due to hot weather and irritability), which is not as effective as active sweating (sweating from the body’s active movement), President Lin explained that both passive sweating and active sweating are actually passive sweating for the organism. For example, sweating from exercise may be thought to be active, but in reality it is still passive to the organism. Therefore, there is no big difference between active sweating and passive sweating in terms of effect. Protecting the environment is the root of cancer prevention With the rise of self-media era, all kinds of comments are flooding our ears, including tens of thousands of information about cancer prevention. Some claim to prevent cancer through food, while others claim that wearing certain types of clothes can prevent cancer. In this era of cancer talk, people’s concern about cancer prevention has become more and more obvious, and how to prevent cancer has become a topic of collective focus. Under the current situation in China, the best cancer prevention initiative is to protect the environment. He said that the most fundamental reason for the high incidence of tumors nowadays is environmental pollution. The toxic substances ingested by human body increase after the environment is polluted, and the cancer-causing factors also increase. Secondly, food safety, junk food and unsafe food all have great cancer-causing risks. In addition, the change of lifestyle is also a major factor for the high incidence of cancer. Ancient people “work at sunrise and rest at sunset”, following the natural pace of work and rest, which is in line with the theory of Chinese medicine that “Yin and Yang are in balance, and Heaven and man correspond to each other”, thus there are less tumor patients. However, nowadays, many people have their days and nights reversed and stay up all night, so the high incidence of cancer can be traced. “However, it is undeniable that the high incidence of cancer nowadays is also related to longer life expectancy. Cancer itself is a disease that accompanies the aging process, and if the average life expectancy of people is only 30 years old, they will have no relationship with cancer. With longer life expectancy, the body is prone to cancer when the accumulation of toxins reaches a certain peak.” If the environment continues to deteriorate, the incidence of cancer is unlikely to decrease. He urged that the most important thing to do to prevent cancer is to start from ourselves and every detail, and it is not only the responsibility of the government to protect the environment but also the responsibility of each of us. In addition, we should also live in moderation and eat regularly. As the classic work of Chinese medicine “Suwen. The ancient theory of heavenly truth” said “eat and drink in moderation, living in a regular manner, not delusional labor, so that the form and the gods, and the end of its natural life, the degree of a hundred years is gone”. This is the real way to prevent cancer.