Body Temperature

The spleen is the primary organ Aajonus identified as responsible for heating and cooling the blood. It does not produce anything; its function is to hold red blood cells that are formed in the bone marrow and to release or withdraw them from the bloodstream in response to temperature change. When the body gets cold, the spleen dumps a large quantity of red blood cells into the bloodstream, thickening the blood, which causes more heat to radiate outward because the denser population of red blood cells is more active, producing more oxygen and enabling greater fat utilization as fuel. When the body gets too hot, the spleen draws red blood cells back out of circulation, thinning the blood so the body can cool itself.

Aajonus described this response as triggered by a temperature change of approximately 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point the spleen adjusts red blood cell quantity accordingly. He quantified the range: the spleen can withdraw up to one cup of red blood cells to cool the body, and it can dump up to two cups of red blood cells into the bloodstream to warm it. This reserve also serves as a buffer against acute blood loss. The spleen holds two to three pints of blood depending on body size, and when a person loses blood through injury, the spleen releases its stored cells back into the bloodstream so the person does not immediately become anemic and incapacitated.

The ability to warm the body through this spleen mechanism depends on having adequate fat available as fuel. Red blood cells use oxygen to combust fat, generating heat. If a person cannot utilize fat properly, the spleen may still thicken the blood but the warming effect will be diminished because there is insufficient fuel to burn. This is why Aajonus connected cold hands, cold feet, and general inability to stay warm to fat metabolism problems rather than exclusively to circulation per se.

Because of the toxic conditions in modern bodies, the kidneys have taken on a secondary thermoregulatory function that Aajonus described as an evolutionary adaptation developed over approximately a couple hundred thousand years, partly in response to high water consumption. When the body needs to warm itself, the kidneys filter out excess water from the blood, thickening it so that it retains heat more effectively. This is why people urinate frequently when they are cold. When the body needs to cool, the kidneys stop pulling water out, allowing the blood to thin.

Aajonus stated that without this kidney function, the body could only tolerate approximately a 7-degree Fahrenheit temperature change before dying. With the kidney working in coordination with the spleen, the body can manage approximately a 50 to 60 degree Fahrenheit temperature adjustment, or roughly 25 degrees Celsius. He framed this as one of the reasons the kidney is a vital but sensitive organ. High acidity or toxic load in the blood can override the kidney's thermoregulatory behavior, forcing it to dump fluids even when the body needs to retain them for warmth, which can result in heat prostration or cold vulnerability depending on the direction of the failure.

One of the most consistent and emphatic points Aajonus made about body temperature is that physical exercise, regardless of intensity, cannot raise internal body temperature high enough to melt hardened or crystallized lymphatic fats. He tested athletes across many contexts and stated that body temperature during even the most strenuous exercise never exceeds 100.1 to 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit. He described testing marathon runners, sprint runners, basketball players, and a martial arts athlete who performed 12,000 jump rope repetitions per hour. That last individual's temperature never went above 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

He stated that most bodies during sweaty exercise will not exceed 99.6 degrees Fahrenheit and that the maximum he ever observed in strenuous non-fever exercise was 101.3. He consistently rounded this ceiling at 100 to 101 degrees as the practical limit. The significance of this ceiling is that the minimum temperature required to begin liquefying and melting lymphatic congestion is 102 degrees Fahrenheit, with 103 to 105 being the range he considered most therapeutically effective. Exercise, sweatsuit running, Bikram yoga, trampoline work, and infrared heat sources all fail to reach this threshold and therefore cannot accomplish what a sustained hot water bath can.

He was direct about this with people who reported sweating profusely during exercise and expecting lymphatic benefit: "I don't care, your body's not getting hot enough to melt that lymphatic tissue." The perspiration from exercise expels some toxins, but the hardened, waxy, crystallized, or plastic fats lodged in the lymphatic system cannot be dislodged without reaching temperatures the exercising body cannot produce on its own.

The exception to this exercise temperature ceiling occurs only when the body is simultaneously running a fever. In that circumstance, the fever mechanism itself is responsible for the elevated temperature, not the exercise. Body temperature in illness and detoxification cycles is governed by a separate regulatory system that deliberately overrides the normal ceiling.

Aajonus treated fever not as a pathological condition to be suppressed but as one of the body's most important and precisely regulated healing tools. He described several specific temperature thresholds at which different physiological events occur during fever.

At 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the body can no longer breed bacteria, parasites, or molds, and it stops manufacturing virus. This creates a clean internal environment that allows detoxification processes to proceed without competition from microbial activity. Aajonus stated that parasites cannot reproduce above 100.2 degrees, that bacteria cannot grow above 100 degrees, that mold and fungus cannot operate above approximately 99.7 degrees, and that virus production stops at around 100 degrees.

At 101 degrees Fahrenheit, cellular division becomes rapid. He described this as the body entering an intense cellular regeneration state where the higher the temperature rises, the faster cells divide, provided the person has adequate nutrients available to support that reproduction. He compared the cellular heat generated during rapid reproduction to the heat produced during sex. He explicitly asked why anyone would want to suppress this process, calling it the healing crisis and describing pharmaceutical fever suppression, whether through antibiotics, analgesics, or sulfa drugs, as a direct interference with the body's repair cycle. He stated that suppressing fever leads to premature aging, failure to repair tissues, and long-term functional decline.

At 102 degrees Fahrenheit, cellular division accelerates further. He emphasized that children running fevers of 102, 105, or even 106 degrees are not in danger of brain damage. He described having seen infants reach 106 degrees with no neurological harm, and reported that those children recovered faster than children whose parents were given remedies to lower the fever. He described the fear instilled by medical practitioners around childhood fevers as unfounded and counterproductive. He did provide guidance on natural methods to lower fever for parents who were too frightened to allow it to run its course, but he was clear that those children would not heal as quickly.

The role of fever in raising body temperature is also connected to adrenaline and hormone activity. He noted that hormones are composed of approximately 60 to 80 percent fat and 15 percent protein, and that the body can direct any hormone, regardless of whether it is classified as male or female or tied to a specific gland, to assist with detoxification. Adrenaline in particular rushes to bind with poisons, drives perspiration, and contributes to raising body temperature during a detox response.

The lymphatic system is described by Aajonus as a body-wide network that is supposed to collect waste materials from cells and tissues throughout the body, move them to connective tissue, and discharge them through the skin. He estimated that 90 percent of the body's toxins are supposed to leave through this route. When the lymphatic system is congested, either because of hardened fats lodged in the nodes and glands or because of crystallized vegetable oils or plastic-like hydrogenated fats embedded in the system, the normal flow of this waste cannot occur.

The reason vegetable oils are particularly problematic in this context is that herbivores, which naturally consume vegetable matter, have body temperatures of 101 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Human body temperature is 98.6 and typically lower in practice. Vegetable oils are metabolized properly only at herbivore body temperatures. When humans consume them, those oils harden and crystallize in the lymphatic system over years because the human body does not run hot enough to keep them fluid. The same principle applies to hydrogenated vegetable oils, which Aajonus described as having the same molecular structure as plastic and being effectively indigestible without causing cancer or heart disease.

To melt the lymphatic congestion in the superficial connective tissue just below the skin, the body needs to reach approximately 102 degrees Fahrenheit and remain there long enough for thermal penetration to occur. Aajonus used an extended analogy to illustrate the time requirement: a cold stick of butter placed in the center of a two-cup glass jar, with 105 to 108 degrees of heat applied to the outside of the jar, takes approximately 90 minutes before the butter begins to soften. The body has its own insulating and cooling mechanisms that resist rapid temperature elevation, just as the butter resists the heat through the air gap in the jar. The body is not as cold as refrigerator butter, but it also has active cooling systems working against the external heat source.

He identified two layers of lymphatic work requiring different durations. For the lymphatic waste just under the skin in the connective tissue, approximately 40 minutes in a bath of 103 to 105 degrees is sufficient to begin melting and moving it so it can be perspired out through the skin. To reach the deeper lymphatic glands, nodes, and circulatory vessels of the lymphatic system, the body needs to remain immersed for approximately 90 minutes at 103 to 105 degrees. He preferred a range of 103 to 105 degrees for most people, with 108 degrees being acceptable and beneficial, and 110 degrees being the upper limit before enzyme and vitamin destruction begins in the skin and connective tissue.

Because exercise cannot raise internal body temperature above approximately 100 to 101 degrees, and because fever is not something that can be deliberately induced, Aajonus identified hot water immersion as the only practical method for raising internal body temperature to the therapeutic range needed to melt lymphatic congestion and drive toxins out through the skin.

The reason water works when air does not comes down to the physics of heat transfer. In a sauna or steam bath, there is always an air pocket surrounding the body. Air provides an insulating buffer of approximately 6 to 12 inches, meaning the person can move that distance before encountering the direct heat again. In water, moving even one inch encounters resistance; the thermal buffer is approximately half an inch or less. This means the body is in continuous contact with the heat source in water, whereas in air it maintains a significant thermal boundary.

He also explained this through the same cold butter analogy used for the lymphatic system. If you place cold butter in a jar and apply 105-degree heat via air, the temperature takes 60 minutes just to begin warming the air inside the jar enough to start approaching the butter. With water as the heat medium, the thermal transfer is direct and continuous, which is why water immersion works and sauna or steam does not.

The recommended bath temperature range is 102 to 108 degrees Fahrenheit, with 103 to 105 being his preferred therapeutic range for most people. He described 110 degrees as the absolute upper limit, with some people tolerating it and experiencing faster results. Going above 110 degrees destroys vitamins and enzymes in the skin, connective tissue, mucous membranes, sinuses, lungs, ears, eyes, and brain. He recommended keeping baths between 102 and 106 degrees for long lymphatic sessions when the higher temperatures prove too exhausting to sustain.

The minimum duration for superficial connective tissue work is 40 minutes at 103 to 105 degrees. The duration required to begin moving congestion in the deeper lymphatic glands and nodes is 90 minutes. He acknowledged that many people cannot remain in the water that long because the brain begins to overheat, triggering an intense desire to exit. His solution for this was to place a bowl of cold water with ice cubes next to the bath and apply a cold wet cloth to the top of the head only, not the forehead, not the neck, exclusively the crown, and to hold the wrists in the ice water for two minutes. This combination causes a cooling sensation that spreads through the brain and allows the person to remain in the hot bath. He specified the top of the head because the forehead is one of the best perspiration sites and should not be blocked or cooled, and the neck also needs to perspire freely.

He noted that many people who do not normally perspire will perspire in a hot bath, whether or not they are aware of it, because the water itself creates the condition for perspiration to occur.

Aajonus consistently rejected saunas and steam baths as legitimate alternatives to hot water immersion, based on two arguments: temperature and heat transfer medium.

Standard saunas operate at a minimum of approximately 132 to 137 degrees Fahrenheit, with some running up to 167 or 168 degrees. Steam baths operate at 210 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Both ranges are well above the 110-degree threshold at which enzymes and vitamins in the skin and mucous membranes begin to be destroyed. He stated that above 110 degrees, the tissue is damaged and scarred, not healed. He specifically named the mucous membranes, sinuses, lungs, bronchioles, ears, eyes, and brain as structures damaged by these temperatures.

Infrared saunas, often presented as a lower-temperature alternative, were also rejected by Aajonus on two grounds. First, even infrared saunas operate at a minimum of 132 degrees Fahrenheit, which is still above the 110-degree destruction threshold. Second, infrared saunas use electrical systems that produce electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation exceeding 200 milligauss. He stated that animal cells are altered at just 3 milligauss, which means infrared saunas expose the body to a field that is 197 milligauss above the threshold for negative cellular alteration.

He also addressed the antibacterial effect of infrared sauna use specifically. He wrote that the radiation from infrared destroys bacteria in the skin and body, estimating that one 20-minute infrared sauna session is equivalent to consuming one antibiotic pill in terms of its bacterial depletion effect. He acknowledged that infrared pads could be helpful for very short applications but stated they will cause lower bacteria levels in the areas applied, which is a harm in his framework since bacteria are essential to digestion and cellular health.

Aajonus identified a series of specific temperature thresholds at which nutrients are progressively damaged or destroyed, all of them relevant to understanding why both cooking and excessive heat exposure to the body's surface are harmful.

Phosphorus begins to cauterize at 96 to 98 degrees Fahrenheit. He described phosphorus as the most important nutrient for maintaining acid-alkaline balance, calling it a great harmonizer. Its destruction at temperatures only slightly below normal human body temperature means that any heating of phosphorus-containing foods above this level begins degrading this mineral, and that the body's own normal temperature does not cauterize the phosphorus it receives from properly prepared raw food because body temperature is at or near that boundary.

Enzymes begin to become unstable at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. All enzyme activity is completely neutralized by 116 to 118 degrees Fahrenheit, and all enzymes are fully cauterized by 122 degrees Fahrenheit. He made this tangible by pointing out that a person functioning at 105-degree external temperature would be sitting still fanning themselves; at 122 degrees they would be incapacitated.

Vitamin alterations begin at 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Vitamin A is destroyed by 122 degrees. Ninety percent of vitamin E is neutralized by 137 degrees. All vitamins are destroyed by 138 degrees, with some sources from the passages stating the full destruction range for essential fatty acids extends from 171 to 210 degrees, with olive oil and coconut oil being the most heat-resistant fats.

At 141 degrees Fahrenheit, applied for as little as 15 seconds, 50 percent of calcium is cauterized, meaning it becomes biologically unavailable and, in his framework, can become a caustic irritant that lacerates cells rather than being usable mineral nutrition. He used pasteurization as the example, noting that old pasteurization temperatures of 140 to 141 degrees for 15 to 30 seconds achieved exactly this level of calcium destruction while also killing the lactobacillus bacteria that digest fats and proteins in milk.

He also noted alterations at very low temperatures. Vitamin E, though able in principle to withstand up to 170 degrees, is already altered at temperatures as low as 22 degrees Fahrenheit. He used this to illustrate that labile points, meaning the temperatures at which a nutrient technically remains present in food, are not synonymous with safety points. A nutrient may survive at a given temperature but still be altered in ways that reduce its utility or create toxic byproducts.

He connected all of this directly to what happens when the body's external temperature from a sauna or steam bath exceeds 110 degrees: the same nutrient destruction that cooking inflicts on food is inflicted on the nutrients present in the skin, mucous membranes, and connective tissue of the person being heated.

Aajonus touched on reproductive biology as an illustration of how precisely the body regulates temperature for specific tissues. Sperm cannot function properly above 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Even at the body's normal temperature of 98.6 degrees, sperm become sluggish and unable to swim. The body's solution is to keep the testes positioned externally and at a lower temperature, preferably around 96 degrees. Hair in the scrotal and pubic area provides shade to help maintain this cooler microenvironment. He noted that the ovum is similarly sensitive to high temperatures and cannot reproduce above certain thermal thresholds. This is why the body tries to keep reproductive organs cooler rather than warmer.

Aajonus stated explicitly that 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is the normal high, not the normal average or baseline. People on healthier diets run lower. He gave his own temperature as an example: typically 97.9 degrees in cool atmospheric conditions, and as low as 95.9 degrees in hot atmospheric conditions, the body actively cooling itself by dropping its internal temperature. He did not regard a temperature below 98.6 as indicating hypothyroidism or deficiency in healthy people eating a proper raw diet.

However, he also discussed the problem of a body temperature that drops too low in the context of lymphatic congestion. When the body cools even to 96 or 96.8 degrees, fats in the lymphatic system begin to harden, particularly vegetable oils that belong at herbivore temperatures of 101 to 105 degrees. The body temperature range of 96 to 98.6 degrees, which is normal for many people, is still low enough to cause crystallization and hardening of vegetable oils and plastic hydrogenated fats in the lymph over time, because those oils would require herbivore body temperatures to remain fluid.

He also noted that the normal body temperature ceiling during exercise is around 100 degrees. Very rarely, under extreme circumstances in athletes, it touches 101.3 degrees. The body then has fever as a separate mechanism that can push beyond this ceiling in service of healing, cell regeneration, and detoxification.

Aajonus described the hot tub as the most important health investment a person could make after food. He recommended maintaining the hot tub at a constant 103 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, with 108 as a higher effective temperature and 110 as the absolute ceiling. Going beyond 110 destroys vitamins, enzymes, and bacteria in the skin and connective tissues, and can also cause dehydration in those tissues.

He recommended baths lasting 40 to 90 minutes, with 40 minutes sufficient for superficial connective tissue work and 90 minutes needed for deeper lymphatic gland and node work. For people who could not tolerate the full 90 minutes, he suggested keeping the temperature toward the lower end of the range, around 100 to 103 degrees, to extend the tolerable duration. He recommended placing a bowl of ice water and a cold cloth at the head of the bath, using the cloth on the top of the head only and submerging the wrists in the ice water for two minutes at a time to cool the brain and allow continued immersion.

He also mentioned watching a movie during the bath as a practical aid to staying immersed for the required duration.

Before long lymphatic baths, he recommended consuming a pineapple and coconut cream mixture, which he described as helping dissolve lymphatic congestion. The recommended bath water temperature for long lymphatic sessions was stated as no lower than 102 degrees and no higher than 106 degrees in one version, with 102 to 108 in other versions. These represent slight variations across different contexts rather than a single fixed protocol.

He specifically described how the body's cooling defenses resist rapid heating. The body maintains a thermal boundary in air of approximately 6 to 12 inches, within which it can buffer against external heat. In water, this buffer collapses to approximately half an inch. This is why immersion is required: the body cannot be externally heated to the internal target temperature through any air-based medium, including sauna, steam, infrared, exercise, or hot air exposure.

He described a personal temperature-maintenance practice: keeping his hot tub at 102 degrees when he returned home from travel, entering it to restore internal body temperature and support lymphatic function.

For people with cold intolerance, he recommended two tablespoons of honey consumed approximately 10 to 15 minutes after a fat-rich meat meal. He stated this could produce rapid warmth, improved circulation, and even heat flashes within minutes of consumption.

Aajonus was asked specifically about soaking in hot springs with a temperature of up to 114 degrees Fahrenheit and stated that this temperature would destroy enzymes in the skin and connective tissue, damage those tissues, and cause dehydration in them. He treated this as equivalent to his general threshold: any immersion above 110 degrees begins destroying rather than supporting the tissues.

He separately stated that 120 degrees of water immersion could kill a person if sustained long enough. He drew a distinction between dry heat, which can be tolerated at much higher temperatures as in a desert environment, and water immersion, where the heat transfer is so direct and complete that the body's thermal defenses are bypassed. He had personally been in 140-degree desert heat without dying but acknowledged that the same temperature in water would be lethal.

He made an observation about modern society's temperature fragility. He estimated that approximately 80 percent of the contemporary population, if placed in an uncontrolled outdoor environment without central heating or air conditioning, would die. He contrasted this with people 100 years earlier who had no central heating or cooling and were far more physically robust in their ability to tolerate temperature swings.

He also described his own experience living outdoors in Alaska, where temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit caused him severe immobilizing joint pain before he had restored his health. He would retreat to his sleeping bag before sunset and wait for morning sun to warm it before being able to move without extreme pain.

He described the couch potato case of a 69-year-old man with thyroid failure and prostate cancer who was told to start thyroid medication. This man came to Aajonus and was put on the diet. He was also instructed to use hot baths, and Aajonus reported him still alive and functional at 74, having avoided medication entirely. The same 74-year-old was mentioned in another passage as a man who had returned to activity after years of complete sedentary invalidism.