Alternative Medicine

[realiz]

Some would be purely placebo, some would be suppressing symptoms, and some would be curing the underlying issue. Suppressing symptoms would be the money maker.

I think the biggest money comes from convincing the greater population that they need to suppress symptoms and that the underlying issue is not their own responsibility. Why do people believe that they are supposed to be happy all the time, painfree all the time, sleep 8 hours every night, have sex all the time, lose weight without eating less, quit smoking without feeling the effect of withdrawal?

I know that some of the above do have serious underlying issues that may need medical treatment, but the biggest percentage do not. Life style changes and accepting that life is sometimes sad and painful and that happiness takes effort would do a lot more for a person than turning to medication.

Having faith in your own ability to help yourself probably goes along way to being a heathier person. The mind and the body are not two separate things. There is one body system that includes the brain and they are intricately linked.

[realiz]

I've always thought that many ailments, especially those that are stress-related, are more or less psychosomatic anyway.

I think that psychosomatic illness is much more complicated than people being sick because of stress or because they believe they are or will be sick.

I read a book a while ago where the author believed that most of the autoimmune disorders, such as arthritis, asthma and even cancer, were in some part caused by suppression of anger. His idea was that certain personality types, the types who always get along with everyone, do not cause trouble, always have a smile, but are unable to reveal their real any negative feelings, even to themselves, are much more prone to these types of diseases. His theory was that this anger manifested itself in anger toward the body itself and attacks.

I don't think a placebo would necessarily help this kind of thing, because it (providing his theory has merit) is much more deeply rooted problem, but perhaps work on communication, self-expression, self-image, etc. could ease up some of the physical symptoms.

This is a little different than the placebo effect, but it is along the lines of the state of mind healing the body and also how the state of mind affects the health of the body.

[Interbane]

What the placebo effect may be, instead, is simply an emotional boost that makes the person have better spirits, mostly because she thinks that she's getting effective treatment. There may be no connection between this feeling and the health outcome.

There are a few things that come to mind that might be relevant here. One, thoughts can affect us physiologically as you've said. Think of a naked woman. The intermediary between brain and body is a chemical. Fear releases chemicals, guilt releases chemicals, many emotions are linked to chemical mechanisms. The endocrine system is a chemical communication system in our body. We don't know the entire language. The regulation of a massive number of biological functions is done chemically. Blood pressure, electrolyte balance, sugar intake, and even our growth from birth to maturity.

A simple meditative exercise can lower blood pressure and cortisol. Cortisol suppresses your immune system, so meditating can boost your health. I'm sure there are countless other ways in which thoughts can affect physiology via chemicals.

The immune system is like the US military. Specialized pieces with different areas and sizes of focus. But composed of individuals. When at war with some diseases, it's nearly a stalemate, but one side is slowly gaining ground on the other. If we increase the rate that our immune system produces soldiers, the tables will turn and ground will be recovered.

Another thing to consider is belief. Belief itself isn't remarkable, but it is required for some physiological responses. You will feel fear if you believe someone is serious about killing you. But you feel no fear if you know them well and realize they are joking. So belief is a primary variable in some cases. Without it, no physiological response. With it, there is a response.

Think of a woman who is fighting for her life against cancer. Everything is going downhill until someone gives her a magical pill to cure cancer. It's a sugar pill but she thinks it's medicine. What would happen insider her head at that point, and in the hours following? Daydreaming about spending time with grandchildren rather than worrying about never seeing them again. Even if the thought is fleeting, it could alter your chemistry. Just like the flicker of an arousing thought can alter your chemistry. If it is cortisol that is reduced with that thought(a similar reaction to meditation), the effect could be cumulative. With less stress, the woman's belief in the pill would be strengthened, and she'd have more stress-reducing thoughts(or less stress-causing thoughts). With the increased effectiveness of the immune system after cortisol is suppressed, the difference could be enough to win a war against invading disease. A war that wouldn't be won without the reduction of cortisol. You'd be cured of whatever that specific disease was, simply by believing you were. This isn't the magic of belief, it's cause and effect, but very complex.

So I think placebo can effect a cure, but reality is far more complex and there are likely a ton of regulatory chemicals on both sides that would need to be considered.

[Interbane]

I read a book a while ago where the author believed that most of the autoimmune disorders, such as arthritis, asthma and even cancer, were in some part caused by suppression of anger. His idea was that certain personality types, the types who always get along with everyone, do not cause trouble, always have a smile, but are unable to reveal their real any negative feelings, even to themselves, are much more prone to these types of diseases.

Get such a person drunk and the emotional inhibition would drop. Alcohol is simply a chemical. But it's not in our arsenal. We may not have the chemical regulation processes to mimic those effects, so placebo would have no mechanism to tap into. Maybe we do have such a mechanisms, I'm not sure. Suppression of emotion and the associated stress would most likely increase cortisol, on an episodic basis. But one episode could domino effect, to a greater or lesser degree. That would deteriorate health and cause the problems listed.

To say that "anger manifested itself in anger toward the body" is idiopathic philosophy. Of course those words are applicable to what happens, but they do nothing to explain the underlying mechanisms. That's assuming he didn't explain the underlying mechanisms(or attempt to). If he did, I apologize.

[DWill]

So I think placebo can effect a cure, but reality is far more complex and there are likely a ton of regulatory chemicals on both sides that would need to be considered.

The mind effecting a cure, rather than acting as a palliative for the illness, or enabling the person to do more to help himself, is the matter I'm not sure about. I wonder about evidence for a direct link. I wonder about the possibility of harnessing the immune system through acts of the mind after cancer is already present. Or is the immune system involved mainly in prevention.

[Interbane]

The mind effecting a cure, rather than acting as a palliative for the illness, or enabling the person to do more to help himself, is the matter I'm not sure about. I wonder about evidence for a direct link.

The immune system can cure. It's not as though the "mind" could take full responsibility for any cure. The causal link isn't direct. The mind affects pre-existing chemistry, giving it a boost or reduction. Placebo is the utilization of what's already there rather than the manifestation of something novel(I think).

It sounds reasonable enough, but who knows. Some direct evidence would be nice. Perhaps such direct evidence already exists. I wonder if Lebeaux has any input, being a vet in the field.

[nomsisa]

I enjoyed reading your lively discussion…. I can only offer an observation, made while working for Hospice.
I have found, with some envy, I do admit, that one of the most helpful medications in a dying process is a strong belief in the power of prayer. Here we go; perhaps a Belief in God can also be classified as Alternative Medicine during that final exit.

[DWill]

Do you mean the power of, what is it called, intercessionist prayer, or the praying that the sick person does because of his illness? I suspect you're not saying that praying for others cures them (esp. since you're talking about hospice), but that praying brings the person more peace around his imminent death, perhaps in a way similar to psychoactive drugs. It would be more controversial to suggest that prayer can provide pain relief in the last stages. Surely morphine is much better for that.

[Saffron]

Interesting little discussion you've got going on here. Some very interesting questions have been kicked around. Just how are we put together body/brain/mind?! To add a little fuel to the discussion - here is a synopsis cut an pasted from Scientifc America, Feb. 2009 on the placebo effect.

In recent decades reports have confirmed the efficacy of various sham treatments in nearly all areas of medicine. Placebos have helped alleviate pain, depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, inflammatory disorders and even cancer.
Placebo effects can arise not only from a conscious belief in a drug but also from subconscious associations between recovery and the experience of being treated—from the pinch of a shot to a doctor’s white coat. Such subliminal conditioning can control bodily processes of which we are unaware, such as immune responses and the release of hormones.
Researchers have decoded some of the biology of placebo responses, demonstrating that they stem from active processes in the brain.

And here is an article on the placebo effect:
Deconstructing the Placebo Effect and Finding the Meaning Response
Daniel E. Moerman, PhD, and Wayne B. Jonas, MD
http://www.encognitive.com/files/Decons ... Effect.pdf

[Interbane]

Thanks, that's good for a leapfrog. It seems that placebo affects a wide range of conditions. Which begs for some competing explanations.

1) The mind elicits many different hormonal/chemical responses, depending on an invisible set of variables. Perhaps not invisible, but not yet discovered. From this diversification, a whole range of ailments could be addressed, even pain and bleeding. The complexity of the system required to carry this out means it would be an evolved mechanism. I could see it in a negative context, where animals naturally invoke placebo, but our introspection and doubt abort this natural process. Gifted with the depression of knowledge, we have our innate placebo taken away from us. Or a positive context, where this benefit goes above and beyond what animals are capable of, that we may change our belief based on some obscure phenomenon. Unsustainable if left perpetual, the placebo effects allow us to store up our immune system into one large "burst" to oppress the ailment below some critical threshold. I would wonder what "store up" means.

2) The placebo effect acts upon such a fundamental biological process that it is elementary to most ailments. One or two responses capable of helping a whole range of conditions. It keeps popping into my head the different effects of lowering cortisol. Cortisol has a large number of negative effects if the level is too high. One is that the immune system is suppressed. High blood pressure is another. Studies have been done showing that meditation lowers cortisol levels. I will try to find one, unless someone has a link. But meditation affecting us biologically... isn't that just placebo? Exactly.

Even if our minds could invoke some other change besides the lowering of cortisol, few of the others would matter. Lowering cortisol would have a noticable affect on many different ailments. When I say noticable, I mean larger than 1-5%, depending on the ailment. Blood pressure dropping toward normal would help many ailments. A more effective immune system would help even more.

I may look into #2 and see how it pans out, see what else I'm missing. Even if the mechanism is close, there could still be the evolved portion where it is beneficial to suppress your immune system until a certain point. I don't know what that would look like, but it's worth researching.