| Healing Cancer With The Mind | | | | affects your body chemistry. |
| From the desk of Dr Magne, author of Cancer | | | | Strangely, the placebo effect is not limited to the |
| Free For Life | | | | subjective sensations of patients; some studies |
| The power of your mind over functions of your | | | | show actual physiological change as a result of |
| body is widely acknowledged. Medical studies that | | | | sham treatments. In a study of asthmatics, |
| measure the effectiveness of treatment have | | | | researchers found that they could produce dilation |
| proved that patients often improve even when | | | | of the airways by simply telling people they were |
| the pill they are taking is only a sugar pill. This is | | | | inhaling a bronchiodilator, even when they weren't. |
| because they believe that the pill they are taking | | | | Fifty-two percent of the colitis patients treated |
| will heal them. This phenomenon is known as the | | | | with placebo in eleven different trials reported |
| placebo effect. In fact, in drug trials, the health | | | | feeling better - and fifty percent of the inflamed |
| improvements in the placebo group are often as | | | | intestines actually looked better when assessed |
| significant as those in the group receiving the | | | | with a sigmoidoscope. |
| actual drug. | | | | Spontaneous healing and spontaneous remission of |
| The placebo effect is the measurable, observable, | | | | cancer cannot explain all the healing or |
| or felt improvement in health not attributable to | | | | improvement that takes place because of |
| treatment. A placebo is a medication or treatment | | | | placebos. There are many FREE articles and case |
| believed by the administrator of the treatment to | | | | studies on |
| have no power. Placebos may be sugar pills or | | | | What is the explanation for the placebo effect? |
| starch pills. Even "fake" surgery and "fake" | | | | Some think it is the touching, the caring, the |
| psychotherapy are considered placebos. | | | | attention, and other interpersonal communication |
| A medical doctor may have results with a patient | | | | that are part of the controlled study process (or |
| on the force of his conviction, and because the | | | | the therapeutic setting), along with the |
| patient places his trust -and his life- in the hands | | | | hopefulness and encouragement provided by the |
| of the medical profession, he believes that the | | | | experimenter/healer, affect the mood of the |
| doctor cured him, when in fact, he cured himself. | | | | subject, which in turn triggers physical changes |
| No matter what, you're healed through your own | | | | such as release of endorphins. The process |
| intervention and belief. You're the one who | | | | reduces stress by providing hope or reducing |
| controls your entire body through the power of | | | | uncertainty about what treatment to take or |
| your mind, and if you're determined not to be | | | | what the outcome will be. The reduction in stress |
| cured, no surgery, no drug or placebo will heal | | | | prevents or slows down further harmful physical |
| you. | | | | changes from occurring. |
| Why an inert substance, or a fake surgery or | | | | The truth is that the placebo effect is huge - |
| therapy, would be effective in healing is not | | | | anywhere between 35 and 75 percent of patients |
| known. Some believe the placebo effect is | | | | benefit from taking a dummy pill in studies of new |
| psychological, due to a belief in the treatment or | | | | drugs - so huge, in fact, that it should probably be |
| to a subjective feeling of improvement. Your | | | | put to conscious use in clinical practice, even if we |
| beliefs and hopes about a treatment, combined | | | | do not entirely understand how it works. |
| with your suggestibility, may have a significant | | | | The inconvenient evidence keeps trickling in that if |
| biochemical effect. Your sensory experience and | | | | placebos are lies, they can also be, "lies that heal." |
| your thoughts affect your body's neurochemical | | | | In an influential article first published in 1955, the |
| system, which affects and is affected by your | | | | Harvard researcher Henry Beecher concluded that |
| hormonal and immune systems. Current | | | | between 30 and 40 percent of any treated group |
| knowledge demonstrates that a person's hopeful | | | | would respond to a placebo. Studies since then |
| attitude and beliefs may be very important to | | | | have shown placebos working for certain |
| their physical well-being and recovery from injury | | | | conditions - pain, depression, some heart ailments, |
| or illness. | | | | gastric ulcers and other stomach complaints - in |
| It may be that much of the placebo effect is a | | | | closer to fifty or sixty percent of subjects, |
| matter of mind over behavior. The changed | | | | sometimes more. Indeed, it's not unheard of for |
| behavior includes a change in attitude, in what you | | | | placebo effects to exceed those attributed to the |
| say about how you feel, and how you act. It also | | | | active drug. |