Passive Acceptance of Alt-Med to Support to Ill and Dying - A Serious Conundrum

[rppa]

quote:Originally posted by rppa
To me it seems almost self-evident that state of mind and visualization should have an effect on healing, and more than a little woo-woo to think otherwise.

But it appears that positive attitude doesn’t have any affect on survival rates

Well I suppose the "healers" are claiming that survival is the effect of their cures, but if I were terminal that would not necessarily be what I was looking for. I'd be more interested in mobility and controllable pain, in being able to live well until the end.

 

[Open Mind]

PLUCKINESS can't help you defeat cancer after all.

A Scottish team looked at 26 studies on whether a patient's outlook affects survival. Ten of the studies examined the widely held belief that "fighting spirit" can help people live longer. Another 12 examined the opposite - whether people died sooner if their outlook was pessimistic.

Mark Petticrew's team at the Medical Research Council's Public Health Services Unit in Glasgow concluded that neither affects the final outcome (BMJ, vol 325, p 1066).

But Petticrew still urges people to stay optimistic. "There are lots of reasons to have a positive mental attitude other than survival, such as better quality of life and avoidance of anxiety and depression," he says.

Personally I think their conclusion probably will be found to be wrong!

These were mostly questionnaires on coping … how many did something much more active such as positive visualization several times a day?

Instead of that they do a survey getting people to judge things like ….
‘denial of illness’ .. how is that positive action?

‘fighting spirit’ ….. hmm is that acitve or just the occasional ‘I’m going to win’ followed by hours of subconsious anxiety

Questionnaires are surely useless for this sort of thing, they monitor what people say they do rather than what they actually do. This analysis is of little more importance than a study of what people plan to do, hope to do or think they do

Also this questionnaire technique views humans as only having one predominant attitude, people’s moods change all the time. So any study must be an attempt to acitively influence people’s outlooks.

At least 8 studies showing a positive extension of survival in cancer patients …… according to Alex J Mitchell of Leeds University critique of this report ‘It is of more than passing interest that there are at least eight prospective studies in early cancer that report a positive effect of some aspect of psychological outlook on survival or recurrence. These are Greer et al 1979, Greer et al, 1990 (follow-up data), Funch et al 1983, Diclemente & Temoshok 1985, Pettingale 1985, Wirschung et al 1988, Dean & Surtees, 1989, and Levy et al 1991.

We know positive attitude improves the immune system, simply logic would suggest this would improve much disease. Also another studies show increase of lifespan in optimists vs pessimists
http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2000-rst/603.html

Another factor is people with a positive active attitude will probably try to focus on eating a better diet …… 1/3 of diet cases are cancer related, so diet is a preventative.

 

[JAK]

But it appears that positive attitude doesn’t have any affect on survival rates
...
(I don't know if more up-to-date work has been done that refutes this.)

I would question the study cited. If "fighting spirit" implies an aggressive posture, then the person's "fight or flight" systems have been tapped. These are part of the sympathetic nervous system where energy resources (blood for instance) are diverted from the torso and distributed more to the extremities. The parasympathetic nervous system is the opposite where resource flow reverses. This occurs during digestion, sleep, and meditation. It appears that the immune system is tied more to the parasympathetic nervous system. Since alertness and consciousness are tied to the sympathetic nervous system/stress system (see Vanault and Chapouthier's study of Beta-CCM or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15096912), just being awake likely impedes the function of the immune system.

I suggest a more telling study would involve sleep levels, not attitude. It is hard to determine the state of mind of an awake individual. Though they may profess to have a positive attitude, who can truly know? Sleep, on the otherhand, can be more easily measured. Meditation might even be included in the study. (Recent research shows enhanced immune system response during meditation.)