August 25, 2005
Brain's Own Pain Relievers At Work in Placebo Effect
From Scientific American:
Sometimes, just thinking you are receiving treatment is enough to make you feel better, a phenomenon known as the placebo effect. Scientists have long wondered what causes this outcome, the magnitude of which is not the same for all people. A new brain imaging study suggests that the body's natural painkillers, endorphins, play a significant role.
Previous studies had shown general changes in brain activity associated with the placebo effect by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, and scientists had hypothesized that the brain's opioid system was involved. This time, by utilizing positron emission tomography (PET) brain scans for the new work, the researchers were able to focus on a specific type of brain receptor and track its response to a placebo. The PET scans employed by Jon-Kar Zubieta of the University of Michigan and his colleagues measured the activity of mu-opioid receptors, which are an integral part of the body's natural painkilling system and help transmit pain signals from one nerve cell to the next.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 06:55 AM | Permalink
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Next time you visit a doctor, ask him or her if they believe in the placebo effect? You will likely receive several anecdotal stories of how a patient they knew spontaneously healed up from cancer or some other degenerative disease. Yet, the medical orthodoxy not only dismisses the placebo effect, they have virtually dismissed all clinical evidence from the local medical doctor in the local clinic. This may be why medicine has not really advanced much in many areas, like cancer, neurology, etc.
Studies for efficiacy of drugs give one group a "sugar pill" and another group the pill containing the drug under "test". Supposedly, neither the doctor administering these pills nor the patient know who is receiving what pill. These are called "double blind" studies and are touted as the "gold standard" for medical studies. Yet, these studies are flawed in many ways. They usually pay no attention to what patients eat as food during these studies. Some patients could happen to be eating foods which might enhance the outcome of either pill. Or, some patients might be eating foods with might impede the drug, but possibly enhance the placebo effect. For example, it is well known that the trace mineral Selenium is protective of cancer. Certain foods contain this mineral. Suppose that during a study of a touted cancer drug, patients in either group happen to eat more foods containing this mineral and, as a result have their cancer symptoms reduced. This would confound the results. But so-called "researchers" conducting such studies usually never even pay any attention to foods or vitamins taken by participants in such studies.
Every story of an anecdotal cancer "cure" or "spontaneous remissions" in a patient should be reported to a central agency and studied. These studies could be conducted by graduate students or even high school students for free.
Also, every cancer patient taking drugs for "therapy" should be subjected to autopsy upon death, to determine whether the death occurred from cancer, "treatment" or a combination thereof. The laboratory performing such autopsies must be totally independent of the orthodox medical "profession", especially the federal government, and must contain only top flight pathologists. This should be a requirement of anyone receiving medical treatment for cancer in the U.S.
Finally, every person who reaches an age of over 90 years, say, and remains cancer free naturally, should be studied, in life, to seek to determine what common factors may have contributed to this, and in death at autopsy, with permission, to seek to determine why they did not get cancer in their lifetimes.
If the medical orthodoxy spent a little of the billions they now waste on genetics "research" on some of these issues, the public might actually learn something new and useful about this horrible disease. The human body is a very complex "many body" system. It is only possible to discover some of these things by studying the body as a whole system. One can be led down may false trails by studying only certain parts in isolation. Otto Warburg M.D., Ph.D. discovered this long ago and this is basically why he invented the tissue slice technique.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | Aug 26, 2005 6:13:27 AM
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