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I could run eight miles a day with full pack, eat only protein and vegetables, have the mental outlook of the Buddha--and yet still get cancer because... Maybe

I could run eight miles a day with full pack, eat only protein and vegetables, have the mental outlook of the Buddha--and yet still get cancer because... Maybe, or maybe not. When you actually have cause to investigate this stuff deeply, as I have, it's surprising to discover how little is known about these kinds of things. If you could take 100 people of similar age and health and had them all "run eight miles a day with full pack, eat only protein and vegetables, have the mental outlook of the Buddha", and 50 developed cancer and 50 didn't, little is known about why any given person would stay healthy and another would get sick. As you wrote, cancer risk probably involves effects from many factors. However, I'm not sure how redirecting "billions" to, e.g., "psychological 'sciences'" serves to reduce the incidence of cancers that are essentially environmental in origin. Having researched this topic in great depth, I'm now persuaded by the medical researchers like Bruce Lipton and Rudi Tanzi who assert, with solid scientific evidence, that psychology - particularly subconscious emotions - are a major factor in determining whether a person will develop or recover from serious illnesses like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, MS, ALS, etc. Of course these ideas don't get much acceptance or affirmation from the majority of mainstream medical researchers, because, hey, everyone already knows that psychology and physiological health are totally independent, right? It turns out we don't actually need to be redirecting "billions" to, e.g., "psychological 'sciences'". It would suffice to let go of some of the unexamined assumptions and prejudices that prevail in the current research landscape, and pay some attention to the more open-minded researchers who are already investigating these things and coming up with promising findings.

1stop 11y ago
> Bruce Harold Lipton, is an American developmental biologist best known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person's beliefs. He is a visiting fellow lecturer at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic. ... You've become convinced by this man. > Surgical oncologist David Gorski has described Lipton as a crank who misunderstands evolutionary biology. He notes that some of Lipton's ideas start out based on research from epigenetics but he twists them into a "woo-sphere". So could you cite some of the "solid scientific evidence" that you have referred to... because your appeal to authority seems to have failed you... :\
- tomhoward 11y ago
  Hi, first of all, I understand the combative skepticism as I used to be that way myself. I used to scoff at chiropractic and slap my knees at all the hilarious takedowns of woo-merchants by Quackwatch and SBM and it was all great fun. But a chronic auto-immune illness that became debilitating about 5 years ago, and a long, exasperating, and ultimately futile attempt to find treatment via conventional medicine forced me to consider anything in order to get well, and the method that got me well came via chiropractors and Lipton's ideas. As of now I'm almost completely recovered, whilst others I know with similar conditions who have stuck with conventional medicine continue to be sick and frustrated. So, scoff if you will, but had I not learned what I learned from Lipton, I'd have no health and possibly no life. Now I understand the physiology behind my illness and my recovery, I believe those who say the same kind of approach could be effective for cancer - at least the ones that occur downstream of auto-immune illness (colorectal cancer for example). And I believe the anecdotes of people who've used these techniques to overcome cancer, because it aligns with my own experience. (Though let me be clear: I don't believe chiropractors can "cure cancer", and I don't have much time for chiropractic at all these days, now that I've found better and cheaper alternatives.) But of course it needs more research so it stops being mere anecdotes and starts becoming hard data. That's the whole point of this thread. As for "hard science" - all I can point you to are the books by Tanzi and Lipton, and Tanzi's research papers. Tanzi is Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. He's been a leading researcher on Alheimer's for over 15 years, and much of his research and writing is focused on the role of emotions in genetic expression and the development of illness. But he's co-authored books with Deepak Chopra and has been criticized by Jerry Coyne - so he can therefore be disregarded, right? This is exactly my point. I profoundly wish there were more hard studies (indeed I put quite a lot of thought into whether I could help facilitate some research based on my own experience). I understand that Lipton's manner and Tanzi's link to Chopra make them easy to dismiss in the way that you have. But the dismissals all seem to succumb to the "begging the question" fallacy - dismissing them because "we already know they are wrong" rather than engaging with their arguments and evidence. I may only be a sample size of one, but significant numbers of people are recovering from illness by following the principles they espouse and significant numbers of qualified medical practitioners accept and endorse their ideas and research findings. If more attention was paid to this research and if it were then to inspire further research, maybe the world would start making real progress towards overcoming the illnesses that account for most of the ballooning costs of the health systems in western countries. Update: here's a link to a recent study linking emotion-focused therapies on telemere length in cancer patients. Telemere length is believed to be relevant in cancer risk and recovery potential: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full
ethbro 11y ago
Wasn't me with the downvote, but just as a friendly comment, you do come off a little "if you knew more, you'd feel as I do" with this comment. Maybe, as another suggests, focus more on information and provide some links?
- tomhoward 11y ago
  Thanks for that, I hear what you're saying and appreciate you saying it. Hopefully my followup comment adds some substance - though not links to one-off studies, as it's to broad a topic for that. For you or anyone else interested, Lipton's The Biology of Belief explains the principles very well on a cellular biology level. Tanzi's books with Deepak Chopra (Super Brain and Super Genes) are probably more of an affront to credulity given the Chopra connection, but are there for anyone who can get over that. Yes they are all pitched at the new age self-help market because that's the audience that's into this kind of stuff at the moment. Hopefully that won't be the case forever, and signs are there that attitudes are starting to change.
sireat 11y ago
I would love to see some links to that scientific evidence especially about the developing an illness from negative outlook. It seems almost an accepted wisdom that mental outlook would play some part in recovery process. Think positive and you will recover/improve somewhat faster(this has been in popular press many times in last 20-30 years). However, I have a hard time finding evidence that negative outlook makes you get a serious illness. This is something that I see in magazines of dubious nature("The seven all-natural cures to dementia that your doctor is hiding from you!") Are there publications with peer-review behind that?
- tomhoward 11y ago
  Here's a couple of links: http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2013/Emotional_Stress_Reduces_Effectiveness_of_Prostate_Cancer_Therapies_in_Animal_Model.htm http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2013/Emotional_Stres... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18190880/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18190880/ The process of stress leading to disease is fairly well-established and uncontroversial: 1) Any stress puts the body into fight or flight mode 2) When the body is in fight/flight, energy/nutrients are devoted to short-term survival, not long-term needs like immunity, cell-repair, digestion 3) After long enough in this state (chronic fight/flight) infections take over, cells break down, tumors form, etc.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Personal anecdote: grief struck me last year => repeated heart failures. If, for the sake of fond memories I allow my mind to wander, I feel my heart weaken in a second. There's a connection between some emotions and your organs. It's not far fetched that constant negativity could trigger this (I believe it's close to takotsubo syndrom, pain => bad hormones => change in heart tissue) and lead to very bad health overall.

1stop 11y ago

> Bruce Harold Lipton, is an American developmental biologist best known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person's beliefs. He is a visiting fellow lecturer at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic. ... You've become convinced by this man. > Surgical oncologist David Gorski has described Lipton as a crank who misunderstands evolutionary biology. He notes that some of Lipton's ideas start out based on research from epigenetics but he twists them into a "woo-sphere". So could you cite some of the "solid scientific evidence" that you have referred to... because your appeal to authority seems to have failed you... :\

tomhoward 11y ago
Hi, first of all, I understand the combative skepticism as I used to be that way myself. I used to scoff at chiropractic and slap my knees at all the hilarious takedowns of woo-merchants by Quackwatch and SBM and it was all great fun. But a chronic auto-immune illness that became debilitating about 5 years ago, and a long, exasperating, and ultimately futile attempt to find treatment via conventional medicine forced me to consider anything in order to get well, and the method that got me well came via chiropractors and Lipton's ideas. As of now I'm almost completely recovered, whilst others I know with similar conditions who have stuck with conventional medicine continue to be sick and frustrated. So, scoff if you will, but had I not learned what I learned from Lipton, I'd have no health and possibly no life. Now I understand the physiology behind my illness and my recovery, I believe those who say the same kind of approach could be effective for cancer - at least the ones that occur downstream of auto-immune illness (colorectal cancer for example). And I believe the anecdotes of people who've used these techniques to overcome cancer, because it aligns with my own experience. (Though let me be clear: I don't believe chiropractors can "cure cancer", and I don't have much time for chiropractic at all these days, now that I've found better and cheaper alternatives.) But of course it needs more research so it stops being mere anecdotes and starts becoming hard data. That's the whole point of this thread. As for "hard science" - all I can point you to are the books by Tanzi and Lipton, and Tanzi's research papers. Tanzi is Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. He's been a leading researcher on Alheimer's for over 15 years, and much of his research and writing is focused on the role of emotions in genetic expression and the development of illness. But he's co-authored books with Deepak Chopra and has been criticized by Jerry Coyne - so he can therefore be disregarded, right? This is exactly my point. I profoundly wish there were more hard studies (indeed I put quite a lot of thought into whether I could help facilitate some research based on my own experience). I understand that Lipton's manner and Tanzi's link to Chopra make them easy to dismiss in the way that you have. But the dismissals all seem to succumb to the "begging the question" fallacy - dismissing them because "we already know they are wrong" rather than engaging with their arguments and evidence. I may only be a sample size of one, but significant numbers of people are recovering from illness by following the principles they espouse and significant numbers of qualified medical practitioners accept and endorse their ideas and research findings. If more attention was paid to this research and if it were then to inspire further research, maybe the world would start making real progress towards overcoming the illnesses that account for most of the ballooning costs of the health systems in western countries. Update: here's a link to a recent study linking emotion-focused therapies on telemere length in cancer patients. Telemere length is believed to be relevant in cancer risk and recovery potential: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full

ethbro 11y ago

Wasn't me with the downvote, but just as a friendly comment, you do come off a little "if you knew more, you'd feel as I do" with this comment. Maybe, as another suggests, focus more on information and provide some links?

tomhoward 11y ago
Thanks for that, I hear what you're saying and appreciate you saying it. Hopefully my followup comment adds some substance - though not links to one-off studies, as it's to broad a topic for that. For you or anyone else interested, Lipton's The Biology of Belief explains the principles very well on a cellular biology level. Tanzi's books with Deepak Chopra (Super Brain and Super Genes) are probably more of an affront to credulity given the Chopra connection, but are there for anyone who can get over that. Yes they are all pitched at the new age self-help market because that's the audience that's into this kind of stuff at the moment. Hopefully that won't be the case forever, and signs are there that attitudes are starting to change.

sireat 11y ago

I would love to see some links to that scientific evidence especially about the developing an illness from negative outlook. It seems almost an accepted wisdom that mental outlook would play some part in recovery process. Think positive and you will recover/improve somewhat faster(this has been in popular press many times in last 20-30 years). However, I have a hard time finding evidence that negative outlook makes you get a serious illness. This is something that I see in magazines of dubious nature("The seven all-natural cures to dementia that your doctor is hiding from you!") Are there publications with peer-review behind that?

tomhoward 11y ago
Here's a couple of links: http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2013/Emotional_Stress_Reduces_Effectiveness_of_Prostate_Cancer_Therapies_in_Animal_Model.htm http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2013/Emotional_Stres... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18190880/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/18190880/ The process of stress leading to disease is fairly well-established and uncontroversial: 1) Any stress puts the body into fight or flight mode 2) When the body is in fight/flight, energy/nutrients are devoted to short-term survival, not long-term needs like immunity, cell-repair, digestion 3) After long enough in this state (chronic fight/flight) infections take over, cells break down, tumors form, etc.
agumonkey 11y ago
Personal anecdote: grief struck me last year => repeated heart failures. If, for the sake of fond memories I allow my mind to wander, I feel my heart weaken in a second. There's a connection between some emotions and your organs. It's not far fetched that constant negativity could trigger this (I believe it's close to takotsubo syndrom, pain => bad hormones => change in heart tissue) and lead to very bad health overall.