Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, is the Vice President of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Senior Scientist at the Research Institute of the California Pacific Medical Center. She completed a bachelor of philosophy degree from Monteith College, Wayne State University, a master of arts in social and behavioral studies from the University of Texas, San Antonio, a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Texas in Austin, postdoctoral fellowship in cognitive sciences laboratory, Science Applications International Corporation, and a postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at Stanford University. She has published more than 200 articles in the area of consciousness studies and is the co-editor of Consciousness and Healing, Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine, by Elsevier. She conducted research at Stanford University, Science Applications Internal Corporation, the Institute of Parapsychology, and the Mind Science Foundation. She has taught at Trinity University, Stanford University, and Harvard Medical School, and has lectured widely, including at the United Nations and at the Smithsonian Institution. She served as a Congressionally appointed advisory member for the National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and is on the board of trustees for the Esalen Institute and on the board of directors for the Institute of Noetic Sciences. She also serves on the scientific program committee for the Tucson Center for Consciousness Studies.Dr Schlitz: This is a remarkable time in human history--never before have so many world views, belief systems, and ways of engaging reality come into contact. On one hand are the remarkable successes of science and technology: an orbiting space station, cloned sheep and cats, and a computerized chess champion that has outsmarted even the best of the human chess champions. On the other hand, through the Internet, awareness of the world's wisdom and spiritual traditions has expanded: we now have access to practices that were once isolated in the Himalayas or deep in the Amazon and available only to a very small group of adepts. Today we are experiencing a convergence of these different ways of knowing, science on one hand and diverse religious, spiritual and cultural traditions on the other. Nowhere is this more clear than in the case of medicine.
There are various ways of responding to the unprecedented convergence we now experience. One is conflict; we need only turn on our radios to see how widespread this response is at a global level. Another response is co-option, where one tradition--typically the Western technological, scientifically based rationalist model--overpowers indigenous wisdom, often in very covert ways. A third response takes the form of creativity: As differences come together, we have the opportunity to birth new ideas and new ways of being together as a collective humanity.
My focus this morning is on the research perspective that lies at the interface of science, spirituality, and medicine. How can science begin to offer insights into these wisdom and spiritual practices? And how are these wisdom practices influencing science and medicine in ways that may lead to a more integral approach to health and healing?
Primary Areas of Evidence
There are five primary areas of data or evidence: the crosscultural data, survey studies, public health research, basic science related to mind-body medicine, and clinical studies of distant healing.
Crosscultural PerspectivesIndigenous cultures hold no separation between healing and a connection to the sacred. If you examine various traditions, it is only within our own culture that we make this demarcation between what is the rationalist approach and what is our deep engagement with the mystery. From the survey studies, it is clear that people are hungry for a deeper sense of meaning and for a connection to their spirituality. Seventy-three percent of adults believe praying for someone else can help cure their illness; this is based on a CNN poll. Fifty percent of patients wanted physicians to pray with them. This says something about what people are calling for; how people will feel happier, more contented; how they feel satisfied in terms of the therapeutic encounter. A recent survey1 published by the National Institutes of Health looked at the ten most common complementary and alternative practices or modalities that are used by Americans today, and they found that of the top ten, three involved prayer: prayer for self, 43%; prayer for others, 24%; and prayer groups, a very common modality for people to engage in.
Public Health Studies
In terms of public health research, through the use of epidemiological methods and tools, we are beginning to understand the correlations between spiritual and religious practice and physical outcomes. Jeff Levin, a social epidemiologist, notes that more than 1600 studies have been conducted examining the correlation between religious and spiritual participation and health.2 The evidence is overwhelming. Findings persist regardless of religious affiliation, diseases or health conditions, age, sex, race or ethnicity, or nationality of those studied. This finding is positively correlated with education. People who have a strong educational background believe that these kinds of practices and principles are important for health and well-being.
Basic Science on Mind-Body MedicineSo let's talk about the mind-body connection. From cross-cultural perspectives, it appears that people believe in and practice spirituality in the context of healing and, in fact, don't make a separation. Within the Hawaiian Kahuna tradition, healers and religious spiritual practitioners are one and the same. It's clear from the correlational studies within the epidemiology data that positive relationships exist between religious and spiritual practice and health outcomes on a variety of different conditions. We hear so much about the placebo effect as a mind-body piece for example. In our new book, Consciousness and Healing,2 we consider an integral approach to medicine in that healing and consciousness is not only a part of this mind-body connection but also is a part of our connection to our relationships--our interpersonal relationships, our relationship to the environment, and our relationship to the transpersonal or the spiritual. Harris Dienstfrey, contributor to Consciousness and Healing, writes, "The mind as a source of medicine is waiting to be explored."2:p 60 It is very interesting to me as a researcher that the placebo effect is something that we tend to put aside. It's the control condition. And yet if we really wanted to understand the innate capacities of the body to heal, wouldn't we want to focus in there and look at the ways in which our body can take an inert substance and produce a physiological change? More so, this inert substance knows the whole cascade of responses that are necessary to lead to a particular kind of outcome. How does that happen? It is a profound mystery and one that needs to be explored more fully.
Wound-Healing Study
We received an NIH grant to look at the effects of prayer and spirituality on wound healing; research we are conducting at California Pacific Medical Center. This is a three-arm clinical trial with women, primarily breast cancer patients, who are undergoing reconstructive surgery after mastectomy. We have recruited healers from across the country to participate in this study--people who believe they can use their minds, their prayers, and their intentions to influence other people at a distance.
These healers include: Chi Gong masters, Johrei practitioners, Reiki practitioners, Carmelite nuns, Buddhist monks, and Christian groups. All the healers in our research study keep a daily log that describes their practice and their experience. People report making use of techniques such as directing healing energy toward the distant person, using some kind of focusing tool, such as a photograph, to focus their attention on the distant person, or making use of petitionary prayer to call on divine help from supernatural forces.
The women who come into the surgery unit are randomized into two blinded arms: Either they receive distant healing or they don't. In the third arm of a distant healing or prayer and intention healing group, patients are called every day and are told that they are getting healing. The outcome in this study is the rate of wound healing by measuring collagen deposition in a little GORE-TEX® patch inserted in the groin area, a standardized location. We're also looking at a variety of psychosocial measures. This is an example of bringing spiritual and religious practices, what we call compassionate intention, into a laboratory setting and looking at the role of expectancy and placebo as it relates to the particular outcome measure. We are framing the possibility that our intention can actually influence the physical well-being of another person, even if that person is unaware of that intention.
Distant Healing ResearchIn the recent National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) survey study I mentioned, a significantly high percentage of the population makes use of prayer for other people. Many people believe that if I pray for you, you will become better, or if you pray for me I'll become better, and yet we know very little of the mechanism to explain how this might happen. So this is a frontier area for research. To date, more than 180 studies have been done in this area, with more than half of them producing significant results. In these experiments, one person through their intention tries to influence the physiology or the physical condition of a target system, such as cell cultures, animal models, and there are human studies. As of March 2004, there have been nine controlled clinical trials looking at intercessory prayer (compassionate intention at a distance). Six of these have produced statistically significant positive results. For a complete list of these studies, one can visit the distant healing research site at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Web site (www.noetic.org).
As an example, Dr Elizabeth Targ at California Pacific Medical Center did a series of trials looking at AIDS patients.3 She selected AIDS as a condition because, at the time of the study, it was very resistant to conventional allopathic medical intervention. Patients were randomized into standard care alone or they got standard care plus a booster, which was this intercessory prayer at a distance. This was a blinded study. In both a pilot study and a confirmation study, the prayer groups had statistically significant improvements in outcome, suggesting that the intervention has clinical relevance.
Compassionate Intention and Cancer Patients: The Love Study
Anyone who works with cancer as a condition knows that partners of cancer patients can feel very disempowered: There is very little to do to help your partner. The Love Study is another project that is relevant to the translation of basic science into clinically relevant outcomes. Specifically, one of our goals was to promote psychological robustness in the partner of the cancer patient.
We trained the cancer patient partner in compassionate intention. When the training program was over, we conducted a distant healing experiment in our lab at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. We monitored the patient's physiology, looking at autonomic measures: skin conductance, respiration, heart rate, and EEGs. One person was situated in a 2000-pound electromagnetically shielded room to rule out any conventional explanations that might account for the results. We asked the couple to exchange meaningful items--a psychological activity that helps them stay connected. For example, a man gave his wife his boots and she gave him her doll, which they held while doing the experiment. The job of the partner of the cancer patient, at random times throughout a session, is to try to calm his partner's physiology. This is a "proof of principle" type study to show that physiological changes occur as a result of this kind of exchange. The man watched a closed-circuit television as his wife's image intermittently appeared on the screen. Neither he nor she knew when those viewing periods were going to occur. The experiment is based on a randomized double-blind-type protocol.
This study can be seen in light of other studies using this same testing paradigm. A study published in the British Journal of Psychology4 examined 35 studies that looked at whether the intention of one person can interact with and influence the physiology of another person. They found a statistically significant positive difference across the studies.
We feel we have established the proof of principle that there is some kind of nonlocal or transpersonal exchange of information between two people. So, now the question for all practitioners is: How does that relate to our practice? How do we bring these ideas of spirituality and compassionate intention into our practice, and how do we begin to see whether or not it helps clinically?
Practical Application
In the introduction to Consciousness and Healing, Ken Wilber notes that the most important aspect of this integral approach to medicine is the transformation that happens in the healer.2 Rather than thinking about this as something outside of ourselves, how do we really bring these principles into our own lives. Key to an integral approach is not the content of the medical bag, but the holder of the bag: one who has opened herself or himself to the multidimensional nature of healing, including body, mind, soul, spirit, culture, and nature.
Spiritual Education
Today, 101 medical schools incorporate patient spirituality in their curriculum, up from 17 in 1995. This fact suggests that these principles are being incorporated into medical education, albeit at an elective level. Some hospitals such as UCLA Medical Center encourage physicians to include spiritual histories in patients' charts. This acknowledges that in fact these kinds of principles are being incorporated into mainstream medicine. Harold G Koenig, MD, who works at Duke University, recommends that physicians ask every patient if they consider themselves spiritual or religious. Doctors should encourage prayer and religious participation if that is a source of comfort.5 Religion has the power to heal, and we have an obligation to value that power alongside medicine.
Conclusion
By way of conclusion, each of us in some way represents both the hospice worker who is helping in a very loving, kind, gentle way to let the old paradigm die, to watch and release it from its own suffering, and at the same time, each of us acting as midwives for the birth of something new. As these different cultures and different world views converge, we can begin to see the birthing of a creative solution to many of the problems we face today.
References
- Barnes PM, Powell-Griner E, McFann K, Nahin RL. Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults: United States, 2002. Adv Data 2004 May 27;(343):1-19.
- Schlitz M, Amorok T, Micozzi MS, eds. Consciousness and healing. St Louis: Elsevier: Churchill-Livingston; 2005.
- Sicher F, Trag E, Moore D 2nd, Smith HS. A randomized double-blind study of the effect of distant healing in a population with advanced AIDS. Report of a small scale study. West J Med 1998 Dec;169(6):356-63.
- Schmidt S, Schneider R, Utts J, Walach H. Distant intentionality and the feeling of being stared at: two meta-analyses. Br J Psychol 2004 May;95(Pt 2):235-47.
- Koenig HG. Spirituality in patient care: why, how, when, and what. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press; 2002. See also Web site: www.beliefnet.com/story/131/story_13132_1.html.
Charles Elder, MD, received his BA, MD, and MPH degrees at Boston University and completed his internship and residency at the University of Michigan in 1990. He joined the Northwest Permanente Medical Group as a primary care internist in 1991. He has offered a natural medicine consultative group clinic for six years and established the KP Northwest Integrative Medicine Service last year. He organizes the Northwest Permanente Complementary and Alternative Medicine Journal Club, is cochair of the regional natural products committee, and is clinical lead for the interregional CAM domain. He is a clinical investigator at the Center for Health Research, is principal investigator for two NCCAM NIH-funded clinical trials, and has published several papers on the topics of integrative and Ayurvedic medicine.Dr Elder: The glaring discrepancy between our patients' needs and what we are capable of offering them within the confines of allopathic care represents an underrecognized root cause of chronic dissatisfaction among adult primary care clinicians. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including the spirituality, prayer, and spiritual healing discussion that we're having today, can offer us practical tools to help bridge this chasm. The following discussion focuses on meditation: the mechanics of meditation, the evidence base to support its use, and the practical recommendations we can offer to patients.
We can understand "science" as denoting any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study. That "science" connotes empiricism is not an a priori truth but rather a provincialism of our age. An authentic meditation technique, then, can be properly understood as a scientific pursuit, with the object of systematic study being consciousness or the self. Meditation does not represent a mood-making or counterculture phenomenon but instead a specific set of simple but sophisticated techniques having definable physiologic markers and clinical results. Mantra meditation represents one technique, where the meditator sits comfortably with eyes closed and focuses his or her attention on a specific mantra or sound. This procedure serves to guide the mind from active awareness to a more tranquil state rooted in pure consciousness. Once this restful state is achieved, however, thoughts may frequently "bubble up," diverting attention back toward the external world. The meditator responds by gently returning focus to the mantra and so on, back and forth. The technique thus represents a simple yet specifically directed procedure.
The physiology of meditation has been exhaustively studied. When meditating, patients exhibit decreases in heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels, as well as increased serotonin availability and reduced free radical burden. In one classic study published by Keith Wallace, MD, in the journal Science,1 subjects demonstrated reduced O2 consumption, reduced respiratory rate, and increased galvanic skin resistance during meditation practice. In another paper published in American Psychologist,2 meta-analysis data comparing meditation with simple eyes-closed rest suggested increased basal skin resistance, reduced respiratory rate, and reduction in plasma lactate in the meditating groups. Thus, the literature clearly describes distinct physiologic changes that occur during meditation.
Let's next consider some of the clinical trials data. A paper published about ten years ago in Hypertension3 compared patients with mild hypertension, randomized into three groups: an attention control group receiving standard patient education, a physical stress reduction group receiving training in the progressive relaxation technique, and a meditation group receiving instruction in Transcendental Meditation. At three months, this single-blinded study showed statistically and clinically significant reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the meditating group compared with control.
In another study published in the American Journal of Cardiology,4 21 patients with documented coronary artery disease were tested at baseline by exercise tolerance testing and were assigned either to meditation instruction or to a wait-list control. After eight months, the meditation group had a 14.7% increase in exercise tolerance, an 11.7% increase in maximal workload, an 18% delay in onset of ST-segment depression, and significant reductions in rate-pressure product at three and six minutes and at maximal exercise compared with the control group.
In addition to cardiovascular disease, studies have suggested beneficial clinical effects for meditation in numerous other clinical conditions, including anxiety disorders and substance abuse. For example, meta-analysis data have shown a significant effect size for meditation compared with other standard behavioral interventions in the context of both alcohol and tobacco abuse. Finally, numerous studies in the literature suggest that regular meditators use less health care. One study,5 for example, compared five years of medical insurance utilization statistics of approximately 2000 regular meditators with a normative database of approximately 600,000 members of the same insurance carrier, showing the meditating group to have lower medical utilization rates in all categories.
At a practical level, what can we offer our patients? Some KP Regions offer training in various stress management protocols through the Health Education Department, and most larger cities offer additional community resources. In Portland, I sometimes refer my patients to the Portland Transcendental Meditation Center for meditation instruction or to the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine for classes in Qigong.
In summary, meditation represents a sophisticated mental technique that is associated with a definable physiology and can render significant positive clinical effects. Through the use of meditation and other evidence-based CAM modalities, as adjuncts to usual care, primary care clinicians may be able to affect a sizeable number of patients we might otherwise be unable to reach.
References
- Wallace RK. Physiological effects of transcendental meditation. Science 1970 Mar 27;167(926):1751-4.
- Dillbeck MC, Orme-Johnson DW. Physiological differences between transcendental meditation and rest. [Editorial] Am Psychol 1987 Sep;42(9):879-81.
- Schneider RH, Staggers F, Alexander CN, et al. A randomized controlled trial of stress reduction for hypertension in older African Americans. Hypertension 1995 Nov;26(5):820-7.
- Zamarra JW, Schneider RH, Besseghini I, Robinson DK, Salerno JW. Usefulness of the transcendental meditation program in the treatment of patients with coronary artery disease. Am J Cardiol 1996 Apr 15;77(10):867-70.
- Orme-Johnson DW. Medical care utilization and the transcendental meditation program. Psychosom Med 1987 Sep/Oct;49(5):493-507.
Healing Metabolism: A Naturopathic Medicine Perspective on Achieving Weight Loss and Long-Term Balance| to pdf >>
Introduction
Any clinician who works with patients struggling to lose weight or to maintain weight loss has observed a common paradox: that, on the basis of how much our overweight or obese patients may tell us they are eating and exercising, we believe they should be losing weight, but they aren't. In fact, in this process of expending more energy than they consume, sometimes our patients actually gain weight. Unfortunately, clinicians may conclude--mainly out of frustration--that these patients are not being completely truthful (either with us or themselves) or that all they need is more willpower. This article introduces a framework that a naturopathic doctor (ND) may use to treat overweight or obese patients who are in this predicament.
In general, NDs consider that the equation calories in < calories out = weight loss is an oversimplification for some patients. In addition to the relation between caloric intake and activity, several other factors contribute to a patient's overall health and, therefore, to his or her actual ability to lose weight in a sustainable and healthy way. These factors include:All of these factors are considered to influence metabolism either directly or indirectly, because metabolism is thought to be affected by lifestyle and hormone balance and not just by heredity and caloric intake. A similar perspective has become popularized by endocrinologist Diana Schwarzbein, MD.1 Dr Schwarzbein has written several excellent, patient-oriented books on the topic of what she calls metabolic damage and healing in overweight and obese patients. In her words, a healthy metabolism has the appropriate balance between anabolic and catabolic reactions. From a naturopathic medicine perspective, the foundation for successful, healthy weight loss and maintenance is through healing the metabolism by balancing these two processes.
- Psychological stress levels
- Exercise history
- Dietary history
- Hormone balance
- Quality and amount of sleep
- Toxic chemical exposure (for example, alcohol, tobacco, processed foods, caffeine, and pharmaceutical drugs)
How Does Metabolism Become Damaged?
In the intake for an overweight or obese patient, the ND will explore, among other things, the patient's past and current stress levels, eating habits, and exercise habits. When patients who cannot lose weight or are still gaining weight claim that they now eat very little, eat a healthy diet, or were thin or underweight when younger, we look for certain patterns. In such patients, we would expect to see a significant history of one or more of the following:Notably, six of the seven items on this list are things people commonly do to lose weight, but clinical experience suggests that these strategies are potentially harmful for some patients. When done chronically or excessively, these pursuits may contribute to metabolic damage, that is, to a metabolism in which anabolic processes cannot keep pace with catabolic reactions.
- Very-low-fat or low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets
- Low-protein diets
- "Yo-yo" dieting
- Chronic undereating
- Fasting
- Excessive cardiovascular exercise
- Traumatic or prolonged psychological stress.
At first impression, a person would be expected to lose weight as long as his or her metabolism uses up more chemicals and energy than it is replacing. In fact, this weight loss may occur initially but continues for only a short period and results not from loss of fat but from breakdown of cell structures, organ tissue, bone, and muscle. In this process, the body uses up vital functional and structural proteins and fats--which are not being replaced with good nutrition--just to stay alive. Eventually, the individual reaches a plateau, where the body is exhausted and unable to respond. At this point, eating even less and exercising more intensely can have a seemingly paradoxical effect and result in gaining more weight back than was lost. In reality, this situation is not as paradoxical as it may at first appear. The body evolved very well to adapt to deprivation but not to excess, and so it tends to default toward conservation. Calories in < calories out should equal weight loss, but an individual's metabolic balance may be a kind of factor X in this equation.
Healing the Damaged Metabolism: The Big Picture
In her books, Dr Schwarzbein puts forward a revolutionary perspective that is shared by naturopathic medicine but which I have not seen expressed as elegantly anywhere else, and that is: It is first necessary to be healthy in order to lose weight and not that losing weight makes for health. Healing the metabolism must happen before weight loss--or, more accurately, fat loss--can occur. Accordingly, depending on how out of balance a patient is judged to be, an ND might advise eating frequently to balance blood glucose levels, and performing resistance training (for example, weight training) to build muscle tissue before engaging in cardiovascular exercise. The rationale behind this recommendation is that cardiovascular exercise can be a depleting (catabolic) activity, whereas weight training is an anabolic activity. These recommendations would be placed within an overall, long-term plan that emphasizesThe ND will also treat the patient's comorbid conditions. When the body cannot regenerate as quickly as it degenerates, certain degenerative diseases (eg, coronary artery disease and type II diabetes) can develop. Naturopathic medicine contends that these diseases are largely the consequence of detrimental lifestyle habits and are actually avoidable.
- A balanced, whole-foods diet designed to decrease or prevent insulin resistance, improve insulin sensitivity, and spare muscle tissue
- Nutrient supplementation prescribed to replace micronutrient deficiencies and to help the body rebuild vital functional and structural proteins and fats
- Getting enough sleep: most growth hormone, a key anabolic hormone, is released during sleep and is critical for repairing the body's tissue
- Stress management, which might explore issues such as self-image, emotional connections with food, and state of mind when eating
The Hormone Connection
Naturopathic medicine has a model for assessing and treating patients affected by chronic, complex conditions, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type II diabetes. This model assesses the function of physiologic systems and addresses the interplay of various factors, including gastrointestinal health, endocrine health, and psychologic stress. Gastrointestinal health and adrenal function are believed to be fundamental to overall health. Imbalance in relative or absolute levels of any hormone is understood to disturb hormone function overall. For example, ND's consider Addison's disease and Cushing's syndrome as two extreme poles on a spectrum of possible and treatable adrenal gland dysfunction. Where a patient lies on this spectrum may be determined by history, physical examination, and hormone testing (for instance, cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone, insulin, estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone).
Type II diabetes is diagnosed when fasting blood glucose levels are 126 mg/dL; however, we as clinicians realize that insulin resistance precedes type II diabetes and that blood glucose dysregulation precedes insulin resistance. In addition, because all hormones affect one another, chronic, prolonged stress (leading to hormonal adrenal gland dysregulation) is believed to contribute to obesity, as cortisol promotes insulin secretion, and an association exists between psychologic stress and insulin resistance. Depending on how well a patient is compensating physiologically, treatment may range from nutrient supplementation and use of botanical medicines to judicious use of bioidentical hormone therapy.
An understanding of a patient's stress level is therefore considered critical for developing a treatment program that permits healthy, long-term weight loss to occur. Stress influences sleep quality and duration, food choices, levels of insulin and glucose, and both the digestion and assimilation of food. The stress response can result in increased levels of cortisol, insulin, and triglycerides (via the mechanism of increased blood glucose and corresponding elevation in insulin levels); insulin resistance; decreased levels of growth hormone, thyroid hormone, and sex hormone; impaired gastrointestinal immunity; increased oxidative stress; inflammation; and sodium retention. After years of poor nutrition and detrimental lifestyle habits, a person can become insulin resistant, can have depleted adrenal glands (resulting in a maladaptive stress response), or both conditions. Patients who have tried many kinds of diets to no avail may fit somewhere on this continuum.
The Body-Mind Connection
The preceding sections show that naturopathic doctors approach obesity as a mind-body issue. This approach is based on the powerful effects of psychologic stress on weight-related biochemistry and physiology. Beyond those effects, however, is the understanding that what a person eats and the person's state of mind when eating provide information that is incorporated by the body. Food is information, not just in the way that the nutrients affect our cell membranes and DNA but also through the stories we tell ourselves when we eat. Perhaps we tell ourselves a story of blame ("This is a bad food, so I'm bad for eating it") or a story of guilt and shame ("I've failed again, so I might as well give up trying").
The goal of understanding the body-mind connection is to teach patients to become present to themselves--not in a way that incurs self-judgment but in a way that fosters self-awareness, self-acceptance, and the ability to change. None of these things are possible when the patient is not really there, when eating is an unconscious or punitive act or an act devoid of nourishment irrespective of the nutritional value of the food consumed. For the patient, becoming present may begin with the doctor's guidance around becoming aware of the circumstances in which food is eaten; for example, hurriedly while driving, or absentmindedly in front of the TV or computer. It may proceed to paying attention to and making note of the internal dialogue that arises around food choices or cravings. It may be accompanied by breathing/relaxation exercises or recommendations to learn a mindfulness meditation. Above all, this process must be conducted with patience, gentleness, and encouragement on the part of the clinician, in an alliance that models for the patient the kind of relationship they can have with themselves.
Conclusion
To approach weight loss in overweight or obese patients, naturopathic medicine uses a model that addresses gastrointestinal and endocrine health along with psychologic stress levels. Especially with patients who have sincerely struggled for a long time to lose weight, the converging goal of all treatments is to bring patients into a state of metabolic balance. Treatments may include nutrient supplementation, botanical medicines, and judicious use of bioidentical hormone therapy within a long-term plan that focuses on dietary and exercise recommendations and provides guidance for becoming aware of stress and releasing it. It is possible that prolonged psychologic stress and years of detrimental lifestyle habits (such as very-low-fat diets) experienced by many of our patients contribute, in large part, to development of certain degenerative diseases, such as coronary artery disease and type II diabetes, which are essentially preventable and often reversible. The metabolism must be healed before weight loss can become fat loss and before sustainable health can become reality. This approach is the antithesis of the quick fix; but the success of the naturopathic approach is borne out by the experiences of many naturopathic doctors and other holistically oriented clinicians.
Reference
- Schwarzbein D. The Schwarzbein principle: the program: losing weight the healthy way: an easy, 5-step, no-nonsense approach. Deerfield Beach (FL): Health Communications; 2004.
Here’s some more copy and paste:
From 2007
Prayer - A Neurological Enquiry
...Like all mental states, prayers are neither matter nor energy. Thus, they are not transmissible to or readable by another being by any means within the laws of nature.
Whether they can be known to a supernatural being hinges on the effects of the prayers’ solicitations as judged by proper scientific studies. To date, such studies of intercessory prayer have not shown it to improve health-care outcomes. In contrast to thoughts themselves, the brain activity from which thoughts arise does consist of energy—electrochemical energy within neural circuitry. Reading this teeming energy in millions of circuit neurons and translating it into the thought or prayer arising from it seems theoretically impossible for even a supernatural being.
David C. Haas
Committee for Skeptical Enquiry
http://www.csicop.org/si/2007-02/prayer.html
From 2005
Running on faith (Edzard Ernst)
Around 15,000 spiritual healers practise in Britain, so it is important to examine whether their techniques do more good than harm. The term covers a great many approaches: reiki, johrei, therapeutic touch, intercessory prayer, faith healing and distant healing all fall under the umbrella of spiritual healing. The common denominator is that healers of all types claim to somehow channel "healing energy" into the patient's body with the intention of improving health. The concept is as simple as it is unproven - nobody, for instance, has so far been able to measure the "energy" that these healers are talking about.
Yet healers have no doubts about their methods, and there is no shortage of satisfied customers - including celebrities willing to pay handsome hourly rates for energy-channelling consultations.
So what reliable evidence is there? Dozens of clinical trials have been published, but those that appear methodogically sound don't usually show much.
Read on...
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1414904,00.html
I don't understand this method of 'debate'
You *know* hardly anyone is going to actually bother reading any of that?
I read the first one, "The Evidence".
It does not actually show any evidence. In fact the first paragraph, "crosscultural perspectives" looks like a good example of the logical fallacy Appeal to Popularity.
“Am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?”
Results from the most recent and scientifically rigorous investigation into whether prayer can heal illness.
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2...05-prayer.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/he...l?pagewanted=1
Note that this study was funded by the Templeton Foundation (see reference #5 in Mahakala’s OP).
Last edited by fruitfly; 1st January 2008 at 10:24 PM.
Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, is the Vice President of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Senior Scientist at the Research Institute of the California Pacific Medical Center. She completed a bachelor of philosophy degree from Monteith College, Wayne State University, a master of arts in social and behavioral studies from the University of Texas, San Antonio, a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Texas in Austin, postdoctoral fellowship in cognitive sciences laboratory, Science Applications International Corporation, and a postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at Stanford University. She has published more than 200 articles in the area of consciousness studies and is the co-editor of Consciousness and Healing, Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine, by Elsevier. She conducted research at Stanford University, Science Applications Internal Corporation, the Institute of Parapsychology, and the Mind Science Foundation. She has taught at Trinity University, Stanford University, and Harvard Medical School, and has lectured widely, including at the United Nations and at the Smithsonian Institution. She served as a Congressionally appointed advisory member for the National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and is on the board of trustees for the Esalen Institute and on the board of directors for the Institute of Noetic Sciences. She also serves on the scientific program committee for the Tucson Center for Consciousness Studies.Dr Schlitz: This is a remarkable time in human history--never before have so many world views, belief systems, and ways of engaging reality come into contact. On one hand are the remarkable successes of science and technology: an orbiting space station, cloned sheep and cats, and a computerized chess champion that has outsmarted even the best of the human chess champions. On the other hand, through the Internet, awareness of the world's wisdom and spiritual traditions has expanded: we now have access to practices that were once isolated in the Himalayas or deep in the Amazon and available only to a very small group of adepts. Today we are experiencing a convergence of these different ways of knowing, science on one hand and diverse religious, spiritual and cultural traditions on the other. Nowhere is this more clear than in the case of medicine.
There are various ways of responding to the unprecedented............... Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh hhhhhhhhh
Sorry, that isn't an argument, nor is it information worthy of discussion. It's a chore and a load of bollocks.
Define your argument. Provide concise, cited evidence. Be prepared to defend your position but be prepared to consider the counter-arguments given.
Or be prepared for further Blahhhhhhhhh type comments.
Also, does cut and pasting such a large text (especially without linking to the source) infringe any copyright laws?
I came here for knowledge & discussion. You are providing neither.
"I came here for knowledge & discussion. You are providing neither."
Yeah, sure you did.
I think more likely you came here to play inside a very small little box that has nothing to do with discussion or knowledge.
ndigenous cultures hold no separation between healing and a connection to the sacred. If you examine various traditions, it is only within our own culture that we make this demarcation between what is the rationalist approach and what is our deep engagement with the mystery.
And it is only in our own culture that cures were found consistently and wonderfully. It happened just when we made that demarcation, I believe
Explain then why the average human life expectancy has more than doubled since we've been using the scientific method for discovering and testing of drugs.Originally Posted by mahakala
Why were all ancient\alt-med remedies useless against such diseases as smallpox before Jenner came along?
So rather than defend, or even explain, your argument, you insult me. I wonder if I tried really hard I could be surprised. Err... Nope. Doesn't seem like it.
I have now managed to read the first of your epics cut and pastes. It mentions positive results for prayer intervention. However, it only references one of those studies. When Googling for it I found your source - The Permenante Journal
Looking further at the study, I found this from the BMJ
LINKAfter one of the lead authors (Targ) died, however, a reporter discovered some disturbing information about how the study was done.9 The study was designed to measure mortality, not AIDS related illnesses or other cited outcomes. When the authors broke the blinding and found no difference in mortality (because of a low number of deaths), they scoured the data for differences on secondary measures such as HIV physical symptoms and quality of life. When these analyses showed no differences between groups, they analysed other outcomes (P values were not corrected for these multiple comparisons). They then decided to reblind the study and collect more data on outcomes by conducting a chart review (targeting AIDS related illnesses, doctors' visits, and hospital admissions). The chart review raises concern about bias since the two lead authors did the chart reviews themselves and thus failed to meet blindness criteria. The reported results are therefore probably an artefact of sifting and resifting of the data, unblinding and reblinding, and collecting new data in a questionable manner after the primary analysis until a result is found that supports the investigators original expectations. Such a study can hardly be set forth as exemplary.
I was going to be conciliatory this morning after my outburst last night. But it only took 5 mins of Googling to find that report in a respected journal. How much research did you do into any of the claims in 'your' articles which I maintain are a chore and utter bollocks?
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