Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body

As someone with an autoimmune disease (multiple sclerosis), I read quite a bit in the areas of health and medicine, alternative medicine, and the history of medicine. This book, written by a British journalist who also has a PhD in microbiology, gives us a vibrant look at the powers of the mind in healing. She studies the current research and presents it in an accessible way. I'm not at all surprised that this book has rocketed to several top-seller lists.Note that this book deals a lot with the powers of the placebo effect. The point here is not that doctors should be tricking everyone who is ill, just to make them feel good. Instead, the idea is that the placebo effect shows us certain things that can be harnessed to lead to wellness. For instance, being cared for really helps people heal, as does having belief and simply doing something to try to help with the problem. Our expectations are vitally important when it comes to healing, as are our previous experiences. Many factors determine how we respond to medical treatment and neglect. This book is about understanding those elements and bringing them into regular medical care instead of just relying on fake pills, as we can learn a lot from the placebo effect.Here are the main things I see as take-aways in this book:==========================================================● Because of the importance of the mind/body connection, the placebo effect, and the studies cited by the author, it's extremely important to find a great healthcare provider you really trust. If you don't do this, your chances of doing well are simply undermined because you won't have belief in the person you're working with, and you might not even have belief in yourself. A good provider needs to be empathic and supportive, as their attitude is really beneficial to people going through treatment. The style and quality of your care provider matters a lot.● For those of us with a serious disease, doing something about it is so much better and more important than doing nothing. This is because doing something -- if it's taking a drug or following a lifestyle "cure" -- harnesses the powers of the mind and body to work for you. Doing what you believe in really matters.● For some things, the mind/body connection is really helpful: Things like pain, depression, fatigue, nausea, and generally "how we feel" are the most able to be influenced by mind/body interaction.● Following from this, autoimmune responses are often influenced by the mind/body connection. Said another way, autoimmune diseases are particularly susceptible to mind/body interaction● For other things, the mind/body connection is much less relevant. Things like infections need antibiotics and things like broken bones need casts.● Stress is a real killer, as is emphasized in this book over and over. Stress is rooted in our flight-or-fight ancestry, switching on to save our lives. But switching this response on for a long time can result in things like high blood pressure and really damaging your body. With chronic stress, inflammation kicks in, which is not really what you want all the time (especially for those with MS). Stress can even rewire the brain (based on brain-scan research), and this has been documented.For people with MS in particular and autoimmune diseases in general, there are a few particular take-aways in this book:==========================================================● Biofeedback and meditation can be particularly helpful, but you really need to "put in the hours" giving them time to rewire your brain and whole self. These practices don't heal us over night. You really need to take time to rewire your brain away from a stressed-out neural network.● When people with MS have flare-ups, not getting too anxious about it is vitally important. This is for two reasons: 1) imagining improvement and thinking positively can actually bring it about, and 2) this point of view can help mitigate stress, thus keeping the exacerbation from getting worse● With MS, inflammation is the real source of the problem (as our white blood cells are attacking the central nervous system), and stress has been shown to cause swelling. As a result, limiting stress is utterly vital for those of us with MS. Negative worries and anxieties can be equally destructive. Stress kills us in particular, because of the way MS works.● Treating MS in ways you believe in really matters. Belief and healing go hand in hand. For me, this means that mainstream and alternative approaches can all "work" or be helpful, as long as you are invested in them and coming from a position of belief and positivity.● Being cared for well is also essential, as the placebo effect is tapped into when you're feeling cared for.

Very well written about the investigations into the mind/body connection. (although I believe they are one, not just connected). I was a little disappointed in her conclusion chapter where she said that acupuncture, reiki and homeopathics have not been proven to be more effective than doing nothing. I've lived on homeopathic meds for years. And I don't think my husband who is currently surviving diagnosed pancreatic cancer would agree either. We decided against conventional treatment and have been exploring all kinds of non-conventional ones. (I don't like to label those as "alternative" as this is the medicine we had before big pharma got involved in the business). According to the MDs he's supposed to be dead by now - and probably would have been with surgery and chemo. Instead, he is thriving physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. We have used some supplements, acupuncture, a modality called "Body Talk", Reiki from me most days, as well as positive thinking. The therapist Ms. Marchant went to sounds like a real dud - they are out there in all professions. But from our experience with my husband's illness we have come up with the statement: What you perceive & believe is what you will receive and achieve.

This book is a great introduction to mind/body phenomena in medicine, because it approaches the topic from a rigorously scientific, evidence-based standpoint. Ms. Marchant is a science and history journalist with a doctorate in microbiology, and without any touch of New Agey credulity. She looks at the ways in which the mind can affect the body's ability to cure itself, looking at individual case histories and at studies of many cases. Much of the evidence she cites is compelling; her arguments are strong enough to make me consider a non-traditional approach to my chronic hip pain, and for someone as science-based as I, that's quite a concession.Beyond convincing arguments and evidence, Ms. Marchant has written an eminently readable and engrossing book. She makes one thing very clear: the antipathy of the current medical establishment to non-traditional medicine, even when it is shown to be helpful. This is based on the sad fact that it is at present very difficult to make money from an approach that leans to fewer pills, less intervention, and more human contact. Perhaps efforts at cost saving will bring this approach more into the limelight. In the meantime, this book is well worth reading, particularly for those with intractable medical issues.

Review first posted on jenasbookreviews.blogspot.comJo Marchant goes around the world exploring the concept of just how much influence over our body the mind actually has and the results are incredible. It's long been established that stress and anxiety have a detrimental effect on our bodies but now research is finally catching up that healing thoughts, placebos, and most of all human connection can have incredibly beneficial results on not only our mental well being but our physical well being as well. It may be that homeopathy doesn't work because of the memory of some chemical compound but rather that it's the fact that the practitioner takes the time to sit and talk with the patient, something that is lacking more and more in the Western medical culture where it's how many people can you get in and out with a pill. Studies are even finding that placebos can have amazing affects on the mind and body even when the patient knows that they are taking a placebo but that simply the act of doing something can cause the brain to release it's own cures. I found it interesting that as I was reading the book the neurological/immune system link that was talked about having to exist but not yet found was discovered. The whole book was a fascinating read about what our minds are capable of.