by Jo Marchant
The biographical information given in this section comes from that article as well as two others: Cheakalos, C. “Positive Approach: Sheri Kaplan Gives Heterosexuals with HIV a Place to Celebrate the Joys of Life,” People magazine, March 4, 2002. Available at: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20136502,00.html
Bradley Hagerty, B. “Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?,” NPR, May 21, 2009. Available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104351710
I was unable to contact Sheri to find out how she is doing now.
10. Spiritual Transformation and Healing: Anthropological, Theological, Neuroscientific and Clinical Perspectives. Koss-Chioino, J. & Hefner, P. J. (eds.), Alta-Mira Press (2006). p. 245
(Sheri is named in this paper as “Susan.”)
11. Cotton, S. et al. Journal of General Internal Medicine 2006; 21: S5–13
12. Ironson, G. et al. Journal of General Internal Medicine 2006; 21: S62–68
13. Sloan, E. et al. 2007. “Psychobiology of HIV Infection.” In Ader, R. (ed.), Psychoneuroimmunology. Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 869–895
Cole, S.W. Psychosomatic Medicine 2008; 70: 562–568
14. Leserman, J. et al. Psychological Medicine 2002; 32: 1059–1073
15. Carrico, A.W. & Antoni, M.H. Psychosomatic Medicine 2008; 70: 575–584
Creswell, J.D. et al. Brain, Behavior and Immunity 2009; 23: 184–188
16. Telephone interview with Andrew Newberg, March 10, 2014.
17. Pargament, K.I. et al. Archives of Internal Medicine 2001; 161: 1881–1885
18. Ironson, G. et al. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2011; 34: 414–425
19. Ironson, G. et al. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2011; 34: 414–425
20. Wachholtz, A.B. & Pargament, P.I. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2005; 28: 369–384
21. Wachholtz, A.B. & Pargament, P.I. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2008; 31: 351–366
22. Telephone interview with Kenneth Pargament, March 12, 2014.
23. Wachholtz, A.B. & Pargament, K.I. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2005; 28: 369–384
24. Pargament, P.I. & Mahoney, A. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 2005; 15: 179–198
25. Jacobs, T.L. et al. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2011; 36: 664–681
26. Telephone interview with Clifford Saron, April 4, 2014.
27. This quote previously appeared in “How Meditation Might Ward Off the Effects of Aging” by Jo Marchant, Observer, April 24, 2011. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/24/meditation-aging-shamatha-project
28. Fredrickson, B.L. et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2013; 110: 13684–13689
Marchant, J. “The Pursuit of Happiness,” Nature 2013; 503: 458–460
29. Cacioppo, J. & Patrick, W. Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (2008), p. 262
30. Interview with Alessandro de Franciscis, Lourdes Medical Bureau, June 12, 2015.
31. This quote is taken from a talk given by Vittorio Micheli at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Dublin, May 23, 2014.
32. Interview with Tim Briggs, Royal National Orthopedic Hospital, Stanmore, Middlesex, January 16 and February 20, 2015.
CONCLUSION
1. “Lending a Hand That Heals.” King5, September 16, 2014. Available at: http:www.king5.com/story/entertainment/television/programs/evening-magazine/2014/09/16/lending-a-hand-that-heals/15740091/ For more information about Mary Lee McRoberts and her work, please see: http://www.maryleemcroberts.com/
2. While poorly designed studies sometimes show that patients benefit from reiki, once you do high-quality trials, in which reiki is compared against fake therapy, the benefits disappear. Edzard Ernst and his colleagues carried out a systematic review of RCTs in 2008 (Lee, M.S. et al. The International Journal of Clinical Practice 2008; 62: 947–954). In general, these trials showed that real reiki worked no better than sham reiki. There were a few positive results for reiki, but these tended to be one-offs, where a particular benefit might appear in one trial but was not replicated in other trials. Most of these studies had flaws, such as being too small, being poorly designed, or that the data was not adequately reported. The authors concluded that “the value of reiki remains unproven.”
3. One of the most rigorous analyses of this therapy was published in 2005 (Shang, A. et al. The Lancet 2005; 366: 726–732). It included 110 homeopathy RCTs and compared these to 110 equivalent trials of conventional medicines. When the authors restricted their analysis to the “high-quality” trials, the conventional medicines were clearly better than placebo, whereas the homeopathic remedies showed only marginal benefit, consistent with them being no different than placebo (especially when you take into account that positive trials are more likely to be published than negative ones).
There have been other meta-analyses and systematic reviews of homeopathy trials, but none has ever shown convincing evidence that it works better than placebo. Nor have scientists ever been able to find any measurable difference between homeopathic remedies and inert liquids or pills.
4. Abbot, N.C. et al. Pain 2001; 91: 79–89
Ernst has now retired, and is an emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University. For more information about his work, see http://edzardernst.com
5. Ernst, E. “Running on faith,” Guardian, February 15, 2005. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/feb/15/health.medicineandhealth1
6. See, for example, the German New Medicine website on breast cancer: http://www.newmedicine.ca/breast.php
7. Several families claim that their relatives have died after refusing conventional treatment on Ryke Hamer’s advice, for example, see: http://www.ariplex.com/ama/amamiche.htm
Deaths resulting from alternative care advised by other doctors include:
Sheldon T. “Dutch Doctor Struck Off for Alternative Care of Actor Dying of Cancer,” British Medical Journal 2007; 335: 13
“Alternative Cure Doctor Suspended,” BBC News, June 29, 2007. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6255356.stm
8. Schmidt, K. & Ernst, E. British Medical Journal 2002; 325: 597
9. Jones, M. “Malaria Advice ‘Risks Lives,’ ” Newsnight, BBC2, July 13, 2006
10. For example, see:
Kent, G.P. American Journal of Epidemiology 1988; 127: 591–598
Ernst, G. et al. Complementary Therapies in Medicine 2003; 11: 93–97
11. Other sources for the story of secretin include “Secretin Trials: A Drug That Might Help, or Hurt, Autistic Children Is Widely Prescribed but Is Just Now Being Tested” by Steve Bunk (The Scientist, June 21, 1999) and an open letter from Victoria Beck (available at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.support.autism/InDCRgEwbJ4).
12. For a discussion of the history and mechanism of acupuncture, see: Singh, S. & Ernst, E. Trick or Treatment (2008), chapter 2, pp. 39–88.
13. For most complaints, there is no evidence in high-quality trials that acupuncture works better than placebo. However for certain types of chronic pain and nausea, it may have a physical effect as well as a psychological one. A 2012 systematic review of 29 trials for chronic pain including 17,922 patients (Vickers, A.J. et al. Archives of Internal Medicine 2012; 172: 1444–1453) found that real acupuncture works slightly better than sham acupuncture (and both work better than a no-acupuncture control). The authors concluded that although most of the benefit of acupuncture is a placebo effect, the needles may have a modest effect too.
14. Interview with Deming Huang, Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine (SCIM), Stanford, California, November 26, 2013.
15. Freedman, D. H. “The Triumph of New-Age Medicine,” The Atlantic, July–August 2011. Availab
le at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-triumph-of-new-age-medicine/308554/
16. Interview with Jeremy Howick, Oxford, April 20, 2015.
17. Stroud, L.R. et al. Biological Psychiatry 2002; 52: 318–327
Kudielka, B.M. et al. Biological Psychology 2005; 69: 113–132
18. Email interview with Elissa Epel, April 9, 2015.
19. Telephone interview with Jeff Sloan, February 25, 2015.
20. See also Sloan’s work with quality of life measures:
Frost, M.H. & Sloan, J.A. The American Journal of Managed Care 2002; 8: 5574–5579
Sloan, J.A. et al. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2012; 30: 1498–1504
21. Heathcote, E. British Medical Journal 2006; 333: 1304–1305
22. UCSF’s Thomas Bodenheimer estimated it at 70% in 2000 (Bodenheimer, T. New England Journal of Medicine 2000; 342: 1539–1544). Harvard’s John Abramson, author of the 2004 book Overdosed America, says that by 2009 this figure had reached 85%. See: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/health-info/who-paid-for-that-study/
23. The annual budget of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health in 2015 was $124:1 million (0.4% of the NIH annual budget of $30 billion). I wasn’t able to find an exact figure for how much of this is spent on trials of mind–body therapies, but according to the center’s third strategic plan (2011–2015), the money is split between two main research areas—mind–body therapies and natural products. Some of the money also goes towards things like studying how many people use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and disseminating evidence-based information on CAM interventions.
See: https://nccih.nih.gov/sites/nccam.nih.gov/files/about/plans/2011/NCCAM_SP_508.pdf
24. Shang, A. et al. The Lancet 2005; 366: 726–732
The authors included 110 homeopathy RCTs and compared these to 110 equivalent trials of conventional medicines. Twenty-one of the homeopathy trials were judged to be of “high quality,” compared to just nine of the conventional trials.
25. Skype video interview with Elvira Lang, April 24, 2014.
26. Telephone interview with Ellen Hodnett, March 10, 2014.
27. Interview with Bill Eley, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, February 5, 2015.
28. At least 400 U.S. physicians commit suicide every year (equivalent to losing a whole medical school), double the risk faced by the general population.
Andrew, L.B. et al. “Physician Suicide,” Medscape 2014. Available at: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/806779-overview
Young doctors are especially vulnerable, with problems starting in school. In a 2009 study, nearly 10% of fourth-year medical students and interns admitted to having suicidal thoughts in the past two weeks.
Goebert, D. et al. Academic Medicine 2009; 84: 236–241
Burnout—a psychological syndrome that includes emotional exhaustion and depersonalization—is estimated to affect as many as half of medical students, and more than a third of physicians.
Hojat, M. et al. International Journal of Medical Education 2015; 6: 12–16 Recent research suggests that loss of empathy for patients may be a contributing factor in burnout. In brain imaging studies, doctors in general have less empathy-related brain activity than others when viewing photos of people in pain, and the lowest levels of empathy-related brain activity are associated with more severe burnout.
Tei, S. et al. Translational Psychiatry 2014; 4: e393
29. In 2013, the U.S. spent $2.9 trillion on health care, or 17.4% of GDP. See: http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/highlights.pdf
For comparison with other countries, see:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS
30. See: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-therapeutic.htm
Also, Thompson, D. “Prescription Drug Use Continues to Climb in US,” WebMD News, May 14, 2014. Available at: http://www.webmd.com/news/20140514/prescription-drug-use-continues-to-climb-in-us
31. Budnitz, D.S. et al. New England Journal of Medicine 2011; 365: 2002–2012
32. Schork, N.J. Nature 2015; 520: 609–611
33. Gøtzsche, P.C. British Medical Journal 2015; 350: h2435
34. James, J.T. Journal of Patient Safety 2013; 9: 122–128
For statistics on leading causes of death, see:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
35. http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/DevelopmentResources/DrugInteractionsLabeling/ucm114848.htm
These figures date from 2000, so it may be significantly more than that by now.
36. See Young, E. SANE: How I Shaped Up My Mind, Improved My Mental Strength and Found Calm (2015) for a fascinating and evidence-based exploration of how physical factors, such as diet, exercise and sleep, influence the mind.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While reporting this book, I’ve been impressed and touched by the generosity of those who have spent time answering my questions and sharing with me their ideas and experiences. The final result, Cure, would not exist without the expertise, patience and support of countless individuals, and I hope that it lives up to the trust they have placed in me.
First, thank you to the scientists and medical professionals who took time out of their busy schedules to explain their work to me, and invited me into their labs and consulting rooms. I am particularly grateful to Fabrizio Benedetti for welcoming me to Plateau Rosa; Elisa Frisaldi and Elisa Carlino for allowing me to watch their experiments at the Molinette Hospital in Turin; Ted Kaptchuk and Nicholas Humphrey for sharing their views on placebos in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Cambridge, U.K., respectively; Manfred Schedlowski and his team at the University of Essen for letting me taste the famous green drink; and Peter Whorwell and Pamela Cruickshanks for introducing me to their patients in Manchester.
I’m similarly indebted to David Patterson, Sam Sharar, Christine Hoffer, Hunter Hoffman and all at Harborview for showing me the potential of virtual worlds; Elvira Lang at Hypnalgesics plus Kelly Bergeron and Pamela Kuzia at Boston Medical Center for letting me witness Comfort Talk in action; Patricia Saintey at Heartfelt Consulting for demonstrating heart rate variability biofeedback; Steve Cole for putting up with multiple interviews and showing me around at UCLA; Lobsang Negi, Bill Eley, Brendan Ozawa–de Silva, Samuel Fernandez-Carriba, Jennifer Mascaro and especially Timothy Harrison for introducing me to CBCT. Huge thanks also to Michael Moran and colleagues for allowing me the privilege of visiting and volunteering at Lourdes. I was blown away by your compassion and commitment.
Many others gave their time and expertise while I was reporting this book, and articles that fed into this book. They include Jerry Jarvik, David Kallmes, David Spiegel, Sara Lazar, Alessandro de Franciscis, Jon Stoessl, Dan Moerman, Irving Kirsch, Edzard Ernst, Adrian Sandler, Karen Olness, Oliver Witzke, Tim Noakes, Chris Beedie, Peter White, Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa Epel, Jue Lin, Edoardo Casiglia, Enrico Facco, Candy McCabe, Ellen Hodnett, Vicki Jackson, Jennifer Temel, Robert Kloner, Mary Armanios, Gene Brody, Greg Miller, Wendy Mendes, Paul Lehrer, Barbara Fredrickson, Bethany Kok, Richard Sloan, Andrew Newberg, Kenneth Pargament, Clifford Saron, Olive Conyers, Tim Briggs, Mark Williams, Giuseppe Pagnoni, Trudy Goodman, Christiane Wolf, Willem Kuyken, David Gorski, Robert Simpson, David Rehkopf, Michel Poulain, John Cacioppo, Michelle Carlson, Charles Raison, James Coyne, Michael Antoni, Simon Norburn, Bonnie McGregor, Catherine Mayer, Mary Lee McRoberts, Jeremy Howick, Ben Goldacre, Jeff Sloan, Tom Stannard, Kavita Vedhara, Gaëlle Desbordes, Dan Martin, Jacqui Tomkins, Michael Irwin, Helen Lavretsky, Clare Stevinson and Marc Schoen.
I started this book
fascinated by the science of how our minds might influence our bodies, but speaking to patients and trial volunteers helped me to realize that, beyond its intellectual importance, this subject has profound practical consequences for our health and how we all live our lives. For me, their stories bring this book alive. They include Bonnie Anderson, Rosanna Consonni, Linda Buonanno, Simon Bolingbroke, Karl-Heinz Wilbers, Samantha Miller, Gareth Walker, Lupita Quereda, Rose Wise, Caroline Dempsey, John Flynn and Tunde Balogh. There are others whom I have not named to protect their privacy, and many more whose words are not included in these page—they all informed this book and I’m greatly indebted to each of them.
This book began as a feature article in New Scientist magazine. Thanks to Michael Le Page302here for not only saying yes to my idea but putting it on the cover, and to all the editors who have worked with me on related articles since, including Mun-Keat Looi at Mosaic and all at Nature. I’m grateful to Kevin Fong, Mark Henderson and Niki Jakeways for finding time to read the finished draft, and offering thoughtful and helpful comments. And thanks to Gaia Vince and Emma Young for keeping my stress levels down with friendship, advice and adventures, including the discovery of the best spa in the world.
My brilliant agent, Karolina Sutton, believed in this book from the beginning and provided invaluable comments on my proposal and throughout the writing process. Thanks also to my lovely copy editor, Octavia Reeve, and to my editors, Amanda Cook at Crown and Katy Follain at Canongate, for seeing what this book could be and pushing me to achieve that potential. I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to work with such patient and talented people.
Finally, thank you to my family: to Ian Sample, my partner and best friend, for rock-solid encouragement and support; and to Poppy and Rufus, my beautiful children, for joy, hugs and all the inspiration I’ll ever need.
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