Nature article: 2023 Your brain could be controlling how sick you get — and how you recover

Surely there is a big difference between telling people to think positive thoughts and physically/electrically stimulating part of the brain in mice.

I thought the research that purported to show positive thinking therapies improved cancer outcomes had been shown ages ago to be bogus. Other research showed there was no benefit for cancer outcomes from positive thinking.
 
Trish said:
I thought the research that purported to show positive thinking therapies improved cancer outcomes had been shown ages ago to be bogus. Other research showed there was no benefit for cancer outcomes from positive thinking.
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This sort of pseudoscientific nonsense is so prevalent, the American Cancer Society has a very unequivocal statement on their website:

Can having a positive attitude improve my chance of surviving cancer?

Many people with cancer are told by family and friends to stay positive. But sadness, distress, depression, fear, and anxiety are all normal feelings when learning to deal with cancer. Ignoring these feelings or not talking about them can make the person with cancer feel alone. And this can make it harder for them to cope with how they are feeling .

Studies have shown that keeping a positive attitude does not change the course of a person’s cancer. Trying to keep a positive attitude does not lead to a longer life and can cause some people to feel guilty when they can’t “stay positive.” This only adds to their burden.
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JemPD said:
what a novel idea
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just to clarify... when i said that I meant that its novel that they actually want to understand the mechanism before using the idea in a theraputic context - in contrast to BPS who have been using their beliefs to harm us for yrs with no evidence for any actual biological mechanism. If theyd waited to understand the mechanism....
 
To be fair, the research does sound potentially interesting, but I wish specialists in one field wouldn't try to step outside that field and try to hypothesise about things like cancer and positive thinking or cures for so called psychosomatic illness.
 
The journalist and broadcaster John Diamond (husband of Nigella Lawson) wrote a lot about this after he was diagnosed with the cancer that killed him. He used to get infuriated by all nonsense that so many people spoke about cancer. As an ME patient it was strangely comforting to know that people with cancer, which is probably at the opposite end of the spectrum to ME in terms of medical and public understanding and sympathy, was having to deal with so much of the same toxic psychobabble as me.

One of my first published letters was written in response to one of his articles. In retrospect I somewhat regret not mentioning that I had ME, but I was still partially in denial at that stage.

My letter (Sunday Telegraph 1997, bottom left):24A024FF-A1F3-40D1-9C38-4C09159E3877.jpeg

I knew about SW’s poisonous influence at that stage but I had no idea about every thing was going on in ME/CFS science and politics.

Thinking about this again now reinforces to me the importance of defeating BPS nonsense by exposing the flaws in its own arguments and research. Understanding the pathophysiology of ME/CFS is essential, but it’s naive to think that that alone will make the BPS brigade go away. They will simply say “Yes, we know there is abnormal biology, but changing thoughts and behaviours can change the biology of all diseases.”

The thing which always astonished me is how unaware these people appear to be about the psychological harm that is caused by their toxic pseudoscience.

NB I’ve not read the article yet. This is just a response to the comments above.

Wikipedia entry on John Diamond’s book:
C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too... was adapted into a play by Victoria Coren Mitchell called A Lump In My Throat, which was itself later adapted for television. Diamond's second book, Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations, was edited by his brother-in-law Dominic Lawson, editor of The Sunday Telegraph, and published posthumously (with a foreword by Richard Dawkins).[3] It contained the six chapters of his "uncomplimentary look at the world of complementary medicine" which he had completed before his death, and some of his columns from The Times and The Jewish Chronicle.
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I wrote more about my letter here:https://www.s4me.info/threads/midwinter-reflection.18356/#post-314054)
 
JemPD said:
what a novel idea
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Literally. If there's one common factor to all psychosomatic ideology, it's not giving a fig about cause, having decided on a different magical cause that needs no evidence as it's just a bunch of stories and ugly prejudice.

If there is one small change that could reform medicine for good, it's that: actually requiring evidence. Despite the last several decades of so-called evidence-based medicine, things could not be further from that. If anything, the BPS ideology has essentially solidified that there is no need to bother, since only the patients care. No one is held accountable, so why would people care about changing this? Just because of how it affects patient outcomes? If only that mattered.
 
Grigor said:
The article seems to be pushing the positive emotion idea, but they also talk about the study by Spiegel et al. from 1989, but in 2007 it failed replication. It's strange that this wasn't mentioned. Quite a biased and harmful piece in my opinion.

https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.22890
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Good spot, Grigor. Would you consider submitting this as a letter for publication in Nature correspondence? My recollection is that letters for publication in response to comment or feature articles can just be emailed to correspondence@nature.com — much easier than submitting letters in response to published studies. But you would need to look it up.

If you’re not up to it, or don’t want to, please let me know and I will consider doing it myself – but will depend how I am over the next few days.
 
Robert 1973 said:
Good spot, Grigor. Would you consider submitting this as a letter for publication in Nature correspondence? My recollection is that letters for publication in response to comment or feature articles can just be emailed to correspondence@nature.com — much easier than submitting letters in response to published studies. But you would need to look it up.

If you’re not up to it, or don’t want to, please let me know and I will consider doing it myself – but will depend how I am over the next few days.
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I would love to but I don't think my English is good enough to be published anywhere. I did have some additional comments about it as I wrote about cancer research and positivity here as well.

https://anilvanderzee.com/can-positivity-cure-any-disease/
 
Grigor said:
I would love to but I don't think my English is good enough to be published anywhere. I did have some additional comments about it as I wrote about cancer research and positivity here as well.

https://anilvanderzee.com/can-positivity-cure-any-disease/
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Your English is excellent IMO, but if you would like to send me a pm with a draft (or post on here) I would be very happy to edit it for you. No pressure.

See “correspondence” section for details on letters to the editor: https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/other-subs

Summary:
Submit as email
Max 250 words
Max 3 references
Max 3 authors
Include postal address and tel number
 
Robert 1973 said:
Your English is excellent IMO, but if you would like to send me a pm with a draft (or post on here) I would be very happy to edit it for you. No pressure.

See “correspondence” section for details on letters to the editor: https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/other-subs

Summary:
Submit as email
Max 250 words
Max 3 references
Max 3 authors
Include postal address and tel number
Click to expand...

Thank you. That's very kind. I'll think about it.
 
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