Positive thought can be as effective as drugs in beating disease, studies show

[Guest guest]

January 27, 2004

Mind over matter

By Kate Rew

Positive thought can be as effective as drugs in beating disease, studies

show

PREVENTIVE medicine may soon mean more than just monitoring your vegetable

intake and exercise levels, and include how many negative thoughts go

through your head in a day.

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that a patient¹s beliefs and

hopes affect their prognosis. ³One of the major contributors to maintaining

health and removing disease is the attitude of the patient,² says Professor

Oakley Ray, a psychologist from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He

reviewed 100 years of research on psychology and disease for a paper

published in American Psychologist, and concluded that ³words can have the

same effect as drugs: thinking optimistically can change your whole

biology².

Ray quotes a wide range of evidence, including various studies linking

mindset to heart disease: one such study, by Professor Kubzansky, from

the Harvard School of Public Health, established that optimism lowers the

risk of heart disease in older men, while pessimism and hopelessness

increase it. ³There is strong evidence that patients with heart disease who

feel hopeless about their condition do worse,² says Professor Alan Steptoe,

a psychologist at University College London, ³but whether this attitude can

be changed is still an open question.² Indeed, large randomised trials have

shown that the use of drug therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy to

treat depression in heart-disease patients has failed to improve survival in

the depressed group.

Ray ‹ who has survived lymphoma against the odds ‹ would have optimism

inculcated in schools, so that no one faces illness with a ³woe is me²

attitude or has to shift years of ingrained negative thinking in response to

an illness. He would also have teaching hospitals spend as much time on

human relations as on neuroanatomy. Graham Archard, of the Royal College of

General Practitioners, says that while this would make no difference to the

way GPs treat patients, ³a positive attitude of ŒI¹m going to get better¹

can affect prognosis². People who give up don¹t do so well or live so long,

while some people who do everything can defy serious illness.

³This is why counselling and complementary therapies can be so good, and why

GPs will suggest books and courses on relaxation and stress management.

However, ten minutes per patient doesn¹t give GPs much time to harness this

response. In an ideal world we would double appointment times so GPs could

address the biopsychosocial aspects of disease and how people could help

themselves.²

Not all the evidence that Ray cites is of equal quality. ³There are some

good studies alongside bad studies in his paper,² says Professor

, who runs the Cancer Research UK psychosocial research programme at

King¹s College London. ³The idea that Œfighting spirit¹ is important in

cancer prognosis has, for instance, been discredited.²

³Furthermore, current best studies don¹t support any link between stress and

cancer. We can say with increasing confidence that there is no evidence that

cancer is a response to your psyche.²

She adds that it¹s important to remember that if you are ill, it¹s only

natural not to feel positive about it straight away. ³There is a process you

have to go through, and you may need to talk and cry and get depressed

first. This is entirely normal and appropriate. What we¹re worried about is

people who go down and stay down, or people who don¹t go down at all ‹ that

sort of positivity is so brittle that it¹s likely to come unstuck.²

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-978120,00.html