Re: Unholy pink stuff.

In article <dqt9r1h8kj963s2b0r9gpuo8m4kgpe6o8c@xxxxxxx>,
Austin Shackles <austinNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Ron Clark <ron@xxxxxxxxxxx> enlightened us thusly:
<snip>
>>If I can make a suggestion, why not pop down to your local religious
>>practitioner or shaman. The first can invoke the Deity of your
>>choice to bless your tap water and produce holy water.
>>The second could wave your bottle over some chicken giblets and use
>>incantations to change your chosen carrier fluid into a magic elixir.
>>
>>In either case you will have acquired a potion, which if you really
>>believe sufficiently, will be guaranteed to cure any malady known to
>>man, and most of the others as well.
>
>And if, as a result, your disease or condition improves? I'm a sceptical as
>the next bloke about all this sort of thing. But nevertheless, by whatever
>means, placebos, homeopathy, relgious devotion and potions all have some
>kind of effect.
>
>maybe, they help the sufferer believe in the fact that they can recover,
>and as a result, their body makes more effort? how am I to know?

That last bit has been re-documented recently. The Washington Post,
Tuesday Dec. 13, 2005, page F3, column "Mind Matters", reported
that new findings from the University of Michigan, Italy's University
of Turin Medical School, and Emory University demonstrate that "pain
relief" placebos cause the brain to release more endorphins, and
patients with Parkinson's moved better when they were told the
pacemaker-like brain implant had been turned on than when it had
been turned on covertly. Alzheimer's patients who had lost the
ability to expect anything showed no difference between overt or
covert dosing.

I say re-documented because I've read an article a few years ago
about a program that was training people to expect their medications
(of various kinds, not just pain) to be more effective; as a result,
the medications did become more effective.

How about turning the argument around? My niece is deathly allergic
to eggs. If you fry bacon on a clean griddle and turn it with a
spatula that was used for eggs, and she eats the bacon, even if she
doesn't know it, she will throw up. If she doesn't throw up, she'll
wind up in the hospital under an oxygen tent. We know this
because it happened. The amount of egg involved is extremely small;
the spatula must be washed with soap/detergent, just rinsing it
with water is not enough.

Another example of extreme sensitivity: the poor girl who recently
died because her unknowing boyfriend had eaten something containing
peanut butter before he kissed her - and she was deathly allergic
to peanuts.

Human sensitivity to substances is variable and in some cases it is
genuine hypersensitivity. For some substances, you can't predict
what the tolerance will be: digitalis, for instance, produces such
a wide variety of response that (I'm told) each patient must be
started on the tiniest possible dose, small enough to be darned
near homeopathic.

Maybe the first people for whom homeopathic doses are effective are
hypersensitive to the substance - like being deathly allergic, only
with a positive result. For people who have that sensitivity,
such a dose will be effective.

=Tamar
.

Relevant Pages