Help - Wife and mother in law believe in power of the mind to heal themselves and others

Xordium said:
There is no evidence to show positive thought promotes healing there is evidence to show the absence of negative thought (eg cortisol causing etc) will promote healing. Two very different things.
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Some very interesting studies on the differences between optimists & pessimists with placebos.

Optimists respond well to placebos which are meant to reduce pain & ease discomfort, pessimists respond well to placebos which cause pain for long term benefit.
 
elmarko1234 said:
Some very interesting studies on the differences between optimists & pessimists with placebos.

Optimists respond well to placebos which are meant to reduce pain & ease discomfort, pessimists respond well to placebos which cause pain for long term benefit.
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Stress hormones caused by negative thoughts amongst other things are causing a delay in the wound healing process not positive thoughts actually improving that process. It stands to reason that someone with a naturally positive frame of mind will easily damp down those factors whereas someone with a negative frame of mind will readily boost them.
 
I've found the study that I was on about, its from 1999 :O It was undertaken at Kansas university hospital and published in the Archives of Intern Medicine.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/co...er&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/485268.stm

Interestingly the group of patients were not made aware that they were being prayed for and the group doing the praying were only given the first names of patients randomly selected. They do conclude that chance could well have played a part in the outcome though.
 
LOAM said:
I've found the study that I was on about, its from 1999 :O It was undertaken at Kansas university hospital and published in the Archives of Intern Medicine.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/co...er&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/485268.stm

Interestingly the group of patients were not made aware that they were being prayed for and the group doing the praying were only given the first names of patients randomly selected. They do conclude that chance could well have played a part in the outcome though.
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Even the people doing the test say it could be random.

Also, if it was true it would be repeatable.

Besides, 11% less complications - it depends on the total number of complications in each group & the sample size to determine if it's statistically significant, I've got a feeling they didn't do significance tests from the lack of data provided.

I work in statistics, I know if a finding is random or not (it usually can only be random is the populations are too small to draw conclusions from - or the differences are too small to put any weight into)
 
Yeah I agree, its tenuous at best, still interesting though for people like myself who like to sit on the fence and admire both sides of the garden :P
 
LOAM said:
I've found the study that I was on about, its from 1999 :O It was undertaken at Kansas university hospital and published in the Archives of Intern Medicine.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/co...er&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/485268.stm

Interestingly the group of patients were not made aware that they were being prayed for and the group doing the praying were only given the first names of patients randomly selected. They do conclude that chance could well have played a part in the outcome though.
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Is addressed here:

Cochrane Database said:
AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS:

These findings are equivocal and, although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer,the majority do not and the evidence does not support a recommendation either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer. We are not convinced that further trials of this intervention should be undertaken and would prefer to see any resources available for such a trial used to investigate other questions in health care.

Update of Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007;(1):CD000368.
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For those of you that worry about them not going to seek medical care first - they are both in the medical profession - and have never substituted conventional/real medical care for a condition with Reiki. They just do this as well.

For those of you wondering how I happened to marry & reproduce with a person without finding out their stance on Reiki - well it just never came up. I hadn't even heard of it until they brought it up the other day. My opinions on such things are probably well known - and she towed the party line until her mother arrived.

Oh well I suppose ill forgive her. She did pop this little guy:
s3h7nl.jpg
 
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Tefal said:
anyone remember the story of the poor baby that died horrifically from eczemabecause the family believed homoeopathy would cure her and didn't take her to the doctor :(


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-used-homeopathic-remedies-skin-disorder.html
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The sad thing is, some people don't actually know that homoeopathy is another load of quackery - it's presented as science, has a scientific name & is sold in shops along with real medicine.

James Randi's homoeopathy suicide attempts are an amusing watch.
 
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