The Nocebo effect is the MAIN cause of cancer, the AMA is too powerful in their diagnosis

Simply brilliant 3 minute talk here by tyson about how the negative implication of telling someone they only have a few months to live will likely make them live less long than if not told that.

Contrary to normal public perception the positive placebo actually has a negative evil twin brother. The nocebo effect.

Doctors would be wise to take this effect a lot more seriously than they currently do.

en.wikipedia.org...

In medicine, a nocebo reaction or response refers to harmful, unpleasant, or undesirable effects a subject manifests after receiving an inert dummy drug or placebo. Nocebo responses are not chemically generated and are due only to the subject's pessimistic belief and expectation that the inert drug will produce negative consequences.
In these cases, there is no "real" drug involved, but the actual negative consequences of the administration of the inert drug, which may be physiological, behavioural, emotional, and/or cognitive, are nonetheless real.

This raises many ethical issues that doctors have currently.

Is the cancer a mechanistic deterministic mutation that they have reasonable grounds to give people such negative diagnosis? Or do the negative thoughts of such diagnosis play a bigger role on the actual cancer than previously considered.

I think the latter is more likely.

There is good reasoning starting to emerge for thinking like this. Valproic acid is one of a few drugs that has been found present in the blood of "cancer patients who experience "depression, hopelessness, and sleep in cancer patients' desire for death"[1][2]. And its PURELY that negative state of mind that produces this.

[1]Int J Psychiatry Med. 2007;37(2):201-11.
Depression, hopelessness, and sleep in cancer patients' desire for death.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

[2]J Psychosom Res. 2007 May;62(5):527-33.
Sleep quality in advanced cancer patients.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

I feel ya i really do but Neli has to look at it as a practicing doctor. If you have a patient that has a terminal cancer do you lie to them and say that "we found some cancer in it's later stages. but with treatments today, you can beat it!". Cancer is devastating both physically and emotionally. So yes, if you diagnose someone with pancreatic cancer (which is almost always fatal, survival rate is like 5% or less) you need to tell them that it's time.. We all deserve at least that much dignity.

However i understand what he's saying. Some of it is mental. For some people, when they are told they accept the inevitable and let what ever happens happens. It's why when a doctor gives you X amount of time to croak, that's usually how long you last. Only those that are fighters, in spirit or mental state if you want to give it a label, last longer. It's why some do beat cancer. It's why others are able to defy the odds, it's why you can defy the odds.

Only in some cases with the doc give you a definitive number. Of all people i am positive that it weights on their minds just as much as the patient. It always sucks to tell folks that but as the man/woman your entrusting your life and well being to, they have to let you know. It's that Hippocratic oath...shouldn't congress have something like that?

reply to post by ZeuZZ


OOOOHHHH
but they have to tell you...

how else are they gonna soak you for thousands in treatment?

F&S

I believe this to be so true, having witnessed family, friends & acquaint's go down hill rapidly after being told that their illness is un-treatable, or in other words the doctors give them a death sentence, S&F to you for raising this matter.

Our minds have so much untapped power that it makes sense that if we managed to tap into maybe just a small portion of the parts of our brain we don't use then maybe we would progress further, achieve more and live better lives. Many herbal treatments, acupuncture, exercise, meditation & prayers, work better than the pharma's chemicals that the fat cats make millions from.

It just goes to show that population control is even in effect from the Doctors that are supposed to help us (well we knew that already because of the great vaccine scandals)

I was really ill last year, test after tests, scans after scans but the doctors were puzzled as to what was wrong with my bones as all the tests came back normal yet I could hardly walk, open a jar or type much & the weight was just falling from me, I went from 14 stone of muscle to 11 stone of frailty. In the end I meditated, prayed & looked whatever the illness was straight in its evil red glowing eyes and decided I am not going to take the illness lying down...I would not be beat! Eight months later and after adjustments to my diets, routines, dropping the medications that the doctors were all to happy to throw at me I am again fit and healthy, I am training and feel that I beat whatever was wrong with me with my mind, heart, body & soul.

As The Late but Great Bruce Lee wrote 'require not just a moment of perception, but a continuous awareness, a continuous state of inquiry in which there is no conclusion'

Peace & good will to you and all.

Before i give my own testimonial, I am going to tell you that I fully believe in the "mind over matter" type of principle. I have gone under the banner of Buddhist in my past while growing as a person, and fully believe in the power of meditation. If you can use the mind to manipulate the body on purpose, I can guarantee that it happens on accident all the time.

However, and for what its worth, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3, B-cell lymphoma. When she presented to the ER, she was hours from death from asphyxiation as her lymph nodes filled her thoracic cavity with lymph fluid (yellowish, sterile pus), collapsing her lungs and compressing her heart. She had several thoracentesis performed to alleviate her symptoms while they got the diagnosis together (a procedure where they thread a catheter into the lungs by pushing a toothpick sized needle through the ribs in your back to get into the lung cavity and use a vacuum tube to drain out 4.5 total liters of fluid every 2 days).

Her outlook was grim, and her doctor told her this. At one appointment after a PET/CAT, her oncologist pronounced that she was terminal and would not recover. Outlook was about 6 months to a year. Of course, my mom was devastated. I smelled BS, as I had seen my mother improving over the months of treatment (R-CHOP, every 2 weeks).

We got a second opinion a month later, and were told that they didn't know what the hell the oncologist had seen, but that my mothers tumors had melted like butter and she seemed to be, for the most part, cancer free. There was a small encapsulated tumor that was attached in a complex way with her kidney (covered in scar tissue from the obliterated tumor).

The bad news given then was that her kidney would never regain function, and would remain about the size of a walnut, atrophied by a combination of the cancer and the chemo. She was also told that her cancer would return about every 18 months, and that she would have to have treatment. Each treatment would be slightly less effective, and she would endure quite a bit of ill health. BUt that, ultimately, she should still die of either old age, or complications related to the chemo and its debilitating effects on the body.

5 years later, and she has since been pronounced completely cancer free. And her kidney function is returning. The chemo did a real number on her. When she got sick, she was a strong and healthy woman that did most of her own home repairs on her 2 dozen some odd rent houses. 5 years later she is old and weak. Her skin has aged considerably, and she walks stooped over. I honestly think that they carried the chemo on for 2-3 treatments too long, and possibly exposed her needlessly. But, at the end, I still have her here with me.

reply to post by cenpuppie


I appreciate all your points, its a very dodgy ethical area. I think that if every doctor in a hospital came in to cancer patients with a big smile and told them they were fine and not to worry, we would see startling results.

But thats highly un ethical. So it's going to be very hard to prove. But from what I've noticed a lot of cancer issues are a lot more mentally induced and mentally treatable than physically.

To beat cancer, one need to have a plan and fight to survive. This will not happen, unless someone has all of the information about their illness. Many people survive by changing their entire lifestyle, both physically and mentally.

However, I do agree that it does change a person when they find out they have cancer. and I can see how for some people, that diagnosis would cause them to worry too much and therefore cause more health problems.

a reply to: ZeuZZ

Positive thoughts can help, but the placebo effect has never cured any real illness - it has only duped people who weren't sick to begin with into thinking they are healthy, which they are.

If you're sick, you're sick. Cancer isn't fake, a positive state of mind can help. But I'm sure there have been many cases where all hope was lost but the patient still survived and many cases where someone was told their disease is treatable and they'll be fine, and died weeks later.

What I'm saying is that a positive state of mind can help, but cancer is real.