IS A NEW MODEL OF MEDICINE EMERGING?

Termites.  Lots of them.  Over two million in fact.  And not just any termite – Macrotermes michaelseni to be precise.  Not your normal subject matter for Holistic Therapist Magazine, and I am guessing that unless I explain myself quickly, you will be turning to the horoscope blog!  So what is so special about these termites?

A TERMITE’S HOME IS HIS AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM….

Actually there is probably very little special about M michaelseni. However, it just so happens that one very particular aspect of their lives has been studied in great depth.  Their homes.  Sitting some ten feet high on the arid plains of southern Africa, the mounds of M. michaelseni stand like Sorting Hats (as per Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) made out of clay.  Each mound is home to upwards of two million termites but surprisingly the actual ‘nest’ occupies a relatively small part of the structure, typically a sphere around three or four feet in diameter just below ground level.  The rest of the structure proves itself to be a rather remarkable feat of architectural engineering.

Within the dome structure there lies an intricate series of chambers and tunnels.  Some of these chambers are where the termites ‘farm’ a particular species of fungus which they use to digest wood and grass, releasing the nutrients needed to feed the colony.  Think the inner chambers of a ruminant’s stomach and you are not far off the mark.  But it is not even that that I find so remarkable.  What really gets my juices flowing here is the discovery that most of the structure above the ground serves one very important function.  Air-conditioning.  Both the termites and the fungi they harvest thrive within a very precise range of temperature and humidity; much of the research on the termites and their homes has shown that the mound structure serves to provide both of these with amazing precision.  What’s more, these mounds are ‘self-healing’.

What the researchers have found is that, through this intricate series of tunnels and chambers, the colony can effectively control the flow of air through the whole nest.  Not only does this control the environment within the nest – the humidity in the nest is maintained at around 90 per cent for example, which is no trivial achievement in the arid desert – but it also ensures that oxygen reaches the inner sanctum of the colony and carbon dioxide is passed to the outside for elimination.  So an air conditioning system that breathes as well!  One researcher called these mounds the lungs of the termite colony and just as much a living part of the colony as the termites themselves.

Almost by accident through the research, something rather clever was observed with these colonies.  When one of these mounds was damaged, then very quickly the mound was repaired.  But these repairs were not random.  Whatever was damaged would be repaired  not only to restore the integrity of the nest but also to restore fully its function as a lung and air conditioning system.  When damage occurred, the behaviour of the termites in the nest would change and levels of activity would increase:  Termites on other duties such as farming would be mustered to nest repairing.  Some termites would be engaged in repairing the breach, others would be sealing tunnels deep within the nest to protect them from the harsh temperatures and humidity of the outside whilst others would be rebuilding chambers in a way that restored the breathe-ability of the nest.  In one extreme study the whole mound above ground was destroyed and yet within ninety days the whole thing had been rebuilt.  And the new structure was just as effective at breathing and air-conditioning as the old.

When describing what they saw, the researchers found it very easy to humanize the termites and their behaviour.  It was as if the termites ‘knew’ what to do when the mound was destroyed. It was as if they worked to a ‘plan’, a plan that ‘understood’ how air-conditioning works.  They seemed to be ‘organised’ in a way that clearly assigned duties to individuals.  The problem is we are talking termites here.  Termites are, in the evolutionary scale of things, primitive organisms with very limited neural circuitry and yet here the researchers were claiming these insects could ‘know’, ‘plan’, ‘understand’ and ‘organise’.  We know it would be fruitless to try to find the neural structures within an individual termite that confer these behavioural traits.  But in a sense that was the first step these researchers took as they assumed that in some way, all of these nest building and repairing behaviours were vested with the Queen.

At the heart of every colony of termites there is the Queen.  Larger than all the others, she has privileged status – many of the worker termites tend to her, bring her food and ensure her chamber is kept clean.  It is tempting therefore to assume that somehow she is the brains of the outfit.  It would be easy to suggest that the mustering of the workers to repair the nest is at her command.  However, the researchers quickly dispelled this idea – if you take the Queen away from the colony, rather than becoming a rudderless collective of individuals, the colony can just as effectively and just as quickly repair a damaged nest.  Of course if you think about it, attributing the organising and planning behaviour to the Queen would not really be a solution as the neural circuits of the Queen are little different from those of a worker.  If we struggle to find the neural basis of the termite behaviour in the workers, we would struggle just as much to find such a basis in the Queen.  In fact, calling her a ‘Queen’ is more than a little misleading – it would seem to impart to her some sort of rank and control over the colony in the same way that a monarch might have exerted such influence in human society.  The Queen in such colonies should perhaps be considered more as a reproductive machine hidden away at the centre of the colony with little influence over the day-to-day activity of the colony.  Very definitely a queen with a small ‘q’!

The clever bit from the researchers was to hypothesize that the termites’ behaviour is vested not within each termite, but is instead a collective characteristic of the two million termites lacting together.  But how do you go about proving this?  Well, and you have to remember (from Part One of this article) that I am a Biophysicist so such things excite me, you have to get a computer, probably quite a powerful one, and model the behaviour of a colony of two million termites.  And that is just what the researchers did.

Whilst I would love to delve into some of that detail here, I shall acquiesce to the mostly non-mathematical bent of my audience here.  However, it is probably sufficient at this point to summarise their computer modelling.  What they showed was that even if you model termites as very simple organisms working at a purely reflex level (that is, they show simple responses to simple stimuli) a collective of two million termites can show some rather clever behaviour if you allow for one very important feature – feedback.

NO TERMITE IS AN ISLAND

No termite is an island.  Although they do not have the trappings of language as you or I would perceive, the behaviour of one termite is very much influenced by the behaviour of termites around them.  The possible actions of a termite are quite limited.  A ‘worker’ termite for example might be concerned with just four simple simple actions;  1) collecting dirt to make a mud pellet, 2) mixing this mud pellet with pheromone, a form of chemical messaging substance, 3) transporting this pellet and 4) depositing this pellet.  A trigger for starting such a sequence of actions could be detecting a temperature rise in their local environment, as may be the case when the nest structure has been compromised.  However, what the researchers found was that the frequency of the actions that followed was controlled by the activity of termites around them.  If a neighbouring termite had deposited its pellet in one particular location, then other termites were more likely to do the same in that same location.  Also, responding to changes in pheromone levels left in the pellets of others could influence the behaviour of termites even if they did not come into direct contact with each other.  There was interaction resulting from communication with neighbours and from trails of pheromones left by others and all of this led to feedback.

Now, if you model upwards of two million termites with similar simple behaviour patterns but with the ability to detect and respond to changes in their environment, the ability to interact with their neighbours and the ability to respond to feedback then, remarkably, computer simulations of termite mounds were able to self-heal in a way very similar to the real thing.  Inflict damage to a computer simulated mound and within similar time frames, these virtual mounds would be restored and restored in a way indistinguishable from the original.  Just as real termites seemed to be able to ‘know’, ‘plan’, ‘understand’ and ‘organise’ so these computer simulated colonies exhibited the same traits.

So what has all of that to do with well-being, placebos, and models of health and illness?  Let me recap the story so far.  You may remember from Part One of this article I was proposing that the extant reductionist/mechanist approaches to medicine are running out of steam.  Up to now we have worked with models of medicine that define us by the molecules of which we are made.  If we ‘go wrong’ or become ill, then it is a matter of finding the molecules or chemical processes that go wrong, find a method of correcting those molecules or chemical processes and then we shall be healed.  Most of our currently prescribed (conventional) drugs and procedures are derived from this model and in fairness, this model has given us great successes in managing many medical conditions.

MODELS OF ILLNESS OR MODELS OF HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

So what has all of that to do with well-being, placebos, and models of health and illness?  Let me recap the story so far.  You may remember from Part One of this article I was proposing that the extant reductionist/mechanist approaches to medicine are running out of steam.  Up to now we have worked with models of medicine that define us by the molecules of which we are made.  If we ‘go wrong’ or become ill, then it is a matter of finding the molecules or chemical processes that go wrong, find a method of correcting those molecules or chemical processes and then we shall be healed.  Most of our currently prescribed (conventional) drugs and procedures are derived from this model and in fairness, this model has given us great successes in managing many medical conditions.

However, you may recall that I started to question the reductionist/mechanist model of health by looking at placebos and the placebo effect.  I gave examples of drugs where the effectiveness seemed to depend on the beliefs of the patient and the prescribing practitioner as much if not more than the molecular components of the drug.  I also described a case where the colour of a drug changed what sort of conditions it treated.  Remember, the prevailing model of health is that if you find the chemical reaction that goes wrong in an illness and develop a drug to correct that, then you have your treatment.  This model has no latitude for the beliefs of the patient or those of the prescribing practitioner.

Let me now give you an alternative model of health and well-being, that model being the one encompassed within Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).  Before I describe this model, we should perhaps mention one immediate difference between this and the prevailing Western model.  The Western model I have examined so far is a model of illness; the Chinese model I am going to discuss now is a model of health and well-being.  This is pretty fundamental.  The former is concerned with fixing things when they have gone wrong, the latter is concerned with maintaining and where necessary restoring things back to the ‘equilibrium’ of good health and well-being.

The full philosophy of Chinese Medicine is extensive and way beyond the scope of this article but allow me to distill some of the key concepts here.  Of the many concepts of Chinese medicine, one of the most central is the idea of Qi (pronounced chee).   This concept is both simple and yet also profound.   Often translated as ‘life force’, Qi is the stuff that pervades all of the processes within our bodies.  It warms, lifts, transforms and holds things in place; it controls the shape and flow of our thoughts, emotions and feelings.  Qi ultimately determines how we interact mentally, physically and emotionally with the outside world.  In many senses, it defines who we are and defines those characteristics that make each one of us unique.  Qi is not however a substance we can distill – you cannot have a bucket-full of Qi – but rather it is defined by its effects or the footprints it leaves.

Just like blood and lymph flow through vessels, so Qi conceptually flows through our bodies within channels known as meridians.  The Chinese concept of pathology is critically dependent on this flow of Qi.  When this flow is smooth and controlled, then we could consider ourselves as healthy and balanced.  But where we show signs or symptoms of illness, then those symptoms would be attributed to an interruption in the smooth flow of Qi somewhere in the meridian system in our body.

According to the philosophy there are many meridians within this Qi-flow network and each of the principal ones is named after an organ of the body (Small Intestine, Liver and Kidney to name three).  Whilst each meridian has a connection with the organ from which it derives its name, the pathway of the whole meridian is often far-removed from the location of the actual organ.  And yet, manipulation of the Qi anywhere on these meridians can still bring about benefits to the associated organ.  Manipulation of the shoulder for example, can bring about changes to the Qi flow in the Small Intestine as that particular meridian flows through the rotator cuff of the shoulder.  An interruption to the flow of Qi through the Small Intestine meridian (say) would have specific ‘signs’ and signs that would be different to interruptions in other meridians.  Some of these would be physical and related to the function of the small intestine as we would understand it in Western physiology.  Other signs would not.  For example, as we saw above, pain and dysfunction in the shoulder could be related to a disturbed flow of Qi through the Small Intestine meridian but also with issues such as discernment and joy.  In the Chinese philosophy, all the meridians and their linked organs are associated with physical conditions, emotions and mental states that Western medicine would not acknowledge.

Diagnosis and treatment of symptoms is then a matter of identifying where the Qi flow has been disturbed and taking steps to restore that smooth flow.  However, the smooth flow of Qi may be disturbed and yet we do not exhibit symptoms of illness that Western medicine would acknowledge.  In such instances, the signs of this imbalance would be rather more subtle, perhaps changes to those linked emotions, feelings and behaviours.  However, practitioners of TCM would still treat such individuals to restore balance and well-being before illness sets-in.  Remember, the Chinese model is a model of health and well-being, not just of illness.

This balance between the physical body, the emotions and our mental being is central to the Chinese model.  And it is a reciprocal balance too.  Imbalance in one can lead to imbalance in the others – disturb the emotions and then the physical body can be impacted but similarly, disturb the physical body and then the emotions may be affected.  It is also reciprocal when considering treatment – if you treat the physical body, it may also bring about improvement to any disturbed emotions and similarly, if you treat disturbed emotions, that too could bring about improvements in the physical body.

Now of course, this inter-relationship between the physical body and the emotions is not at all alien to holistic therapists.  How often have we as holistic therapists offered a sympathetic ear to our clients whist delivering our treatment modality and been able to transform how our client feels on many levels?  But it is exactly this inter-relationship between the physical, mental and emotional that is missing from the Western reductionist/mechanist approach to illness.  With the Chinese model there is absolutely no problem in accounting for the Prozac findings (discussed in Part 1) – if the prescribing therapist or the receiving patient believes they are receiving a drug that will help deal with anxiety and depression, then that can be enough to bring relief to symptoms.  And just as the meridians are linked to certain emotions so they are also linked to colours.  It is just a natural extension of this idea that could account for how the same pill could have different benefits for the receiving patient depending on the colour of the sugar coating (also discussed in Part 1).

Of course, the Western medical model will struggle with all of this.  For example, the shoulder is, according to the reductionist/mechanists, a mechanical structure with mechanical parts.  If there is pain and dysfunction in the shoulder it is because these components have failed at a mechanical level and need a mechanical solution.  Nothing to do with the small intestine or the emotions.  What is more, no matter how much a reductionist/mechanist dissects the shoulder, her or she shall find no physical trace of Qi, meridians or links to the small intestine.  The death blow to the Chinese model?  Not at all and this is where I believe termites can help.

Remember our self-healing termite colony?  Damage the home of two million termites and said termites will repair their home to near perfection, their new repaired home being as good functionally as the old one.  However, when these colonies were examined, there was no ‘planning department’, there was no central organiser and there was no master plan being conveyed and managed to the workforce.  The repair process was a phenomenon that emerged from the interaction of the two million termites and their response to their local environment.  Although an individual behaved in a relatively simple and predictable manner, two million individuals behaved in a way that was not predictable by simply scaling-up the behaviour of individuals. Multiply the behaviour of one termite by two million and you get far less than the real behaviour of a real colony.  The colony behaved as if there was a planning department or central controller but none of these structures physically existed in a dissected nest.  Similarly, none of these attributes nor even traces of them could be found in any single termite.

What if I were to modify those last few sentences and instead say that our bodies behave as if there are Qi and meridians but that neither of these things are actual physical structures.  None of these attributes or even their building blocks are to be found in the dissection of one cell, one tissue or one organ.  What if I were instead to suggest that Qi and meridians are phenomena that emerge from the interaction and feedback between the millions and millions of molecules within us but which are not predictable from merely observing these components in isolation?  It is now sounding very much like our termite colony.  In light of these emergent phenomena, observing our molecular components in a test tube gives little insight to how these molecules behave within a complex interacting system.  Have the reductionist/mechanists therefore missed something?  I believe they have.

The area of emergent phenomena in complex interacting systems is more generically known as Emergence and is one of the new exciting topics of mathematics and science – you may remember that I am a biophysicist so such things are very likely to excite me!  The termite study I described at the start of this article is just one example but there are so so many more.  Not just termites, but ants, bees, electricity networks in the US, crowd behaviour and even gene expression from our DNA are all now being reconsidered in the light of this new form of mathematics.

The key feature of every Emergent system is that it has qualities not directly traceable to the system’s components, but rather to how those components interact with each other on a large scale.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Critically for our reductionist/mechanists, these emergent properties are in a sense ephemeral as they disappear if the system is disassembled.  Put the components of your system in a test tube and those emergent properties are no longer there to be observed.

Computer modelling, as we saw with the termite colonies, is now giving us great insights into some of these systems but we are still only able to model some of the very simplest of these systems.

In a sense the conventional medical fraternity already accepts some types of emergent phenomena.  Conscious thought, emotions and memory are examples of phenomena that emerge from the complex interaction of millions of nerve cells within our brains.  The study of one neuron in isolation does not lead us to predict these macroscopic phenomena.  They only exist in the complex assembly of many neurons.  The state of ‘living’is similarly something that emerges from the almost countless chemical and electrical interactions and feedback loops within our bodies.  Perhaps life too is an emergent phenomenon.

Of course, the ancient Chinese knew nothing about emergent phenomena or computer modelling but equally they were not hidebound by the belief that, when it comes to living systems, every attribute has to be dissected and physically located.  It did not matter to them that they could not find a meridian or capture a bucket full of Qi.  They created a model that fitted observation and created constructs that were consistent with those observations.  In a sense I have to be careful what I am saying here.  I am not saying that meridians and Qi don’t exist, I am just saying that if we take a reductionist/mechanist approach you will not find them in the debris left by dissecting us.  What I certainly am saying is that if I cannot locate these phenomena physically then that alone is not going to be a show-stopper.

If for one moment we imagine that the Chinese were to have created a philosophy to account for the healing of termite colonies, then that philosophy may well have described ‘planning departments’ and ‘central controllers’.  It would not have mattered to them if none of these structures could be found in a dissected nest.   The colony behaved as if those structures existed.  And, as interaction and feedback between the termites is essential for the healing of the nest, such a Chinese philosophy may have then described the importance of nurturing the well-being of the whole termite colony to bring about that self-healing.  It is all sounding familiarly holistic now.

So how would I draw parallels between the problem of modern medicine running out of steam introduced in Part 1 and these self-healing termite colonies?   Well, I would liken many reductionist/mechanist drugs to coming along with a trowel and pasting new mud where the existing mud in a termite colony has been damaged.  This will ‘fix’ the nest by external intervention and may give lasting results.  However the most robust solution would be to nurture all the termites in the nest so that they can get on with the job of self-healing.  This would produce a repair that is organic and from within.  An enduring ‘holistic’ solution and one more akin to most alternative or complementary therapy approaches.  And what of placebos?  Remember I described cases where if the prescribing practitioner or the patient believes they are receiving a drug, they are healed even if they in fact were receiving a placebo.  In this instance, the sugar pill placebo would be (for our termite colony) like external intervention but rather than putting mud on the trowel you would have dry sand which on its own is not up to the job of repairing the walls but perhaps looks convincingly like it would.  However, if the person holding the trowel believes this will fix the nest and they are able to convey this belief to the termites in a way that nurtures the feedback loops between the members of the colony, then the self-healing properties of the nest will still be boosted thereby bringing about a long term repair to the nest anyway but from within.

So if we are being fooled by placebos, perhaps we should be changing your models of health and well-being!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article.  If you would like to read more about the fascinating area I would point you to three books that stimulated me into writing this article: Smart Swarm by Peter Miller, The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake and Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

Article taken from: www.holistictherapistmagazine.com

DON’T BE FOOLED BY PLACEBOS

PART 1

  Medicine used to be easy.  Through (conventional) medicine we have successfully eradicated many once commonplace and potentially fatal illnesses.  At our disposal we now have a veritable army of drugs to ease pain, make us immune to diseases and thwart the progress of degenerative conditions.  We have surgical techniques that can mend and replace parts of us that wear out or become damaged due to illness.  Yet all is not well in this Utopia of Man conquering disease and illness.

As I write this article (May 2013) a new strain of Bird Flu, H7N9, is beginning to stir the Worldwide medical community amid fears that this could be the ‘big one’.  Thirty years on from its first appearance, HIV still does not have a robust cure.  It is commonplace to hear that hospital wards are closed due to anti-biotic resistant infections.  Drugs are becoming increasingly expensive to produce – we are never far from a heartstring-pulling story of some new ‘wonder’ drug being available and yet too expensive to be prescribed to patients.  We are living longer than ever before, but as a consequence we are exposing ourselves to an increasing number of conditions as our bodies and our body chemistry wear out.

Proponents of conventional medicine will argue that it is just a matter of time – drugs for the currently incurable WILL be found, we just need more time.  All we need is more time to get inside the agents that cause these conditions, more time to delve ever deeper into their biochemistry, more time to improve our understanding of our own physiology and then modern medicine will prevail once more.

What I would like to argue in this article is that our current conventional ways of thinking of health are perhaps running out of steam and now need to make room for other ways of thinking.  What I shall then argue is that some of these ‘other ways‘ are not new at all – not new because other branches of science have already learnt to embrace these methods and not new because many alternative models of health and well-being have been adopting these approaches for, in some cases, millennia.

THE CLOCKWORK MODEL OF THE WORLD

“My name is Phil Nuttridge and I have a degree in Biophysics”.

Whilst that may not be your usual sort of confessional statement, I think it is going to be an important one here.  Biophysics is a wonderful subject (of course I am going to say that), which transcends traditional boundaries between the physics of the material world and the diversity of living systems. As a graduate of Biophysics I find it quite natural to inject a bit of mathematical thinking into any discourse on living systems, in particular models of health and wellbeing. Whilst that may be alien territory for most of my intended audience here, I am asking your forgiveness in advance for doing just that in this article. Please take it on trust that the journey is worth it!

Let me take you back to physics a la Seventeenth Century.  The great scientists of that time such as Galileo and Kepler were making significant in-roads into our understanding of the physical universe.  A little while earlier, Copernicus had radically changed things by putting the Sun at the centre of our part of the cosmos; what Galileo and Kepler did then was to deduce the physical laws governing the motion of these celestial bodies.  Their legacy was to give us the idea of a clockwork universe – understand the laws of planetary motion sufficiently and then you can ‘crank the handle’ of this clockwork universe to predict where the planets will be at any point in the future.

To the Human mind, there is something very satisfying about this.  Being able to disassemble the components of the world around us, understand the laws controlling the  behaviour of those components and then reassemble them to understand the ‘whole’ is surely testament to Man’s supremacy of the world around him?

The clockwork model of the world very successfully unlocked our understanding of many aspects of the physical world around us and not just the movement of the cosmos.  For nearly two centuries it ruled supreme.  Its proponents were, and indeed still are, hailed as the ‘greats’ of the early scientific movement.  However, by the early twentieth century Einstein and his contemporaries were beginning to challenge the supremacy of the clockwork model.  Observations were stacking-up that just did not fit with a clockwork world.  At first it was the observations that were challenged rather than the clockwork model as, after all, the clockwork model had been so successful for so long.  It took some of the greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century to formulate a robust challenge to the clockwork model and spawn what we now call modern physics.  A century on, and modern physics embraces the strange world of strings, bosons, quanta and uncertainty.

What I would like to argue is that current medical thinking is now at a similar turning point.

Back in the Seventeenth century the success of the clockwork model, led to its extension to other aspects of the world around us.  The philosopher Descartes is attributed as the founder of the clockwork or mechanical model of the human body.  He was the first to consider living things as little more than automata or mechanical machines the components of which would one day be sufficiently understood in sufficient detail so that all aspects of the ‘human condition’ would be explained.  Although we have perhaps watered-down our thinking a little in the intervening centuries, particularly in respect of us being little more than automata, this mechanical approach still dominates medical thinking today.

Let me rephrase the Descartes model and instead call it the reductionist/mechanist model of medicine.  By reductionist/mechanist I mean an approach that assumes if we know enough about how the individual cellular components and chemicals inside a living system work (the ‘reductionist’ bit), then we can scale-up this knowledge and understand how living organisms such as you and I function as a whole (the ‘mechanist’ bit).  Medical techniques based on reductionist/mechanist principles rely heavily on drugs that work at the molecular level and whose benefits are then scaled-up to whole human beings in a similar manner.

I am not inherently against reductionism.  Reductionism has given us great insights into the workings of many aspects of the human body.  Those parts that can be considered as mechanical (joints, heart valves, eyes and ears for example) respond well to the mechanical type treatments that reductionism would offer.  Much of the sphere of my own work as a Manual Therapist relies on what we have learnt about muscle and joint function at a reductionist level and as such responds well to methods developed on the back of reductionist/mechanist research.

Also, for us humans, reductionism/mechanism is intuitive – you show me a little boy or girl who has not dismantled a toy (probably a brother’s or sister’s favourite toy) in order to ‘understand’ better how it works.  It is part of the human psyche to disassemble something to understand better how it is assembled and how that assembly operates.  What I am arguing for is that when something is imbued with the quality we call ‘life’,  then that object can no-longer be considered as a purely mechanical object, merely the sum of its mechanical components.  There are characteristics of living things that cannot be disassembled, that cannot be found in the disassembled components or deduced from reassembling those components.  When it comes to living things, the whole is most definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

But maybe even that latter part (the bit about the whole being greater than the sum) is in our psyche too.  When I wrote that previous paragraph, I just added the bit about ‘a brother’s or sister’s favourite toy’ as a bit of humour.  Actually, now I have thought about it, perhaps it was more than that.  Perhaps we do intuitively understand that once something has been disassembled and reassembled it is no longer the same.  As a child, we would rather take apart something that is not precious to us because we know that when we reassemble it, it is not truly the same as it was.  And what is true of inanimate toys, is of course certainly going to be true of living things.

So if I am suggesting that reductionist/mechanist models of medicine are running out of steam, what might the alternatives look like.  For me, the opposite of reductionism in medicine shall equate to the body of holistic alternative and complementary therapies.  The existence of such holistic approaches to health is often to the annoyance of the conventional medical fraternity.  The reductionist approach to medicine has not yet found robust explanations to how all or possibly any of these approaches work (or is it because the medical fraternity have not been looking for explanations, something I shall explore later) and it is an essential part of the reductionist ideal that if no explanation can be found at the molecular or reduced level, then such approaches cannot work.  For example, if a reductionist cannot measure or understand how an acupuncturist’s needle affects the chemical functioning of a molecule or an individual cell, then that same reductionist cannot extrapolate-up the benefits of acupuncture on a whole human being.  Often any holistic therapy benefits observed in patients will be dismissed by the medical fraternity because they do not have a reductionist explanation of how they could work.  Seeing is not believing – apparently.

THE BLUEPRINT OF LIFE

One of the holy grails of reductionist medical research is that one day we should understand to such a great level of detail the body’s molecular functioning that we should then be able to ‘design’ drugs at a molecular level to deal with any ailment.  Unlock the destiny of every molecule in the human body and how that destiny is impacted by illness, we then unlock the detail of how to overcome any illness that can beset us, or so the story goes.  The centre-piece of this was the creation of the Human Genome Project.

On June 26 2000, President Bill Clinton took to the stage on the publication day of the first draft of the Human Genome Project.  This project, started in 1990 and with a (then) budget of over $3 billion, was created to map every chemical genetic instruction of the human genome.  I shan’t get too technical here, but essentially within our 46 chromosomes and the DNA contained therein, are the chemical instructions used to create each one of us (this is of course in the words of the reductionist fraternity).  Once we had the technology to delve into this, it became the ‘space race‘ of the medical world to elucidate all of these instructions and create the complete map of how a human being is made.  President Clinton told us:

“We are here today to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome.  Without a doubt this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by mankind.  It will revolutionise the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of most, if not all human diseases.  Humankind is on the verge of gaining immense, new power to heal”

I don’t know about you, but 13 years on, I feel I am still waiting for this immense new power to heal!

So what went wrong?  Before I get on my reductionist versus holistic approach hobby horse, here are some interesting statistics.   At the start of the Human Genome Project it was anticipated that there would be around 100,000 genes in our genome.  Disappointingly the number turned out to be only around 23,000.  If you are a reductionist/mechanist, this is fundamentally troubling.  If the genome is truly the repository for the biochemical instructions to make us, then of course there needs to be enough instructions to account for the complexity of a human being.  Whilst 23,000 instructions may seem a lot, consider by comparison that there are 26,000 genes in a sea urchin’s genome and 38,000 in some species of rice!  A parallel project to map the genome of chimpanzees and compare it to our genome, set-out to discover the biochemical (reductionist) prerequisites that make us different from chimpanzees.  When the project completed, the chimpanzee genome was found to be so similar to our own that the director of the chimpanzee project concluded: ‘We cannot see in this why we are so different from chimpanzees’.  Unlocking every molecule and the instructions to create those molecules is perhaps going to be less revealing than we thought.

Such a dead end has to be fundamentally troubling to the reductionist/mechanist fraternity.  Unlocking the genome is the ultimate pathway available to reductionists – there are no deeper levels to explore beyond that.  If that level of reductionism fails to deliver an understanding that leads to a ‘new power to heal’ then maybe reductionism itself cannot deliver this new power.

At the danger of repeating myself, let me make one final comparison with my earlier discourse on the clockwork model of the cosmos.  The use of the Human Genome has a parallel to where physics was before the turn of the 20th century.  Mechanists up to that time thought of the cosmos as being like a clockwork model, working according to precise and immutable laws and rules.  If we just knew enough about the starting conditions to feed-into these laws and rules we could thereby predict everything about the future of the cosmos.  Similarly, if we could map-out the details of the mechanical wheels and cogs of the human body as encoded in our genome, then in a similar clockwork fashion we could understand the workings of the human body in health and in illness.  Physics, when it reached its crisis point, adapted and embraced the strange new world of quantum mechanics.  Perhaps medicine has to find a similar new strategy.

As I said earlier, I am not against reductionist/mechanist medicine as it DOES work in many situations, much of the time.  What I am arguing is that, just like the clockwork mechanics of the cosmos, medicine is now facing challenges and observations that just don’t quite fit the model and that force us to rethink where medicine is heading in the twenty-first century.

SO WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE?

So what are these observations that challenge conventional medical thinking?  To my mind  (of course) these are many and various.  My thrust here though will be a look at the role of placebos in medicine.

I would imagine that most of my intended audience here are familiar with the concept of the placebo.  In fact, I suspect many of the alternative and complementary therapists reading this may have had their modalities of treatment dismissed as nothing more than the placebo effect wrapped-up in non-scientific mumbo-jumbo (or is it just me smarting from that one?).

The Wikipedia definition of a placebo is:

….a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient. Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect.

Already I am getting a bit animated.  Just consider that – a treatment that is medically ineffectual that will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition.  If a treatment gives an improvement in a medical condition, can you still honestly call it medically ineffectual?  Perhaps I can be assertive here a recast that part of the definition in terms of my foregoing discussions.  A placebo is then a treatment that does not fit the reductionist/mechanist approach to medicine and yet in some cases brings about improvement in a medical condition.  Now that makes me feel a bit happier.  And what about ‘actual’ versus ‘perceived’ improvement in a condition?  If a patient perceives an improvement in his or her condition, is that not an improvement?  And so, if the placebo effect brings about an improvement in a medical condition, does that not make it an effective treatment?

The placebo (in the strict sense that is intended to deceive a recipient) is the mainstay of the Randomised Clinical Trial (RCT), the main route through which drugs or procedures are tested before being prescribed.  In a RCT patients are exposed either to the drug/procedure being tested or a placebo; in the most robust RCTs neither the prescribing practitioner nor the patient knows whether the treatment being administered is the ‘real’ one or the placebo.  Such RCTs are known as double blind. If you are a reductionist/mechanist then the interpretation of such trials is clear – if the drug or procedure being tested is effective, then those patients receiving it shall show significantly better improvements in their conditions than those receiving the placebo.  If the placebo and the drug perform equally well, then there is no case for the effectiveness of the drug/procedure being tested.

Unfortunately, what gets in the way are peoples’ emotions, beliefs and hopes.  Now that is VERY troubling for the reductionists/mechanists.  If we have drugs and procedures developed and working at the reductionist and mechanical level, then the mechanistic model just has no latitude to allow for these touchy-feely concepts.  Allow me to present some of the evidence of this.

Firstly let us look at Prozac.  Worldwide sales of Prozac are huge – $2 billion annually at one estimate.  Because it is ‘out there’ we would expect therefore that RCTs testing its effectiveness would show that it is significantly better than a placebo.  At first glance the results of the RCTs would indeed suggest that.  However there is a problem.  Prozac has well-documented side effects such as nausea and insomnia.  As such, a practitioner prescribing Prozac in a RCT may very quickly be able to determine whether they are indeed prescribing Prozac or the placebo.  Remember, one of the key aspects of a robust RCT is that neither practitioner nor patient know if they are using the real drug.  Ask the patient if they experienced either side effect and bam, you know or at least strongly suspect whether it was indeed Prozac that was prescribed.  This is known as ‘breaking the blind’.  Of course in a reductionist/mechanist model that should make absolutely no difference to the outcome.  However, the stats do not support that.  Making no allowance for ‘breaking the blind’, Prozac does indeed out-preform a placebo.  However, if you eliminate data where the prescribing practitioner successfully deduced that they were in fact prescribing Prozac, then Prozac barely out-performs the placebo.  Pitch Prozac against a placebo that also causes nausea and vomiting and again there is little difference between the real drug and the placebo.

If Prozac works at a reductionist/mechanist level, then how can the practitioner knowing which is being prescribed make a difference? Can it really be that the prescribing practitioner’s  beliefs and hopes make a difference to the effectiveness of a treatment?

Let me throw another example at you.  In the late Naughties, analysis showed that placebos are becoming increasingly effective in clinical trials, particularly in the United States.  Let me be clear here – I am not just saying that in clinical trials since the start of this century the gap between the drugs being tested and placebos has narrowed (which is certainly true) but more specifically that placebos perform better now against a range of medical conditions than ever they did before.  What is more, this effect is more noticeable in the United States.

The reason that has been suggested for this is also testament to the success of the pharmaceutical industry.  Since 1997 drug companies in the United States have been able to market their products directly to their ‘consumers’, the American people.  Thanks to the power of the marketing machines of the pharmaceutical industry, Americans now see images of happy, healthy, smiley people and it is all thanks to the latest wonder drugs.  The American populace therefore has a heightened expectation from the output of drug companies – put these people in clinical trials and even if they are receiving the placebo, their belief in the power of drugs can make those placebos work more effectively than ever before.

So, we have evidence that the hopes and expectations of practitioners and patients alike can make profound differences to the effectiveness of treatment.  No reductionist/mechanist model of medicine I know of can account for that.

Let me give you one more example to challenge the accepted model of medicine.  Clinical trials of the drug Oxazepam have shown that it is more effective at treating anxiety when the pills are dyed green and yet more effective at treating depression when dyed yellow.  The same chemical compound targeting the same biochemical pathways but its effect depending on its colour?  Unless we are suggesting that the dyes being used are the ‘active’ ingredient, then this again has to be very troubling to the reductionist/mechanists.

So how do we make sense of this and what other models of medicine are available to account for this?

I shall address both of these questions in the second part to this article.  I shall look at how some exciting new developments in mathematics might be showing the future direction for medicine and how some of the most ancient philosophies of health and well-being have been embracing such thinking for millennia.

Article taken from: www.holistictherapistmagazine.com

In November 2010, I was diagnosed with stress related anxiety and depression.  It wasn’t the first time I have been diagnosed with this psychological illness, so I was able to recognise the warning signs quite early on.  Although anti-depressants and even their herbal equivalents are a good way to treat short-term depression, I knew from having suffered before I needed to look at a more long-term solution to my problem! For me the answer was to turn to man’s best friend… I purchased a dog.

This may seem like a strange way to deal with a stress related illness, as owning a dog is a big responsibility.  They need a great deal of attention in the form of walking and affection, and also there is the added financial responsibility, but many of the demands a dog makes on your life are the ones that benefit the owner the most.

One of the biggest advantages to our health is dog walking, as it can help to overcome one of the most common causes of anxiety; loneliness.  In my experience it is very rare for two dog walkers to pass each other without a short conversation about their pets.  There are also dog walking groups, and dog-training classes where everyone has the same thing in common, dog ownership.  The physical aspect also means that taking the dog for a walk every day, we get fitter and this leads to a better physic and perception of ourselves, which helps to combat depression.  People who do not own a dog are four times more likely to be diagnosed as clinically depressed.

Dog owners are also more likely to have fewer ailments, and are less likely to suffer from high blood pressure and cholesterol problems.  The very act of stroking a dog and having the unconditional affection lowers our heart rate, acting as a natural stress relief.   Also as dogs have slower heart rates than humans, it means that when we have close contact with a dog it calms us and slows our own heart rate down.  This ultimately means there is less chance of a generally healthy dog owner of having heart failure.

Now, I am not advocating that we all rush out and buy a dog!  My circumstances enabled me to, and I have to stress that it is very important to look into which breed of dog is right for you…  But if you are a ‘dog person’ and would like to benefit from a longer, less stressful life, then the other added bonus is providing a loving home for one of the many abandoned dogs there are currently living in rescues.  Another way of combating depression is by getting involved in charity, as giving to others is a great way to boost your own confidence and feeling of well being. By adopting a rescue dog, you can tick both boxes.  For those of you that circumstances do not enable you to accommodate a dog full time, there are other options of how you can have regular contact with a canine.  This could range from dedicating your time at a local rescue, or devoting an hour a week to walking an elderly neighbour’s dog.  Having a dog worked for me – one year on, I am not only a much healthier person but also a much happier one.

For more info on how to volunteer or how to adopt a rescue dog:

http://www.cinnamon.org.uk/cinnamon-trust/

www.lasr.info

Written by Louise Spikings

article taken from:  www.holistictherapistmagazine.com

Steak and potatoes, tuna-noodle casserole, scrambled eggs with toast… these classic American meals are also classic examples of why the Standard American Diet is making us fatter and more prone to disease.

After eating one of those traditional American meals, you might experience bloating or feel gassy, dehydrated or tired. No wonder! They violate all the principles of food combining.

This meal might look healthy, but it actually cause weight gain and digestive problems. Learn why combining starches like rice with meat can actually harm your health!

Many diet companies, like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, tell you to eat less and exercise more, with little regard towhat you actually combine together in your stomach. What they don’t know is that what happens in your stomach and digestive tract is important AND can be the key to long-term health and weight loss!

Many years ago, our ancestors worked hard at physical jobs and returned home each day to eat big meals of meat, breads, cheeses, and even sweets with no adverse effects. They had iron stomachs and digested everything. Our ancestors also had healthier inner ecosystems. A healthy inner ecosystem is made up of the friendly microflora (good bacteria) that reside in our intestines and keep us healthy and strong. A healthy inner ecosystem also means more beneficial microflora helping you digest the foods you eat.

Over time, the introduction of antibiotics, pasteurization and processed foods, along with a lifestyle of constant stress, has damaged our inner ecosystems. An unhealthy inner ecosystem can lead to fatigue, poor health and a digestive tract that functions inefficiently.

Today, more than ever, we need to take extra special care of our bodies because they have never been more under-nourished and overstressed.

The good news is that you can eat your way to better health… and achieve a naturally slim body at the same time! The Body Ecology system of health and healing teaches that it’s more than just what you eat; it’s alshowyou eat.

Food combining is the little-known secret to eating that enhances your digestion to give you energy and to help you lose weight and keep it off!

Food Combining the Body Ecology Way

The process of digesting each meal takes a great deal of energy so you want to increase your ability to digest or your “digestive fire.” But what happens if your digestion is not working properly, like so many Americans today?

The undigested food stays in your digestive tract and putrefies, creating a toxic environment that makes your blood more acidic and allows yeast, viruses, cancer cells and parasites to grow inside you. In essence, your inner ecosystem is damaged and you are more prone to illness.

Proper food combining is a system of eating f foods that combine together efficiently to assist digestion so that your digestive tract does not have to work so hard to give you the nutrients you need for energy. You can learn the basics with 3 simple guidelines.

#1) Eat Fruits Alone on an Empty Stomach

For anyone just starting on the Body Ecology program, I recommend avoiding most fruits — they have a high concentration of natural sugars that encourage the growth of yeast and other pathogens.

The exceptions are sour fruits like lemons and limes, unsweetened juices from cranberries and black currants, and pomegranates.These fruits are very low in sugars and are safe to eat, even in the initial, more limited phase of the program.

Once your inner ecosystem is restored (usually within 3 months of remaining on stage one of The Diet), you can introduce other low-sugar fruits like grapefruit and kiwis, as well as pineapple, blueberries, and strawberry. These sour fruits combine best with kefir and yogurt made from milk and sprouted seeds and nuts. Nuts, seeds and dairy foods including cheese are called “protein fats” because they truly are a protein and a fat combined together by nature.

In the kitchen: Start your morning with a glass of warm water and lemon juice to hydrate your body and cleanse and tone your digestive system. Lemon and lime juice can be eaten with animal protein for flavor and to enhance digestion.

#2 Eat Proteins with Non-Starchy Vegetables and/or Ocean Vegetables

When you eat proteins like poultry, fish, meat, and eggs, your stomach secretes hydrochloric acid and the enzyme pepsin to break down the food in a highly acidic environment. When you eat starches like potatoes or bread, your stomach secretes the enzyme ptyalin to create an alkaline condition.

If you eat proteins and starches together, they tend to neutralize each other and inhibit digestion. The poorly-digested food travels through the digestive tract reaching the intestines where it putrefies and causes your blood to become acidic. It also provides a welcome environment for disease-causing pathogens!

To keep this from happening, avoid combining proteins and starches (including grains, like rice, and starchy vegetables, like potatoes) in the same meal. Instead, have non-starchy vegetables and ocean vegetableswith your protein meals to achieve optimal digestion.

Non-Starchy Vegetables Include: Leafy greens, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, carrots, bok choy, cabbage, celery, lettuces, green beans, garlic, fennel, onions, chives, turnips, sprouts, red radish, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, beets

Non-starchy vegetables and ocean vegetables digest well in acid OR alkaline environments, so they go with anything: proteins, oils and butter, grains, starchy vegetables, lemons and limes, and soaked and sprouted nuts and seeds..

Read Why You Need to Cook Those Vegetables for Maximum Nutrition to learn some important tips for preparing these vegetables for optimum health – and to avoid some risks associated with certain raw vegetables.

In the kitchen: Pair poached fish with stir-fried vegetables, roasted chicken with a leafy green salad and/or a non-starchy vegetable soup. Or try a salad that has veggies that are steamed and chilled (broccoli, cauliflower, green beans plus also a variety of raw vegetables (shredded carrots, cucumber, yellow squash) with lightly grilled salmon and a lemon-garlicy dressing.

#3 Eat Grains and Starchy Vegetables with Non-Starchy and/or Ocean Vegetables

There are four grain-like seeds on The Body Ecology Program: amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat and millet. These ancient grains are high in protein,gluten-free, rich in B vitamins and feed the beneficial bacteria in your inner ecosystem. Read more about the risks of consuming conventional grains and how to prepare Body Ecology grains at home.

Starchy Vegetables Include: Acorn and butternut squash, lima beans, peas, corn, water chestnuts, artichokes and red skinned potatoes (red skinned potatoes are the only potatoes included in the Body Ecology program because they have fewer sugars than other kinds of potatoes).

In the kitchen: Make hearty millet casserole with a green leafy salad and yellow squash sautéed in butter. Or try acorn squash stuffed with curried quinoa with the ocean vegetable hijiki and onions. Warming grain soups are also good, especially in winter.

Food Combining Details

Fats and Oils Choose organic, unrefined and extra virgin oils like flax seed, pumpkin seed, olive or coconut oils.

Combine With: Vegetables, grains and protein. Avoid large amounts of fat with protein (like the mayonnaise in tuna salad) because it slows digestion. Instead use a small amount of oil to cook and oil free dressings.

Protein Fats: Avocado, olives, seeds and nuts (except peanuts and chestnuts, which are starches)

Combine With: Non-starchy and ocean vegetables and sour fruits.

Be sure to soak and sprout your seeds and nuts to ease digestion. Learn more about How to Eat and Not Eat Almonds.

Dairy: Cheese and milk, are also protein fats. Dairy products are not on the initial phase of the Body Ecology program because the lactose in milk feeds pathogenic yeast and most people don’t have enough dairy loving enzymes to digest the milk protein, casein.

After you’ve established a healthy inner ecosystem, you may be able to benefit from fermented dairy foods and drinks that help populate your digestive tract with plenty of microflora. Some people do well on dairy foods and some simply do not.

Combine With: Fermented dairy products, like milk kefir, combine with sour fruits, seeds and nuts and non-starchy vegetables.

In the kitchen: Make a Body Ecology kefir dressing with lemon juice and herbs and toss it onto your favorite lettuce with some soaked and sprouted sunflower seeds for a tasty salad.

Dried Peas, Beans, and Soybeans: These foods are mainly a starch combined with a small amount of protein and are difficult to digest. This helps explain why many people have problems with gas and bloating immediately after eating them. Because they are so difficult to digest, they are not part of the initial phase of the Body Ecology program. Additionally, we only recommend fermented soy foods.

Combine With: Non-starchy vegetables and cultured vegetables.

Sugar: Sugar encourages the growth of yeast, suppresses your body’s natural immunity and does not combine with anything! Instead of sugar, use Stevia in your tea to satisfy sugar cravings or add it to a glass of lemon water.

Combine With: Nothing (if you must eat sugar, it should be eaten alone as in a cup of tea with no other foods).

Fermented Foods and Drinks: These are the “stars“ of our Body Ecology program because they are packed with vitamins, minerals and healthy microflora that heal your inner ecosystem. Cultured vegetables and Young Coconut Kefir are just two examples of superfoods that help us stay healthy, slim and youthful.

o Combine With: Everything, even with fruit (in fact we sometime ferment green apples in our cultured vegetables).

Weight Loss: You might find after just a few days of following food combining principles that you have lost weight. Your body will no longer be bloated and you’ll rid yourself of toxins.

You might also feel hungrier…just eat more frequently. As long as you are combining properly and eating when you are hungry, you will not gain weight!

As your energy increases, you will find you now have more energy to exercise. This then will result in your becoming more slender and well-toned.

Some Final Notes:

• Wait 3 hours after eating a grain-based meal before you have a protein meal.
• After a protein meal, give yourself 4 hours to fully digest. (You may even want to try all grain meals one day and all protein meals the next.) Assist enzymes are a must for helping digest these meals.
• Try not to drink cold water during meals. A cup of warm tea, however, will aid digestion. Avoid ice when you drink water. Stick to room temp water that doesn’t shock your body and do not drink for at least 15 minutes before you eat or 1 hour after a meal.

With food combining and the Body Ecology principles, you’ll find yourself eating simpler meals that nourish your body. You’ll also digest your food better and supply your body with even more nutrients. As your digestion improves, you’ll have more energy and vitality, freeing up your body to come into balance, heal and stay naturally slim!

 

Article taken from http://bodyecology.com

After Drs Roppell, Retzlaff and I successfully demonstrated live sutural contents and rhythmical cranial bone and sutural motion, I began working with biophysicist and bioengineer Zvi Karni, PhD, DSc. He was a visiting professor from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, where he chaired the biophysics department. He initially joined me to prove that I was crazy in my concept that “energy” was passed from one person to another during a hands-on treatment session (later named CST). After closely observing my treatment sessions, we theorized how we could best investigate. I became his student in biophysics, and he became my student in clinical manual medicine and biology. He gave me reading assignments in classical and quantum physics followed by pop quizzes; I gave him insight into the strange hands-on approach I was using.

Dr. Karni and I worked intensively for about three years, after which he was recalled to Israel. He arranged for me to go there the following summer as a visiting professor at Technion, where he introduced me to Professor Nachansohn, MD, the director of the Loewenstein Hospital, Ra’anana, the country’s principal neurological rehabilitation hospital. I studied in the hospital’s coma ward. After examining numerous comatose patients, I discovered that their craniosacral rhythms, as monitored in the paravertebral regions, were not present at the level of spinal cord injuries and below. With 100 percent accuracy, I was able to tell doctors the precise level of spinal cord injury in each patient, with no clue other than the loss of palpable craniosacral rhythm. This was truly a “blind” study, with eight to 10 very skeptical neurologists observing constantly.

During our years together at Michigan State University (MSU), Dr. Karni and I decided that we would look at the human body as an insulator bag made up of skin and mucous membranes full of electrical-conductor solution. We hypothesized that the conductor solution would undergo voltage changes in response to energy changes that occurred in the body as I did my treatments. In order to measure such millivoltage changes, Dr. Karni built what he called a modified Wheatstone bridge. The instrument algebraically added the millivoltage deflections in both the positive and negative directions at any given instant from a determined baseline. Thus, we could see millivoltage changes in patients as they occurred.

We began this series of experiments by applying electrodes on the midline of each patient’s anterior thigh, three inches above the superior border of the patella. The grounding electrodes were placed upon the dorsum of each foot on the anterior midline over the tarso-metatarsal junctions. We also monitored cardiac activity through a V-2-placed electrode, and we tracked pulmonary/respiratory activity by placing sensitive strain-gauge and band apparatuses around the thoracic cage at the level of the juncture of the manubrium sterni with the xiphoid bone. Circumferential variations in thoracic-cage volume reflected breathing activity. These four measuring devices were then plugged into a polygraph that recorded the heart rhythm, breathing activity, and total-body millivoltage changes.

Dr. Karni monitored the readings on polygraph paper. Initially I told him what was happening as I initiated treatment techniques or patient changes occurred, and he noted the comments on the polygraph paper at appropriate locations. After a while, he was making accurate patient observations by simply monitoring changes in the polygraph recordings. We treated more than 150 patients this way and collected what seemed like miles of data. By demonstrating correlations in total-body electrical potential, we again confirmed the activity of what we called the craniosacral system.

As all of these laboratory studies were taking place, my colleagues and I conducted two clinical inter-rater reliability studies on children. I developed a 19-parameter evaluation protocol used to rate the level of mobility for various bones of the skull and sacrum. The first study was carried out on 25 nursery-school children examined by myself, one of two other cranial osteopaths, and a student assistant. The four of us evaluated the children independently, and reported our findings on each parameter to an independent research assistant. No one had any knowledge of the other’s findings until after an independent statistician completed the statistical analysis. The percentage of agreement between the examiners varied from 72 percent to 92 percent, with the allowed variance of 0-0.5 percent. Once again, these findings supported the existence of a craniosacral system and sutural movement.

Still not satisfied, I went on to use the same examination protocol on 203 grade-school children. I personally evaluated the children with no knowledge of their histories. I then reported my findings to a research assistant who faithfully recorded them. An independent statistician then collected information from each child’s school file, along with historical data from parent interviews. He correlated my findings with the data he recovered, and reported a very high level of agreement between the craniosacral examination findings and learning behavior; seizure problems; head injuries; hearing problems; and even obstetrical problems.

The study, because of its scientific design, obviated the possibility of random agreement. The results showed that standardized, quantifiable craniosacral system examinations represent a practical approach to the study of relationships between craniosacral system dysfunctions and a variety of health, behavior and performance problems. Other researchers have performed similar studies related to psychiatric disorders and symptomatology in newborns. Again, most of this work has been published. This is but a small portion of the research that has been done to prove the efficacy of therapy upon the craniosacral system.

Today, there are close to 100,000 CranioSacral Therapists around the world – and even more reports of patients helped by its noninvasive techniques. I find it odd that this information counts for nothing in the eyes of some skeptics who continue to proclaim the craniosacral system a fantasy. In any case, the craniosacral system will continue to exist and be used therapeutically with essentially no risk.

Resources

• Frymann, V.M., Relation Of Disturbances Of Craniosacral Mechanisms To Symptomatology Of The Newborn: A Study Of 1,250 Infants, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 65:1059, June, 1966.
• Retzlaff E.W., et al, Nerve Fibers And Endings In Cranial Sutures Research Report, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 77:474-5, 1978.
• Retzlaff E.W., et al, Possible Functional Significance Of Cranial Bone Sutures, report, 88th Session American Association of Anatomists, 1975.
• Retzlaff E.W., et al, Structure Of Cranial Bone Sutures, research report, 75:607-8, February 1976.
• Retzlaff E.W., et al, Sutural Collagenous And Their Innervation In Saimiri Sciurus, Anat. Rec., 187:692, April 1977.
• Retzlaff E.W., Mitchell FL Jr., The Cranium and its Sutures, Germany: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1987.
• Sperino, Guiseppi, Anatomica Humana, 1:202-203, 1931.
• Upledger, John E., The Reproducibility Of Craniosacral Examination Findings: A Statistical Analysis, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 76:890-9, 1977.
• Upledger, John E., Relationship Of Craniosacral Examination Findings In Grade School Children With Developmental Problems, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 77:760-76, 1978.
• Upledger, John E., Mechano-Electric Patterns During Craniosacral Osteopathic Diagnosis And Treatment, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 1979.
• Upledger, John E. and Jon Vredevoogd, CranioSacral Therapy, Eastland Press, Seattle, Calif., 1983.
• Upledger, John E., Craniosacral Therapy II: Beyond The Dura, Eastland Press, Seattle, Calif., 1987.
• Upledger, John E., SomatoEmotional Release And Beyond, UI Publishing, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and North Atlantic Press, Berkeley, Calif., 1990.
• Woods, J.M., and R.H. Woods, Physical Findings Related To Psychiatric Disorders, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 60:988-93, Aug. 1961.

Article taken from: http://www.massagetoday.com/archives/2003/11/11.html