A spiritual approach in the treatment of cancer

manwithnoname
manwithnoname Member Posts: 402
edited December 2012 in Colorectal Cancer #1

Title says it all, seems faith (in something) will help you live longer.

 

http://iv.iiarjournals.org/content/22/5/577.full.pdf

Comments

  • pete43lost_at_sea
    pete43lost_at_sea Member Posts: 3,900 Member
    #2
    thanks tony, great post and study

    possibly the cheapest and most effective therapy.

    it costs nothing to believe and have faith.

    its as good as time as any to contemplate life deeply and possibly its end, when you got a challenging prognosis.

    "staring into the sun" is a challenging read and is spiritual but not religious. i would recommend it to anyone interested in facing death.

    maybe the goodwill and care on this site, despite our occaisional fights is enough to help many of us over the hardest part of our challenge.

    its a great study, i think i have read it, or similar before.

    I am certain my faith makes each day easier with this illness, to think it actually may boost our survival chances now thats nice!

    is it in itself proof of god answering our prayers, or is that to much of a leap of faith.

    hugs,

    Pete

    ps and parayers 

  • manwithnoname
    manwithnoname Member Posts: 402
    #3
    pete43lost_at_sea said:

    thanks tony, great post and study

    possibly the cheapest and most effective therapy.

    it costs nothing to believe and have faith.

    its as good as time as any to contemplate life deeply and possibly its end, when you got a challenging prognosis.

    "staring into the sun" is a challenging read and is spiritual but not religious. i would recommend it to anyone interested in facing death.

    maybe the goodwill and care on this site, despite our occaisional fights is enough to help many of us over the hardest part of our challenge.

    its a great study, i think i have read it, or similar before.

    I am certain my faith makes each day easier with this illness, to think it actually may boost our survival chances now thats nice!

    is it in itself proof of god answering our prayers, or is that to much of a leap of faith.

    hugs,

    Pete

    ps and parayers 

    This really surprised me

    I did excpect some benefit but not that much.

    Also; "We present a psychoneuroimmunological (PNI) model that links helplessness-hopelessness (HH) with cancer progression via interleukin-1beta"

    basically negative emotions increase IL 1 beta which promotes mets.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16083319

  • PatchAdams
    PatchAdams Member Posts: 271
    #4
    Very interesting

    I am a person of faith (in God) but also think one might say this could apply to an optimistic person, too. 

    The Bible says 'a joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones'.  Laughter is healing! Remember that guy many years ago who had advanced Lymphoma and was healed by optimism, Three Stooges movies and surrounded by friends.   Norman Cousins was his name. 

  • manwithnoname
    manwithnoname Member Posts: 402
    #5
    PatchAdams said:

    Very interesting

    I am a person of faith (in God) but also think one might say this could apply to an optimistic person, too. 

    The Bible says 'a joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones'.  Laughter is healing! Remember that guy many years ago who had advanced Lymphoma and was healed by optimism, Three Stooges movies and surrounded by friends.   Norman Cousins was his name. 

    Hi Patch

    What kind of faith doesn't seem inmportant, it's the 'faith' that matters, and I totally agree about laughter, in fact I saw a documentary that actually showed the signal from the brain going to the immune system.

     

    Vittorio Michelli went to Loudres and not only did his cancer vanish he also regrew his hip bone that had disintergrated, that's some strong faith...

  • janderson1964
    janderson1964 Member Posts: 2,215 Member
    #6
    Great study. Thanks for
    Great study. Thanks for posting. I am currently reading a book called FIGHTING CANCER FROM WITHIN. It is written by a well respected medical doctor and the focus is on using your mind as a healing tool including visualization. He said people of faith are already doing this through prayer.

    I have talked about my faith on here before and it has gotten me in trouble so i am going to take my chances and say that I am a devout Christian whose faith has grown through my cancer journey. Jesus said "Your faith has healed you" after he healed someone. The key part of that phrase is "Your faith".

    Something to think a out weather you are a believer or not.

    I am not preaching. Just saying.
  • manwithnoname
    manwithnoname Member Posts: 402
    #7
    janderson1964 said:

    Great study. Thanks for
    Great study. Thanks for posting. I am currently reading a book called FIGHTING CANCER FROM WITHIN. It is written by a well respected medical doctor and the focus is on using your mind as a healing tool including visualization. He said people of faith are already doing this through prayer.

    I have talked about my faith on here before and it has gotten me in trouble so i am going to take my chances and say that I am a devout Christian whose faith has grown through my cancer journey. Jesus said "Your faith has healed you" after he healed someone. The key part of that phrase is "Your faith".

    Something to think a out weather you are a believer or not.

    I am not preaching. Just saying.

    Im also

    Interested in visualization and other tools like hypnosis and meditation, in fact for over 20 years, im fascinated with how the brain works and how it can be tricked.

    I live in Israel, sometimes it seems the entire country runs on faith...especially driving.

    Im not religous, but I have prayed when things have been bleak, no athiests in foxholes, but I don't think I have much faith in anything. Sadly.

  • jen2012
    jen2012 Member Posts: 1,607 Member
    #8
    Interesting, but the only

    Interesting, but the only problem I have with things like this is it seems to put a lot of pressure on the patient.   When my husband was first diagnosed and I was doing lots of reading, I read an article (I think by a Sloan Dr or nurse, but could be wrong) about how having a positive outlook really does not increase ones chances and that it often stresses the patient out worrying that they are not positive enough.   I'm not sure, I do know that I worked with a very nice lady who fought breast cancer for years before dying from it and she was always smiling and upbeat.  My father, on the other hand, is very negative by nature and has beat stage 4 lymphoma....so who knows?

  • pete43lost_at_sea
    pete43lost_at_sea Member Posts: 3,900 Member
    #9
    it nice to see some positive replies here

    i got lost on pub med after following tony's link above, a sincere thanks. i did a little summary i was so impressed with what i found.

    http://petertrayhurn.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/emotions-love-and-stress-and-beating-my.html

    i have not done much pub med research for the last few weeks so i was ready to see where a range of studies lead me.

    as some will know i have invested my survival in my immune system, i have 17 million dendritic cells trained to eat my tumour.

    so being aware of and caring for my immune system is essential to me.

    i raised these issues with the dendritic cell specialists an its beyond them as well, axcept they say stress is bad.

    i am on many targetted therapies to tune my immune system, but thats not for discussion here. what is is faith.

    how apt that this subject get raised at this time of year. so goto church if its your cup of tea, or just be spiritual and have faith.

    i measured my cortisol levels during the vaccine treatment week, still don't have the results.

    so maybe this post we can leave to the spiritual classification. but to me the science of faith, translates to being positive and the way that benefits the immune system.

    but some here believe the immune system has nothing to do with our survival, remission.

    positive thinking, positive action, ie what we do here on csn those of us that are positive and supportive. those the take effective action for health be it diet and exercise and relationships are not only improving the quality of each days living but gaining quality and quantity of life based on my reading of these studies.

    the 58 pages on the immune system and exercise was heart warming.

    thanks tony, it makes coming to this site an enriching experience when a few like minded souls share views that are really so important to our quality and quantity of life. dare i say it, even cure!

    hugs,

    Pete

    ps and happy new year.

  • PhillieG
    PhillieG Member Posts: 4,866 Member
    #10
    Then Again...

    there's me :-)

    I do believe it's important to try to maintain a positive attitude (as often as you can) and have hope, faith, believe, or whatever else one chooses to call "it". Definitions muddy the waters at times and one certainly can be spiritual without religion just as one can be religious without being spiritual.

    The bottom line (I believe  is that if something works for you, then go for it! Like cancer, what works for one may not work for others so do what helps you.

    There was a study out a year or so ago that said having a positive attitude made NO difference one way or the other as to how a person fares with a serious illness. I found it impossible to believe and personally I don't believe it. If they ARE right, then I try to maintain a good attitude and there's no loss...

    Walton Lake NY

  • steved
    steved Member Posts: 834 Member
    #11
    Faith

    Thanks forousting this. I think the most interesting component is how they measure faith anIssa worth reading on page two of the study. It focuses on a lack of anxiety,realistic expectations of clinicians, knowledge of illness and a sense of the disease reflecting a wider idea of human suffering. It is perhaps not how I would define faith but reflects more a helpful psychological approach to being ill in general. 

     

    Good discussion launch board for this time of year,

     

    Steve

  • manwithnoname
    manwithnoname Member Posts: 402
    #12
    jen2012 said:

    Interesting, but the only

    Interesting, but the only problem I have with things like this is it seems to put a lot of pressure on the patient.   When my husband was first diagnosed and I was doing lots of reading, I read an article (I think by a Sloan Dr or nurse, but could be wrong) about how having a positive outlook really does not increase ones chances and that it often stresses the patient out worrying that they are not positive enough.   I'm not sure, I do know that I worked with a very nice lady who fought breast cancer for years before dying from it and she was always smiling and upbeat.  My father, on the other hand, is very negative by nature and has beat stage 4 lymphoma....so who knows?

    Good point Jen

    and just to stir things up a bit;

    " women who had greater number of stressful life events and low social support had a decreased risk of breast cancer "

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2657917/pdf/nihms59719.pdf

    Im not sure about 'positive thinking' or 'faith' but I would prefer an oncologist that was positive and had faith in their protocol over one that didn't.

    Studies on humans and their subjective feelings are flawed from the begining IMHO, people lie and lie to themselves.

    On another note our oncologist said a study I had brought to her attention (that had very good results) was 'flawed' and she belived the oncologists had selectivley biased their study and she would not be implementing their protocol which had a MUCH better success rate than hers.

    Of course the studies she did believe in were all unflawed and objective. 

    I doubt she is unique in this boxed thinking.

  • pete43lost_at_sea
    pete43lost_at_sea Member Posts: 3,900 Member
    #13

    now i have a good measure of faith already, so where this resolution takes me god only knows. 

    the study and the science for rcc cancer is amazing. just read tony's links, most would pull out the bible or whatever straight away and start praying.

    More faith in ourselves, our treatments, thats what we need in my opinion.

    It also raises the greatest irony of this wonderful community, where science challenges current clinical practise.

    its clear from the studies faith boosts measurable the immune system and improved survival.

    so this takes my obsession with my immune system to a whole new level. i would say something as cheap and simple as faith boosting our immune system and hence our survival.

    so how do I boost faith, my own, the faith of my friends ? thats a good question, a really important question. I think I ask myself that question on every post and reply here.

    this really is pandora's box, that tony's post has opened up. it can be ignored, but it cannot be closed. the science and facts speak for themselves. 

    more proof that our long term health is determined by our immune system.

    hugs,

    Pete

     

Discussion Boards