When the Body Says No: How Emotions Can Cause or Prevent Deadly Disease

[tridim]

http://www.alternet.org/health/149384/when_the_body_says_no:_how_emotions_can_cause_or_prevent_deadly_disease/

Dr. Maté argues too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption, that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness, addictions and disorders, and in their healing.

Dr. Maté came on Democracy Now! this year to discuss his book When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection. Based on medical studies and his own experience with chronically ill patients at the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver Hospital, where he was the medical coordinator for seven years, Dr. Maté argues that stress and individual emotional makeup play critical roles in an array of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Speaking to us this time from Vancouver -- it was actually during the Vancouver Olympics -- Dr. Maté began by explaining his analysis of the mind-body connection.

DR. GABOR MATÉ: You know, the traditional medicines of China for 3,000 years, the ayurvedic medicine of India, and the tribal shamanic medicines of all cultures around the world have always taken for granted that mind and body can’t be separated. Now, Western medicine has cleaved the two apart for, really, 2,000 years. Socrates already criticized the doctors of his day for separating the mind from the body. And the irony -- in fact, the tragedy -- is that now we have the Western science that shows, incontrovertibly and in great detail, that mind and body can’t be separated, and so that any attempt to do so leaves the medical practitioner short of many tools to help clients. And, of course, it leaves patients short of what they need for their own healing.

The point now is that the emotional centers of the brain, which regulate our behaviors and our responses and our reactions, are physiologically connected with -- and we know exactly how they’re connected -- with the immune system, the nervous system and the hormonal apparatus. In fact, it’s no longer possible, scientifically, to speak of these as separate systems, as if immunity was separate from emotions, as if the nervous system was separate from the hormonal apparatus. There’s one system, and they’re wired together by the nervous system itself and joined together by chemical messengers that they all secrete, and so that whatever happens emotionally has an impact immunologically, and vice versa. So, for example, we know now that the white cells in the circulation of our -- of the blood can manufacture every hormone that the brain can manufacture, and vice versa, so that the brain and the immune system are always talking to one another.

(snip)

Much more: http://www.alternet.org/health/149384/when_the_body_says_no:_how_emotions_can_cause_or_prevent_deadly_disease/

As you read, think about the last commercial you saw for a big pharma product. How did you feel after seeing it? A little more stressed perhaps?

It's obvious to me that big pharma is stressing us out for money.

[asjr]

1. I can readily believe stress can cause

major problems. My 65 year old sister found out she had 2 blood clots on her lungs 2 weeks before Christmas. When she asked her doctor what could have caused it, he said "stress" and that makes sense because she has been under great stress for quite some time from all corners. I sometimes believe it would have been such a good idea if. when we were born we came out of the womb holding a liftime warranty. You never know what will hit.

[tavalon]

3. We do have a lifetime warranty

We just aren't told ahead of time how long that will be.

[CoffeeCat]

2. big pharma commercials for depression medication...

...would make the happiest, healthiest person feel like the want to jump off of
a bridge. My children have even commented to me, "Mom that commercial makes
me so sad."

The music. The scenes. The way they make you feel that if you are sad or down
sometimes--or even anxious in social situations--is a four-alarm fire that must
be put out with their special brand of chemicals...really is disgusting.

There is real depression--a serious medical condition. However, doctors
are over-diagnosing depression and other conditions--and also over-prescribing
these medications. We go in with a problem or anxiety--and we're offered pills
in a knee jerk fashion. Big pharma makes doctors lazy and also gets people
taking pills to quell normal, human emotions and tough experiences.

I kept returning to my doctor because I was exhausted. She kept telling me I was depressed.
I kept telling her that I wasn't depressed--I was tired. She was so frustrated with me
that I wouldn't take anti-depressants. I finally found another doctor who recommended
a sleep study. A few days later, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. I stopped
breathing 20 times a minute and my health was deteriorating because this went undiagnosed
for so long.

Big pharma is out of control.

[tavalon]

4. Yet another reason I am glad not to have TV

The last commercial I saw was one for Prozac. I'm not even sure they still make Prozac. It's probably a generic something or other by now. Really depressing commercials for anti-depressants? I don't know why that tickles me. It's like a life insurance rider for suicide.

[morningglory]

5. I get stressed after a pharma advert when they start listing the

side effects: brain lesions, suicide, depression, hair falling out, and on and on and on...