![]() This is because they used surrogate endpoints (cortisol is linked to stress and IgA to infection resistance, but stress and infection resistance were not the endpoints measured). This is an intriguing finding even if, from a medical standpoint, you can base absolutely no conclusions from it. The investigators drew blood tests on a group of 120 people who spent 4.5 days meditating and found most of the group’s cortisol levels decreased and IgA levels increased. Still, it was an interesting study worthy of discussion. Not surprisingly, the only study in the entire documentary was not placebo-controlled. Scientific studies need to prove that a given therapy is superior to placebo to be considered efficacious. Blaming people for their own disease is, arguably, the documentary’s most egregious contention. Taking this error of logical reasoning to its logical conclusion: your negative thinking is why you are sick. In logical reasoning, this is the inverse and is not necessarily true. Less compelling was the assumption that if positive thinking can heal pathology, negative thinking can cause pathology. For example, it explains why you may think “full body acidity” is nonsense (because it is), yet if others believe it is true, some may actually benefit. I found this argument a compelling explanation of why all types of CAM therapies can actually work for some individuals despite a lack of proven efficacy. If you think the medical medium waving his hands over your body or the spiritual psychologist channeling the power of God can make you better, then by the power of positive thinking, you may actually get better. ![]() It is the power of belief, both in the spiritual and the non-religious sense. The placebo effect, or the power of positive thinking, is the basis of CAM therapy. Placebos are defined as medications or treatments that have no therapeutic value, yet many people respond to placebos. The placebo effectĬAM therapies often shy away from discussing the placebo effect, but this documentary dives right in. ![]() A genuinely holistic approach would consider all treatments and combine them in a way that best benefits each individual. So why the competition? Disparaging the proven benefits of conventional medicine doesn’t make CAM therapies any more or less effective. Most people in Western societies use it as complementary (also called integrative) medicine, and that was generally the case in the anecdotes discussed in this documentary. In other words, these treatments can be used along with conventional medicine (complementary) or instead of it (alternative). Treatments that do not adhere to conventional, evidence-based medicine are referred to as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This isn’t just wrong, it is unnecessary. Pseudoscience such as heat accumulation, super-immune response, sound frequencies and the like are all equally accepted at face value while science and medicine are disparaged. The remainder dragged like a series of late-night infomercials.īy claiming “the ultimate cause of disease is stress” and suggesting that you can undo stress to rid yourself of cancer, Noonan Gores puts the onus on you for being sick. The most engaging part of this documentary is the individual stories of patients with chronic disease and emotional distress. The documentary relies heavily on anecdotal support but no actual studies (with one interesting exception that I will get to later). Various talking heads pontificate and theorize on various alternative medicine ideologies, and their opinions are accepted without challenge or critical debate. While this is undoubtedly true, she takes this concept to an extreme and decides that the mind is the only thing responsible for most disease. Taking a holistic approach to health, she focuses on chronic disease and how the mind can have a positive or negative effect on disease. Heal is a 2017 documentary by Kelly Noonan Gores that examines the power of the mind to heal the body.
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