Widening clinical research actions to better cancer outcomes (power thinking, emotions, physiology, DNA)
Research, opinions, actions by survivors and beliefs all point out that directly using our individual thinking and emotions could influence our general wellbeing, physiology and DNA health outcomes.
While there is some evidence and support, there is clearly a need to undertake clinical research that encompasses our ability to specifically use our thinking and emotions, as tools in themselves, and directly apply them to influence our health outcomes. There is a need to push into new research, and extend old research boundaries to provide that evidence and support.
Where is the evidence that our thinking and emotions could have a remedial or causal link to cancer and cancer DNA? A very good question and the jury and clinical support are still out. Yet Power Thinking Health Council, by widening the available clinical and other research boundaries, is bringing together our thinking and emotions research to find out if and/or how they directly influence our physiological and DNA health with a focus on better cancer outcomes.
In 2006, Adrian G White, the School of Psychology, University of Leicester, UK, in a response to the release of the ‘World Map of Happiness’ noted that “… temporary mood states have only a marginal effect on subjective well-being (SWB), whilst long term changes and situational factors have a significant effect on SWB.”(1) In the same article, he went on further to include that “There is extensive evidence of correlations between SWB and general health (Diener, 2000).”(2)
In 2005, in a media interview of David Hill, Director of the Cancer Council of Victoria(3), David Hill mentions that “there is evidence that mind therapies benefits patients (even if they don’t cure cancer)” and further comments that “There is little evidence, however, of how psychological elements contribute to cancer, although we are looking at it. It’s very hard to nail down.”
In 2004, in an article “A question of Proof”, Rosyln Guy quoted and reported that Dr Craig Hassad, an advocate of mind body medicine and senior lecturer in the Department of General Practice at Monash University ‘… has no doubt that the mind is a potent instrument in healing. "What you think, and your emotions, can have a powerful effect on your immune system. If you're getting angry or tense all the time it can suppress immunity." And, he says, there is plenty of data to support this view.'(4)
Conclusions reached in 2003 from a longitudinal study, by I Fawzy and others, noted - "At the 10 year follow-up, participation in the intervention remained predictive of survival when statistically controlling for the effects of other known prognostic indicators."(5) The study looked at the survival effects of a brief structured psychiatric intervention (see footnote for a description of the intervention) on survival and recurrence with malignant melanoma patients. In its 10 year follow-up review it noted that between the 5-6 year follow-up and the 10 year follow-up, the effects of the intervention had not entirely disappeared.
In 2000, The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology notes: “Although not yet extended to cancer patients, experimental investigations provide the most convincing evidence to date that emotional processing and expression are related causally to positive outcomes.”(6)
Can changing our thinking and emotions impact our DNA? Professor Avni Sali MBBS, PhD, FRACS, FACS, FACNEM Director, National Institute of Integrative Medicine, Melbourne, provides an example of stress and its influence on genes(7)and thus our health.
Power Thinking Health Council, a NSW based non-profit organisation, presents two expanded research tools in its endeavours to undertake an analysis of our thinking styles and emotions to determine the focus for future clinical trials. Its E-survey analysis will provide input into thinking styles. Its ‘Health Wellbeing States Monitor, analyser and reporter’®, the Wellbeing Monitor looks at our emotions. A distributed analysis will be used to prepare for clinical trials.
World Health Organisation (WHO) projections analysis reveal that every 24 hours another 1,471 people will be diagnosed with a cancer while another 903 will die from cancers in Australia and around the world. Most of these, of course, are loved ones, friends and relatives, care givers, medical practitioners and others affected or influenced by the effects of cancer.
Internationally from a comparative analysis between the years 2000 and 2020 from these WHO cancer projections, all parts of the globe continue to be affected by an increasing incidence and death rate from cancers, including both men and women, deaths are projected to increase from 10.1million to 15.6million worldwide. In North America, from these projections, there will be a 47% increase in cancer deaths between 2000 and 2020, in South America and the Caribbean (78%), Oceania -includes Australia (56%), Northern Europe (24%), Eastern Europe (16%), Western Europe (27%), Southern Europe (20%), Eastern Asia (66%), South Central Asia (72%), South Eastern Asia (76%), Northern Africa and Western Asia (85%) and Dsub-Saharan Africa (65%).
Did you know that depending on your focus, you think about details or see the big picture, your thoughts predominantly are of the past, present or future, you think about your internal world or the world around you. You think about meaning, about spirituality, about your intentions, about your very existence. But what is the right thinking for greater health and wellbeing?
In times of high, strong and mixed emotions facing humanity each day, is it time to ‘monitor’ our emotions. Try the Power Thinking® Wellbeing Monitor, and also provide valuable input to better cancer outcomes.
Power Thinking Health Council invites the whole community to help it map our thinking and emotions in order to provide valuable input to beat cancer and related diseases, experiences and conditions.
“The pen is mightier than the sword” continues today to be more relevant than ever. Yet, would you not agree, our thinking is one of, if not, our most powerful tool. It creates, it maintains, it masters, through it humans provide tools for our very health and wellbeing.
Come on board in a very simple and uncomplicated way, register free as a member, be active and undertake the Power Thinking E-survey and our Wellbeing monitor.
Knowledge and actions are such powerful tools for greater health and wellbeing. To find out more about how you think, complete the Power Thinking E-survey, and give yourself some thinking tools for greater health and wellbeing while helping us defeat cancer.
Science tells us that our emotions, for example stress, affect our DNA in some ways. So how can we use our emotions to provide for greater health and wellbeing? One way to change our emotions is to change our thinking.
Can it then be that when we change our thinking, we change our emotions, our physiology and the very DNA of our being? Can therefore targeted thinking provide us greater health and wellbeing?
Help us find out, act now! Go to our website at www.power-thinking.org, the totally new website design that recently won the 2006 Charles Sturt University David Battersby Community Service Award for two of the university’s IT subject students.
Contact details:
Theo Richter FPNA
President
Power Thinking Health Council
PO Box 3218
Albury NSW 2640
Australia
Phone: +61 2 60808179
Mobile: 0422 927 296
Email: enquiries@power-thinking.org
Website: http:/ www.power-thinking.org
Footnotes:
1. School of Psychology, University of Leicester “A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: A Challenge to Positive Psychology?” Adrian G. White, University of Leicester, http://www.le.ac.uk/pc/aw57/world/sample.html 2006, including a ‘World Map of Happiness’
2. Diener, E. (2000) Subjective Well-Being: The Science of Happiness and a Proposal for a National Index. American Psychologist, 55(1) 34-43.
“Subjective wellbeing refers to how people evaluate their lives, and includes variables such as life satisfaction and marital satisfaction, lack of depression and anxiety, and positive moods and emotions.” See also http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/hottopic/paper1.html3. The Age, What I’ve Learnt, Cancer’s strong man”, David Hill, director of the Cancer Council of Victoria, 62, Kew By Deborah Blashki-Marks, August 13, 2005.
4. Science - www.theage.com.au, A Question of Proof – Science – March 29, 2004 - Quoting Raymond Snyder oncologist at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne. http://www.theage.com.au/news/science/a-question-of-proof/2004/03/28/1080412236273.html
5. Fawzy I, Fawzy, MD; Andrea L. Canada, PhD; Nancy W. Fawzy, RN, DNSc Malignant Melanoma, Effects of a brief, Structured Psychiatric Intervention on Survival and Recurrence at 10-year Follow-up, , Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2003;60:100-103
6. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 2000, Vol. 68 No. 5, 875-882 – Emotionally Expressive Coping Predicts Psychological and Physical Adjustment to Breast Cancer, “… the intervention consisted of (1) health education (eg melanoma, nutrition, exercise, sun exposure); (2) stress management (eg general stress information, personal stress awareness, relaxation techniques); (3) enhancement of coping skills (eg problem solving, general coping alternatives, theoretical and personal application of solutions); and (4) psychological support (from group members and staff).”
7. Professor Avni Sali MBBS, PhD, FRACS, FACS, FACNEM Director, National Institute of Integrative Medicine, …an example of stress and influence on genes - Adaptive Point Mutation and Adaptive Amplification Pathways in the Escherichia coli Lac System: Stress Responses Producing Genetic Change, Journal of Bacteriology, Aug. 2004, p. 4838–4843 Vol. 186, No. 15 0021-9193/04/$08.00_0 DOI: 10.1128/JB.186.15.4838–4843.2004
