Article August 7, 2000 Issue

The original medicine—Mind

God heals.

By Mark Swinney

In a report to an appropriations subcommittee of the United States Senate, Andrew Weil, M.D., director of the University of Arizona Program in Integrative Medicine, stated that nearly half of US health care consumers have tried some form of alternative therapy (2000 Healtheon/WebMD). That's a significant number, and in the years to come, it is possible that a larger percentage will look to what is now non-mainstream, alternative treatment and medicine—to homeopathy, herbal medicines, hypnotism, massage, and the like—in addition to, or instead of, conventional medicine.

The alternative, or complementary, health care field today is incredibly broad, and sometimes it may seem that anything goes. Even in traditional medicine, there are some rather thought-provoking studies that stretch conventional views of treatment. An article published in Scientific American takes a look at a number of such studies, including the work of Walter A. Brown, a member of the psychiatry department of the Brown University School of Medicine. Dr. Brown, also a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, has done extensive study and research into what is commonly known as the "placebo effect" (Scientific American, January 1998, pp. 90—95).

In addition to unmedicated pills and inert injections, placebos can also involve what is told or not told to patients about diseases, diagnoses, and treatments. Dr. Brown describes a study of two hundred patients "with physical complaints but no identifiable disease." Some were told by doctors at the University of Southampton in England that "no serious disease had been found and that they would soon be well." Two weeks later 64 percent of that group had recovered. The others were told that "the cause of their ailment was unclear." Only 39 percent of that group recuperated in two weeks.

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