UNA makes a healthy mind

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in treatment seems to have a positive effect on their I always seemed to get a cold as soon as my last However, most of the focus is on the individual apart college final exam was over. I could feel my head getting from social context. You can improve your chances of stuffy as I went home. This was my first experience with beating cancer if you learn to relax and maintain a the link between state of mind and health; as soon as I positive mental attitude. Having a stressful or dangerous saw my tasks completed, the stress of the past weeks Hardly a scientific study, but this anecdote does raise the link between stress, emotions, and disease-a A June 13, 1985, editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine summed up one side of the question: "It is time to acknowledge that our belief in disease as a direct reflection of mental state is largely folklore.

The editorial appeared in the same issue as an article by Barrie Cassileth and others which found that attitude toward ones' condition had no measureable effect on the Altogether, a seemingly neat package; the study and the editorial reaffirm traditional U.S. medical practice.

The patient's ailment is treated directly and in isolation Daniel Goleman reviewed this question in The New York Times (October 22 and 29, 1985) and presented the growing body of medical evidence that links emotional state and disease. A recent study in the British medical journal Lancet is particularly interesting: Women who showed "fighting spirit" had a much better chance of surviving 10 years after breast cancer surgery than those who accepted their condition. All of the women in this The emotional state of the patients was measured immediately after diagnosis and after surgery. The women were then followed for 10 years. Seventy percent of the women who believed they could beat the disease were alive after 10 years compared to only about 25 percent who felt hopeless or accepted their condition.

Another study cited found that genital herpes sufferers showed lower levels of immune system T-cells and increased outbreaks of the disease when they were depressed. Skin cancer patients showed slower tumor cell division and more immune system lymphocytes to battle the tumor if they were openly angry at their condition More and more, the patient's mental state is seen as an important part of the treatment of serious illness. Niel Fiore of the University of California, Berkeley, said, "Giving patients some sense of more active participation overwhelmed me.

growing debate in medicine today. progression of advanced cancer.

from all other factors in the patient's file. study were in an early stage of the disease. compared to those who showed less emotion. body's ability to combat disease.'