Last semester, I had one taught module i.e. one module for which we were lectured. It was the Therapeutics: Protein to patient module, and dealt with drugs*, their discovery, making, action and other bits and bobs of pharmacology as well concentrating on 5 specific diseases; learning about their discovery, how diagnosis, prognosis and treatment or management has developed over time and what the future holds. An integral part of the module was, in the words of the module organiser, "’Bullshit Detection”. In today’s exponentially expanding technological world, we are constantly bombarded by drug adverts from every direction; creams that will make your wrinkles disappear, pills to make you smile from sunrise to sunset, lotions that’ll make your your hair so thick, you could be mistaken for a yeti, or if you’ve ever taken a peek at your spam / junk mail, pills that’ll grow your third leg by a good 7 and a half inches1. There are so-called doctors, who have graduated from universities with names that are vaguely familiar to names in Lord of the Rings, handing out leaflets on the street claiming to cure erectile dysfunction, cancer2, and anything that’d make even grown men blush. Coupled with the fact many people are just so busy and don’t have the time to investigate the claims made by the multi-million pound advertising companies that are shoving ‘magical-cures’, quoting long words from non-existent research that are nonsense. But we still buy them. We still pay that extra couple of pounds to buy the carrot that contains beta-amyloids3 to combat hair reduction. The bullshit detection part of the course was to enable us to recognise and analyse ‘quacks’, their treatments and bogus forms of health information we are exposed to. One lecture in particular which focused on complimentary medicine was so funny, that each and every student in the lecture theatre was LMAO-ing so hard at the sheer stupidity of how some of these forms of treatments are carried out.4 All in all, a lot of the scams mentioned above are ways of stealing money from the uneducated general public, though it is amazing to see how those people who are educated, still make use of such things, but that’s not the point of this post. Below is a slide from a lecture we had on the history of asthma, and I think it puts the point across quite nicely:
While revising some of lectures from that module a few days ago, I got distracted
as I always do, and started thinking about something completely unrelated. It all started with homeopathy. Homeopathy5 is an alternative treatment, known by many as the sweet little white balls. The lecturer who taught us, was extremely anti-any-type-of-complimentary-medicine and therefore he gave us one side of the argument. To balance the whole thing, we also received a lecture supporting homeopathy. Medicine is an evidence based field in which all drugs are vigorously tested, undergoing clinical trials to determine whether, if any, of the potential benefits are due to the drug itself or placebo6. Many sceptics of alternative medicines such as homeopathy argue they work, if they do, by a placebo effect as the ‘active’ constituents are so dilute they could not possibly induce any effects themselves. So while sitting there pretending to revise, I thought to myself about those people / patients who claim to have been cured or gotten better after taking such alternative medicines.
Regardless of your personal belief**, let us take sides with the sceptics and assume for argument’s sake, that complimentary medicines don’t work. If they don’t work for whatever reason, and people are still getting ‘cured’, without having taken any conventional medication, one can conclude the alternative medicines had a placebo effect. The positive effects must therefore have all been psychological. It was the person’s belief which cured them, the pills were just something to instil that belief. As my train of thought continued to choo-chooo along, I was reminded of a quote from a lovely film a friend of mine forced me to watch (forced because it was a chick flick, and I was sceptical about how good it would be):
Happiness is a state of mind – Love happens.
Come to think of it, I totally agree with the quote. Like the patients above who had such strong faith in the amazing-ness of the sugary white balls that they got better, I think each and everyone’s mental state of mind can play a great impact on the healing of wounds; physical and or emotional. It has been observed by many that those people who are optimistic tend to heal faster, whereas those with a negative state of mind, heal a lot slower and may even get worse spiralling downwards. Patients in wards that have a good support structure as well being full of life, quickly overcome their problems and reclaim their life that they lost to injury and or illness.
Everyone comes across instances in life when they feel hope is lost, life changing events that open the inviting door of depression such trauma and loss. In these situations it can be difficult being positive, because it hurts so much. The injustice of the incident leads to anger and we become trapped thinking, “Why? Why did it have to be this way?”. I’ve been there, so I know what it feels like sitting in the darkness searching desperately for even a speck of light. But I made my way out of the darkness. It all starts with you. The hardest part about the fall is picking yourself up. After that, once you’re on your feet it becomes easier and easier and easier. Believe tomorrow will be a better day, believe you will find happiness and love and laughter and life, and maybe if you believe hard enough, your beliefs will turn to reality.
For the Muslim readers among you, I would like to share a hadith from Muslim in which the Holy Prophet (sa) said that whoever was guilty of spreading pessimism among the people was leading towards their downfall as pessimistic ideas tend to discourage one and halt progress.7 So find the butterfly of happiness and share it with everyone around you.
*NB: In the healthcare profession, when someone uses the word drugs it encompasses all medicines and not just those ‘street drugs’ such as cocaine and heroin. Normal medications such as paracetamol and aspirin etc are also drugs.
** I am personally undecided about homeopathy, as I like to conduct my own research before making up my mind, and haven’t really got round to it.
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Title: The storm is over now – R Kelly
1If you didn’t understand this, then don’t worry. If you’re a guy, you probably got exactly what I meant
2Claiming to be able to cure cancer is against the British law and a punishable act: Click here to read the Cancer Act
3Beta-amyloids are found in plaques in the brain’s of those with Alzheimer’s Disease. If I hadn’t mentioned this, you’d have thought they were good for your hair.
4There is a website dedicated to historical remedies used for the treatment of many illnesses. It is good for laughs: http://thequackdoctor.com/
5A brief introduction to homeopathy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
6An introduction to placebo-controlled-studies used to test drugs can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo-controlled_study
7Muslim, Part II, vol. 2
Picture 1 of a lecture slide take from my university given notes.
Picture 2 of homeopathic medicine showing container and balls taken from this website: http://www.drallanapolo.com/images/general/homeopathy.jpg
), she writes about everything and nothing from the umpteen number of Ipod headphones she’s been through, or more recently how cytochrome bc1 complex lead to the invention of a cuss word. Her style makes it worth reading. 
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