The Intention Experiment

I am reading a book titled The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart. It investigates how our thoughts impact events and even physical matter. There’s always the risk of involving “junk science” when discussing concepts at the far edge of understanding. Yet, hardly anyone disagrees - that if you are in a bad mood, you seem to attract bad events. Are we just highlighting the negative and minimizing the good, resulting in a conclusion that “everything is going wrong”?

In my readings on this subject, I am surprised at the frequency with which opinions are stated as facts by scientists who should know better. In health care, we wrestle with measuring the effectiveness of a drug or therapy because the patient’s belief in its helpfulness often outweighs its real effect. Couple this with the power of the doctor’s “intention” for helping the patient and the placebo effect can be very powerful.

Some time ago I read about a “healer” who found that he could help people as well as plants. He conducted an experiment where he “poisoned” corn seeds with salt water. He held half of the corn kernels in his hands meditating over them with healing thoughts before planting them. The other half of the seeds was planted without healing intentions. Sure enough, the healing seeds sprouted faster and grew healthier than the control group. To his credit, the healer, unable to duplicate the experiment, refused to publish his findings. This is good science.

Most people have had the experience of having a dog or baby dislike them from first meeting. This may be a subtle odor or pheromone which the dog or baby senses. Olfactory senses may affect outcome.

In the area of unexplained communication, almost everyone has had the experience of watching someone from behind and having them turn around to look. Similarly, most of us have experienced the feeling that “someone is watching us”. Where does that feeling come from?

A consultant that I know has asked dentists in seminars the question: “How many of you know that if you are angry, fearful, or grouchy in the morning, you will have more cancellations in the afternoon?” The answer is always unanimous agreement. Mood may affect outcome even in remote subjects who cannot know how the doctor is feeling.

Cause and effect studies are complicated by the influence of the observer. If your toddlers are playing and you show up to listen in, they will behave differently. If a sales manager observes an agent’s interaction with a customer, both the agent and the customer will respond to the manager’s presence as much as to the actual conversation. We might call this “The Attention Effect”.

The very act of measuring the consequence of thought or even prayer affects the outcome. The Hawthorne Effect sums up this phenomenon: “That which is measured, improves.”

Add to the above, quantification problems – often we are measuring things on an infinitesimal scale with devices calibrated for much larger matters. Imagine weighing an envelope for postage with a scale designed to weigh dump trucks. Neuroscientists agree that the probe used to stimulate a nerve in nerve response experiments has an effect of its own.

Despite procedural difficulties, confusion from inevitable variables, and bias in reporting, “Intention” is a serious and exciting field of the study. Certainly the power of loving thoughts toward a friend or family member will change the object person’s feelings. Likewise, the intention will have a positive affect on the person sending the loving thoughts.

The jury is still out on the power of intention. Proving that it exists statistically may be near but harnessing the scientific data to explain why it exists requires further “Intention Experiments”.

Great swine flu article

As the nation and the world are caught up in the swine flu excitement, a dose of reality is in order.

As a chiropractor trained in scientific reasoning, a lot of the news reports just didn’t add up. My own wellness point of view on health prevents me from waiting until a disease arrives to address it. A preventative approach is always more effective than a treatment.

The national response to this disease seems out of proportion to the real threat, especially comparing it to other diseases we contend with every day in America. My own research into the swine flu epidemic included an article by Dr. Joseph Mercola. It effectively addresses the inaccuracies and some of the conspiracy theories (with a grain of salt).

We should be skeptical of conspiracies but we should not be naïve; news organizations have a vested interest in exciting stories and drug companies have a vested interest in disease treatment.

Please read Dr. Mercola’s article. I think you’ll find it very interesting.

Traumatic Brain Injury

I just returned from a seminar on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI). While our focus at Lake Oswego Chiropractic Clinic is wellness, courses of study which affect other areas of my patients’ health are often useful. A course in brain injury recovery can provide all sorts of insights into keeping your brain and nervous system healthy long into old age.

Seminar participants were quickly reminded that there is no such thing as a “mild” brain injury except that it is less severe than a “major” one. Major brain injuries usually involve hemorrhage and coma so the mild ones are more likely to be seen in a clinic. (They are, but they often go unnoticed).

The most common source of MTBI is car accidents. Car occupant’s heads frequently strike the headrest causing bruising of the brain. The snapping of the head forward in a whiplash often causes the brain to strike the front of the skull.
After years of dissenting discussion about whether whiplash causes neck injuries, MRI and CT imaging has allowed us to prove that real damage does occur to neck tissues when involved in “acceleration/deceleration” accidents. Similarly, newer imaging is showing brain damage from injuries previously considered to be fairly mild.

As the tragic story of Liam Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson demonstrated, a skilled doctor evaluates a head injury and looks for obvious signs of major damage; sometimes they don’t tell us enough. Most mild head injuries only require a “wait and see” protocol. If nothing major arises, as in most cases, the remarkable human body has protected itself and nothing further needs to be done.

Some of the “red flags” we look for include:
* Unconsciousness
* abnormal breathing
* obvious serious wound or fracture
* bleeding or clear fluid from the nose, ear, or mouth (cerebrospinal fluid)
* disturbance of speech or vision
* pupils of unequal size
* weakness or paralysis
* dizziness
* neck pain or stiffness
* seizure
* vomiting more than two to three times
* loss of bladder or bowel control

Signs of a possible concussion include:
* "seeing stars" and feeling dazed, dizzy, or lightheaded
* memory loss, especially right before and after the injury
* nausea or vomiting
* headaches
* blurred vision and sensitivity to light
* slurred speech or saying things that don't make sense
* difficulty concentrating, thinking, or making decisions
* difficulty with coordination or balance
* feeling anxious or irritable for no apparent reason
* feeling overly tired

The fact remains that most brain injuries are mild. While not exciting in the emergency room they can have a profound effect on the victim’s life for months or years to come.

As a clinician, my task is to assess the amount of brain injury and manage recovery. Frequently, there is little to do with brain trauma such a concussion, except advise the patient to avoid further injury and rest.

It is also a fact that a clinician must be able to discuss the amount of injury and recovery with insurance carriers, employers, and occasionally juries.

There is very little in technology, that the doctor can rely upon to measure mild brain injuries. MRI and CT scans will rarely show any damage from a concussion. Some promising new PET scans may be helpful in discovering the level of damage from head trauma. The scanners are expensive and are not readily available in all areas.

The current methods that are the most reliable are assessments of the patient’s mental function. There are a dizzying array of pain diagrams, lifestyle indexes, questionnaires, and assessment tools to choose from. Everything is questioned from forgetfulness to balance, to quality of life. Of course, it may be the height of folly to ask the brain to evaluate its own function. (Will it tell the truth? Does it pridefully overstate its health?)

It is often helpful to have a family member help with any subjective assessment. Although possibly embarrassing, a patient might not realize that they have been forgetful, irritable, or more clumsy.

A condition called post-concussion syndrome which includes all of the problems “left over” after a concussion can take up to 2 years to resolve. Some of them are permanent.

From a natural health perspective it is important to remember that the human body is a miracle of nature. It has thousands of restorative and reparative processes which occur around the clock. The body needs us to be certain that we don’t thwart its own efforts at recovery. Protein and vitamin C are needed to make collagen, the basic building block of all connective tissue. Essential fatty acids (fish oil) are necessary for restoring brain cells and the nerves they supply. Rest is critical for the body to orient its energy toward repair. Proper hydration is necessary for carrying good nutrients to repair sites and washing away debris, which can turn toxic if allowed to accumulate.

Appropriate movement is necessary to stimulate the cerebellar region of the brain which in turn stimulates all sorts of mental, emotional, and even hormonal states to support recovery. Spinal adjustments are a critical part of proper movement. The spine has millions of movement receptors which can only be stimulated if the joints are mobile. If they are stuck, they not only fail to send movement signals to the brain, they actually send “alarm signals” to the brain which counteract healing processes.

Mild traumatic brain injury is a very serious condition. Proper evaluation and management is something we aspire to achieve at Lake Oswego Chiropractic Clinic. Acknowledging and aligning ourselves with the powerful healing force of nature is our greatest strength.

"Neurons that fire together wire together" Is this good or bad?

Nervous system research has exciting and hopeful news for maintaining health longer and recovering more easily from accidents and illness.

Introduced by Donald Hebb in 1949, Hebb's Rule theorizes a basic mechanism for synaptic plasticity. An increase in synaptic efficacy arises from the presynaptic cell's repeated and persistent stimulation of the postsynaptic cell.

The theory is often summarized as "cells that fire together, wire together". As with most theories involving the nervous system, this explanation is oversimplified. The theory is commonly used to explain some types of associative learning in which simultaneous activation of cells leads to pronounced increases in synaptic strength. Such learning is known as Hebbian learning.

Hebb’s Rule relates to how neurons might connect themselves to become
engrams, or patterns of thought and movement.

A negative example of “engrams” might be a bad experience flying leading to a lifelong aversion to air travel. On a more complex level, this might be why a person who has finally left an abusive relationship “finds” themselves entangled in another just like the previous one.

A positive example of “engrams” is motor skills found to develop from simply thinking through a skilled behavior over and over. A famous experiment found that boys who mentally rehearsed shooting baskets improved more than the boys who actually practiced.

"The general idea is an old one - that any two cells or systems of cells that are repeatedly active at the same time will tend to become 'associated' so that activity in one facilitates activity in the other."

We are hoping that victims of strokes and injuries will be able to recover more fully by implementing use of neighboring neurons.

How does this relate to Wellness? We are finding that movement (especially of the spinal joints) stimulates sensory nerves to fire which in turn stimulate higher brain function nerves. People who move vigorously every day for an hour or more have been shown to avoid depression and dementia, have healthier immune systems, and generally live longer, healthier lives.

Parkinson’s disease: New Hope for a Hopeless Prognosis

Some diseases are more discouraging than others - for doctors as well as patients. Parkinson’s disease is one of these. No matter what medicine tries to do, the disease ravages the patient’s body year after year. Most people do not contract the disease until late in life. About 1% of the population including Michael J. Fox contract it earlier in life.

Like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s is a form of dementia. A simple explanation of Parkinson’s is that nerve cells in part of the brain (substantia nigra) stop producing a communication chemical (dopamine) for another part of the brain (the basal ganglia). The loss to this area interferes with the smooth movement between mental and physical tasks as well as starting and stopping movements. An analogy might be if the fluid was low in the transmission of your car. Movements would be less smooth and more abrupt or jerky. Hence the tremors of Parkinson’s.

One risk factor for developing this disease is genetics. Science is scrambling for treatment of dementia related diseases as Baby Boomers age. A gene called ApoE4 has been associated with Alzheimer’s. It is important to remember that having a genetic predisposition to a disease does not predetermine your fate. If, for example, you have a gene, which causes you to have a massive hangover, every time you drink alcohol, you needn’t ever have a hangover. You must drink alcohol to have the gene express itself.

Lab rats who had their basal ganglia intentionally knocked out, mimicking Parkinson’s, were shown to develop new nerve connections in that structure when they were allowed to exercise.

But it gets better! In the past 10 years, exercise has been prescribed more and more as treatment early on in diseases of dementia. Exercise calls into action the motor area of the brain, which degenerates in Parkinson’s (the basal ganglia).

One study looked at the effects of using exercise in combination with L-dopa, the drug commonly prescribed for Parkinson’s. Doing forty minutes of easy stationary cycling immediately before taking L-dopa improved the effectiveness of the medicine on motor function. This addition is not an expensive therapy and it has only beneficial side effects!

A study in Finland followed 1500 people from the 1970’s. Twenty-one years later when they were between 65 and 79 years of age, those who exercised at least twice per week, were 50% less likely to have dementia. Again, comparing the cost and simplicity of exercise with the cost both financially and emotionally of early onset dementia is, if you’ll pardon my pun, a no brainer.

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby

The 1978 Virginia Slims magazine ad featured a svelte woman striking a pose in an elegant shoulderless evening gown smoking a long, thin cigarette. Above the image was a black and white photograph of a woman hanging laundry outside. The ad text read: "Back then, every man gave his wife at least one day a week out of the house. You've come a long way, baby. Virginia Slims – Slimmer than the fat cigarettes men smoke."

We have come along way, indeed; a long way in protecting our environment from toxins since then. Today, we’d be hard pressed to find a public location to light up any cigarette, fat or slim. And the air we’d be hanging the laundry out in is a lot fresher!

Since the early 1920s lead had been blended with gasoline to prevent engine knocking and boost octane levels. Adverse health effects from elevated levels of lead in the blood were observed including permanent nerve damage, behavior disorders, anemia, and mental retardation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started working to reduce emission of this insidiously deadly metal in 1973. The catalytic converter which was introduced in 1975 required lead-free fuel. By January 1, 1996, the Clean Air Act completely banned the sale of leaded fuel for road use. For the same reason, paint containing lead was banned.

Asbestos had been commonly used as an acoustic insulator, thermal insulation, and fire proofing in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Aging asbestos crumbled and released fibers in the air. Breathing this air over time resulted in asbestos fibers becoming embedded in lung tissue causing serious lung diseases. In 1989 the use of asbestos was restricted.

When it comes to water, the major challenge for water suppliers has been to balance the risks from microbial pathogens and disinfection byproducts. Tap water tries to find equilibrium between bugs and bug killers. Yet filtered water is readily available in convenient sports bottles, from the office bubbler, the refrigerator door in the kitchen, and the insta-hot tap at the sink.

In addition, pesticide free organic fruits and vegetables are not only abundantly available in specialty grocers such as New Seasons and Whole Foods but they have made their way to most every grocery market in America. The same is true for antibiotic and hormone free meat, eggs, and milk.

Not Completely Out of the Woods Yet, Baby

Since 1950, at least 70,000 new chemical compounds have been invented and dispersed into our environment. Only a fraction of these have been tested for human toxicity. We are, by default, conducting a massive clinical toxicology trial, and our children and their children are the experimental animals. While many of these chemicals help to make products cheaper, smell and taste better, and last longer on the shelf, we should maintain a healthy suspicion of all chemicals. These chemicals of convenience are the leads and asbestoses of the future.

The average American consumes literally pounds of hormones, antibiotics, food chemicals, additives, and artificial sweeteners each year. Each one of these toxic chemicals has been shown to harm the brain. It isn’t just consuming one red candy, a blue cupcake, or a few drops of pesticide sprayed on your pint of strawberries once in a while. It is the consistent, repetitive, cumulative presence of these chemicals in our lives.

Some toxins, like caffeine, are readily flushed out of our systems by our detoxification systems. Other toxins accumulate over our whole life. In addition, not all people process toxins the same. Those with compromised immune systems may be particularly sensitive while others may experience no reaction.