Biology of Belief

Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.

-thoughts (the mind’s energy) directly influence how the physical brain controls the body’s physiology

-thoughts “energy” can activate or inhibit the cell’s function-producing protein

-need to examine the consequences of energy invested in thought as closely as we examine the expenditures of energy used to power the physical body

-harnessing the power of your mind can be more effective than the drugs you have been programmed to believe you need

-energy is a more effective means of affecting matter than chemicals

-you need more than just “positive thinking” to harness control of your body and your life. It is important for our health and well-being to shift our mind’s energy toward positive, life-generating thoughts and eliminate ever-present, energy-draining and debilitating negative thoughts.

-Every medical student learns, at least in passing, that the mind can affect the body. They learn that some people get better when they believe (falsely) they are getting medicine. When patients get better by ingesting a sugar pill, medicine defines it as the placebo effect.

-If the power of your mind can heal your sick body, why should you go to the doctor and more importantly, why would you need to buy drugs? In fact, I was recently chagrined to learn that drug companies are studying patients who respond to sugar pills with the goal of eliminating them from early clinical trials. It inevitably disturbs pharmaceutical manufacturers that in most of their clinical trials the placebos, the “fake” drugs, prove to be as effective as their engineered chemical cocktails. (Greenberg 2003) Though the drug companies insist they’re not trying to make it easier for ineffective drugs to get approved, it is clear that effectiveness of placebo pills are a threat to the pharmaceutical industry. the message from the drug companies is clear to me: if you can’t beat placebo pills fairly, simply remove the competition!

-there are excellent examples of the placebo effect in his book - especially page 139 - 141

-In the treatment of depression, placebos are stars.

-University of Connecticut psychology professor Irving Kirsch found that eighty percent of the effect of antidepressants, as measured in clinical trials, could be attributed to the placebo effect. (Kirsch, et al, 2002) Kirsch had to invoke the Freedom of Information Act in 2001 to get information on the clinical trials of the top antidepressants: these data were not forthcoming from the Food and Drug Administration.

posted by Robert Heard at 11:08 AM