The Placebo Effect

Placebo

Latin - I shall please

For many years I have wondered about the mysterious phenomenon called

the Placebo Effect.  The term coined by Henry K. Beecher in 1955, describes an ability for the mind to initiate the process of healing without aid of pharmacological or surgical procedures.  Often viewed as a nuisance in modern medicine due to its masking of the true effectiveness of a drug or procedure, it is now gaining a new scrutiny in science.  Among the recent discoveries is a new subset of placebo effect called conditioning.  This new effect was observed in rats given a immune suppressive drug and saccharin sweetened water to condition the brain to associate the drug to the taste of the sweetened water.  When only the sweetened water was given later, the reaction was identical.[1]  In other words, the rat doesn't have the ability to consciously believe in the treatment but nonetheless receives the desired effect from just a placebo.  This shows that the placebo effect is biological rather than psychological, unless there is a rat psychologist out there to argue the point.  But even given this new discovery, it's still mind boggling to think the brain can assemble the resources the body needs to alleviate pain and even shrink tumors from... what?  Mimicking the effects of a drug even weeks after it was administered  is hard to explain simply in physical or biological terms given our limited knowledge of the processes in the brain we call 'belief'.  And just what are we 'conditioning' in the brain?  And, where are the lines crossed between biological and psychological?   Even if we do reduce the entire process down to a complex sequence of chemical and molecular interactions, we are still left with the awesome question of why does our body have this innate ability to heal itself?  Could it be a remnant of something from our distant past?
You know this implies those little molecules have some 'intelligence' built into them with an 'awareness' of their environment and the ability to carry out their little part in the big task of healing in coordination with other little molecules.  What do they make to mimic a compound that doesn't naturally occur in the body?  I suppose that will be discovered someday but it still will be incredible.  To the molecule, it wont be anything new in it's repertoire.  It goes about doing it's 'thing' all the time.  For, what is healing other than building or rebuilding or tearing apart and disposing?  The computer at it's most elemental level is just a whole bunch of switches turning on and off.  And yet look at what it can do even at a order of complexity far less than that of our own biology.  What initiated or commanded all those molecules to work on this project?  We can watch it all happening but it still doesn't explain why.  In other words, there has to be something outside the physical directing and coordinating these processes.  Whether we say that the system intelligence is innate or resides invisibly outside, it still has to be there. 
So it seems the more we learn of this uncanny phenomenon, the more questions arise.  At the same time however, it does give credence to the faith community which drives atheists crazy.  Which brings us to a story found in the Bible.  In the Pentateuch, Numbers 21:4-9, the children of Israel are in the wilderness after the miraculous deliverance from Pharaoh. 

And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Numbers 21:4-9

Could it be the placebo effect is an echo of this miracle?  I find it ironic that the symbols of medicine such as that above,  the Caduceus, recall the event we just read in the Bible when medical science is about as far from it's roots in faith as it has ever been, but still uses the symbol of the serpent on the pole.  And the thorn in the proverbial side of medical science is the placebo effect.  Does God have a sense of humor or what?

Notes:

1.  Scientific American - February/March 2009 - Cure in the Mind

Available sources not noted or used in this article:
Placebo Effects: Understanding the mechanisms in health and disease
The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration
The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing
The Placebo Effect and Health: Combining Science and Compassionate Care
Extreme Healing - a National Geographic presentation

Repentance

  He gives snow like wool; He scatters the hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth His ice like crumbs; who can stand before His cold? Psalm 147:16-17

Not too long ago, my son Andy shared a link on Facebook to an essay about the cold.   Jason Peters eloquently lays out the love we northerners (those born into it) have for cooler weather and even enjoy the months of winter for it's beauty and clean look.   I can't count the times, while crossing a windswept parking lot near the midnight hour, cold wind and sometime sleet or snow stinging my face, I've thought of Psalm 147:17.  I remember the first time I had read this scripture and how it struck me that I hadn't thought of the cold as His cold.  He can make it so cold, even I, the toughened old northerner wouldn't be able to "stand" for long.  Now, instead of grumbling about the cold, I can see it as a message, a lesson.  What are those lessons?  If you've felt utterly undressed in the cold wearing your finest winter gear, you would know.  In this season of Lent, I think it's important to be thankful to God's cold that brings us to repentance.  We are "naked" before Him.  There is nothing we can hide.  It is better to feel His cold and know this.  And acknowledge our sins before Him.  And He will cloth and warm us with His Grace.

"As for me, God willing, I shall walk through the cold on such northern days as this—that I might be its earnest and deserving pupil."  Jason Peters

 Books written by Jason Peters: Wendell Berry: Life and Work (Culture of the Land)

A Serious Man

This long weekend, I 'stumbled' across a movie that will probably be misunderstood by our non-Jewish culture but may be insightful for Christians.  A Serious Man by Joel and Ethan Coen is a slice of Americana most of us have been oblivious of, weaved into the dark humor of the newest Coen brothers film.  Understood to be loosely a modern parallel to the Biblical book of Job, the world falls apart around the protagonist, a presumably righteous man, and is pushed at times to the edge of his sanity while three Rabbis (friends) are of no help.

The spiritual key to understanding the film in my opinion is the desire of those that love God (Hashem) to know His leading in their lives.  We follow Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) through his humorously bad string of circumstances in a quest to find out what it all means for him and we're left with the epitaph "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you."(Rashi) 

Larry fumbles his way through long enough it seems to have passed the test of a Serious Man (mensch) and then lets his guard down and takes the monetary bribe from one of his students to pay an expensive retainer fee from his attorney.  Immediately he receives a call from his doctor with bad news about a recent x-ray and the film ends at his son's school where an approaching tornado is bearing down on them while the schoolmaster fumbles with the keys to the basement door. This is not good. 

The film is rated R for language and some brief nudity but I fast forwarded and still enjoyed most of it without too much offensive content.

Link to trailer here.

A really well written and comprehensive review here.

Life in HD

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  1Co 13:12

The scene opens on a dusty street in an old western town with the sun low in the afternoon heat.  The camera pans to a closeup of a unshaven ruddy face of a man with a stub of a cigar hanging from his mouth, unlit, eyes squinting in the light and dust swirling.  The background music sets the mood to a lonely place lost in time, perhaps never.  A mystery is about to be laid out on the screen we've thought about before, somewhere, sometime.

But we know none of this is real, but a facade, a creation of mind, an assembling of a story as the author saw it.  This is just... make believe.  Do we really understand this as just pure fiction?  Does our mind really have that clear separation of the real versus virtual?  Or, do our memories blur the facts of the past events at times at a subliminal level?  The famous actors will tell you of the countless times people have approached them and believe they are actually the characters they portrayed.  Seeing them out of character confuses them for a moment.  A brief feeling of disillusionment ensues when they realize "he really isn't that tough and reliable man in the movies, he's just an ordinary man like myself".  But the persona lives on in their minds, they fell in love with it, identified with it, even modeled their lives after it. 

Such is the state of mind of our playwright culture.  Unable to discern truth from error, fiction from fact, dreams from personal history.  Even science is under its spell because the scientists themselves have been raised in the same environment.  They tend to follow their faiths, rather than the facts alone.  A perfect example of this is the recent scandalization of the climate data governments have so long been touting as irrefutable evidence of man-made global warming.  There is some disillusionment going on right now in the earth sciences.  Good.  Hopefully careers will be ruined for those who smugly rejected any challenge to their theories.  A lot of damage has already been done by these self-proclaimed prophets of doom.  Many have drunk their kool-aid unfortunately and are still mindlessly following the mantra. Hopefully we're on the other side of this now though with the public becoming more cynical of the message of impending disaster if they don't tow the line and live "green".  Or, pay their government for the 'privilege' of barbecuing steaks on their open grills or opening a can of pop (soda) or any of a long ridiculous list of everyday living 'infractions'.  One would get the impression these folks just don't want anyone else around (except for themselves of course).  One of the Super Bowl ads, the Green Police, was a little too close to possible reality for some.

 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2Ti 3:7

But all this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Below the waterline is the rot of culture that will someday culminate in total collapse.  "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;" Rom 1:28  It certainly doesn't sound like the Utopian world some believe is in our future.  According to scripture, things are going to get a lot worse before the end, not better.

 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2Ti 3:1

You can put a face to this scripture these days.  If you're at all connected with current events,  the following  will stun you;  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 2Tim3:2-4

Is there any hope left for mankind then?  Yes.  Even in the midst of these perilous times, there is a message that will endure to the end.  It's a way out of the inevitable, a key to the door of a bright future.

Wings and Things

Just read in our local paper chicken wing prices are soaring.  Up to $2.11 per pound over the $1.50 from last year.  From what I've seen, it looks like the trend will continue until the cardiologists go on Oprah and let us know they aren't so good for us.  So here's my prediction.  Wings will become a commodity and traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.  Imagine, those delectable little pieces of gold being traded right along side of all those traditional farm products such as wheat, soy and pork bellies.  Pork bellies?  eeewww!  Anyways, to give you a peek into the future of the Wing market, I've assembled some graphs, charts and photos you'll be seeing in your Sunday papers sometime in the near future.  You'll note that they will begin to sell wings by the barrel instead of by the case, that's how valuable these babies will become.  Who would have ever imagined those once rejected appendages would become the most prized part of the bird.  I'm partial to right wings myself. 

Sportsianity III, a conclusion

Like no other pastime in American culture, sports takes the front seat in defining the American mindset.  The competitive spirit reigns in our homes, places of worship, politics, workplaces and institutions of learning.  What is the 'competitive spirit'? According to Greek mythology;

the name of a goddess: Eris ( ris ). The usual translation of this word is strife. And she is, Hesiod tells us, the daughter of Night, hateful strife that gave birth to painful toil. . . famine and fearful sorrow, fighting, battle, murder, slaughter, quarrels, lies, disputes, lawlessness and ruin. . . . (226-232) [1]

And later on in Greek mythology;

But in a later poem, the Works and Days, which deals with the life of the small farmer, Hesiod has second thoughts; he revises his mythology. There was, after all, he says, another daughter of Night, the elder one; she too is called Eris, and Zeus himself has set her in the roots of the earth: She is much kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless men to work, for any man grows eager to work when he sees his neighbor, a rich man who is keen to plough and sow and put his house in order; neighbor vies with neighbor in the race for wealth. This Eris is good for men. And potter competes with potter, craftsman with craftsman; beggar is jealous of beggar and bard of bard. (19-26)[1]

The good and the bad competition (Eris) idea still pervades our culture today in sport and war.  The Greeks were not unique in this worldview but certainly the most historically complete.  In contrast to this worldview, Jesus taught a radically different response to man's natural desire to dominate their sphere of influence through some form of conflict.  Demonstrating that servitude by washing the feet of His disciples and ultimately  allowing His crucifixion.  And how can we forget the imperative from Zechariah 4:6 "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says Jehovah of Hosts."

Christianity, or more specifically Biblical Christianity, turns on it's ear normal human reaction to stress or challenge.  It teaches us a strength through faith rather than by self reliance.

Muscular Christianity teaches that men in particular "were not truly Christians unless they were healthy and 'manly' (a term used to connote strength, endurance and other stereotypically male attributes)."[2]
Scripture cited for it's justification were Mark 11:15 where Jesus cast out the money changers and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, it's context fornication, not body building.  Both interpretations a stretch of the context to say the least.  And Jesus is no longer portrayed as in the scripture found in Isaiah 53:3 as a man of sorrows and rejected and despised but "...a Christ who they {men} could respect... one who was 'no gentle visionary', but rather, 'a Person whose dominating trait is force."[2]
Naturally, if one believes Jesus was a 'mans man' muscular, handsome, the outdoors type and would love to play a game of backyard football with His buddies, then He wouldn't be so 'despicable' or 'rejectable' after all.  This was and is the Jesus of the muscular Christianity movement.

It's genesis was in the late 1800's where familiar organizations were born such as the YMCA and the Rough Riders of Teddy Roosevelt, until just after the first World War when those men that spent their tour of duty in the bloodbath saw this form of Christianity for what it really was, brought home a disillusionment of a church that endorsed a so called 'holy warfare'.  That disillusionment spread throughout society marking the beginning of a return to what was called neo-orthodoxy.  The church tried to return to it's roots but trust in it's leaders, who fell under the spell of modernity and social relevancy, was lost.  The church was no longer the leader in defining the nature of our society.  Sports was no longer a means to get in manly shape for service to God but became once again a religion in it's own rite.  But, muscular Christianity was not totally dead, but moved to the backwaters of independent churches until the 1950's with the resurgence of fundamentalist evangelicalism in preachers such as Billy Graham, where sports were reintroduced as a godly endeavor.  The competitor's creed of competing for the pleasure of God flies in the face of His own words to love your neighbors.  It's Orwellian logic to say by beating my opponent I am loving him.  But this logic is prevalent in our pulpits, most all of them.  It truly is 'another gospel'.  No wonder we raise one confused generation after another with this kind of doctrine that teaches on the one hand to turn the other cheek and then in our gymnasiums attached to our sanctuaries we tell them to win by hitting the hardest.  Would our society admire our finest Christian men and women if they were losers in their beloved sports?  I think not.  Then, we are shocked and dismayed when this competitive spirit shows up in our missions board or other committees and arguments break out, relationships are damaged sometimes beyond repair, churches split over who has control of the pastor.

I think it's time for the church to reassess it's primary role and that of sports in our society.  And Christ-likeness to be measured from Biblical norms, not the imagination of overly zealous social gospelers.  Don't you?

Addendum:  I'll be adding sources that refute the theology of sports in Christian doctrine from time to time here.

 Psalm 147:10-11  He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

Notes:[ ]

1. Always To Be Best: The Competitive Spirit in Ancient Greek Culture Dr. Bernard Knox,The Professor John C. Rouman Classical Lecture Series  At the University of New Hampshire, Durham, October 13, 1999 - PDF

Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920, Clifford Putne

Update: 9-26-10 from New Your Times article regarding Bishop Eddie L. Long

"He also adopted what has become known as “muscular Christianity,” a male-dominated view that emphasizes a warriorlike man who serves as the spiritual authority and protector in a family. His books on relationships suggest that men get in touch with their inner “wild man” and channel their fighting instincts into taking responsibility for their lives."