   Fighting cancer through conditioned response?
  I learned something interesting in my Psychology class today (which is almost interesting enough for its own thread .)  The prof. was talking about conditioning.  He said there was an old woman with cancer who was weak enough that the chemo-therapy would kill her.  The doctors went to a psychologist to try and get a bright idea on how to help her.  The psychologist suggested they associate a certain smell with a chemo therapy treatment, hoping that her body would react to the smell the same way it reacts to the chemo and kick in whatever it does that chemo makes it do to fight the cancer.  Basically, he said it worked.  They were able to get the desired reaction (which normally only occurs because of the chemo-therapy) from only exposing her to this certain smell.Has anyone heard of this?  I asked the prof. why it''s not done more often to avoid the negative effects of chemo-therapy and he basically blew off my question.  I find this idea incredible, and I find it hard to believe the medical community would shrug it off as a fluke. 
quote:Original post by Naaga  I find it hard to believe the medical community would shrug it off as a fluke.   There''s a whole lot more money to be made using traditional treatment, though. ;  Why should a doctor use some psycho babble treatment rather than a tried and true method?  Its prehaps something to keep in the back of their mind, assuming it actually happened, but without some sort of reason why it works there''s no reason to risk patients on the off chance it works.CM ;  My point was not so much "why don''t they start doing this with everyone," as "why don''t they research this more to see that it actually works consistently, then start using it more commonly?"Also, I''m going on the assumption that people are generally good and concerned for the welfare of others.  I realize it''s not universally true. ;quote:Original post by Naaga  My point was not so much "why don''t they start doing this with everyone," as "why don''t they research this more to see that it actually works consistently, then start using it more commonly?"Because that would basically require taking a patient who could be treated, and turning him into a lab rat.  If it fails, then the patient is screwed.  So long as regular treatments work, they will be given regular treatments.  If, as in the original case, chemo won''t work, then an alternative can be tried.CM ;  >> Basically, he said it worked. They were able to get the >> desired reaction.What exactly was the desired reaction? Getting rid of the cancer? That sounds good, but maybe they only lowered the pain (although I doubt chemo-therapy reduced pain, it should in fact even cause it). Actually, placebo therapies are not uncommon. A friend of mine worked in a cancer clinic and he told me they regulary gave out placebos (vitamines) as pain killers.  Also, I´ve heard that the purely medical effect of about 50% (!!!) of the medical drugs on the market are questionable (can´t give a source for that information, it would have been in german, anyways). Of course this will apply more to "lighter" medical drugs and pain killers than to anesthetics.;  Considering that cancer would most likely make one extremely depressed, a little psychotherapy couldn''t hurt.  Furthermore, I doubt we know the full capacity of the brain yet, nor the whole body for that matter, and since this seems to be less uncomfortable procedure (not sure, but it seems like getting radiation blasted into your body wouldn''t feel to good.  I also doubt that having some huge thing attacking your body would feel good either.)  There is so much conditioning, today especially.  Perhaps the change is that conditioning has moved away from the home/close-knit community to industries and global organizations.  My point:  Some of that cancer-research money should be going towards researching the effects of psychotherapy. ;quote:Original post by Naaga  I find this idea incredible, and I find it hard to believe the medical community would shrug it off as a fluke.   With anecdotal evidence like that, how could they not... ;  Ask your prof. of where you can get references to that work, there must be reports or articles about it, how did your prof get hold of the info...If he can't give you any references, you should report him to the faculty because it sounds like a load of crap - and the world doesn't need more of that.EDIT:if he CAN give examples of studies, articles or something - it's unbelievable, what a fantastic possible breakthrough in medicine...   [edited by - JOL on February 13, 2004 7:50:44 AM]