By Mo

There are persistent disconnects between facts about health and what people believe about health. These disconnects are sometimes based on purposeful deception. Tobacco companies don’t want people – especially kids – to believe smoking is bad for your health. Disconnects can also be based on the stupor of the status quo, because that’s the way people do things.

The deceptions, and misperceptions, have real effects. Ask a room of elementary school students what percent of the adult population smokes. The answer? It depends not on the facts, but on perceptions, which are heavily influenced by media. Research compared teens in Helsinki, Finland, where tobacco ads have been banned since 1978, to teens in Los Angeles, where tobacco ads have been ubiquitous. Even though a higher percentage of adults actually smoke in Helsinki than LA, the teens in Helsinki estimated a lower percent of adults smoked, while the LA kids guessed a much higher percent of adults smoked than actually did. More disturbing, the LA kids as a result were more inclined to try smoking.

One example of status quo deceptions are popular movies with cigarette smoking scenes. The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2012 report confirmed research that found a direct cause and effect between the exposure youth had to movie scenes featuring tobacco smoking, and whether those kids tried cigarette smoking. Despite the direct causal effect, movie producers continue to make movies with cigarette smoking scenes. This is art?

Another example of the disconnect between facts and beliefs is the effects of prescription medication on treatment of depression. Research from Harvard, which has attracted national media attention, has repeatedly shown that people who take placebo pills – let’s call them sugar pills to avoid the jargon – had just as much improved health as people taking prescription anti-depressants, without all the negative effects, which the pharmaceutical industry and FDA euphemistically calls ‘side effects” or (more jargon) “adverse effects.”

Given the facts that sugar pills work so well, someone should go into the business of selling sugar pills – or would that be considered snake oil medicine?

(Photo: Martin Walls, rgbstock.com)

By Veronica

Our bodies and minds are connected. Obviously, you say. But conventional medical practice in the U.S. is not set up to treat patients as connected bodies and minds. On the other hand, holistic health, which ironically is called “alternative medicine” by Western medical practitioners, cares for individuals as an integrated whole (although holistic is not to be confused with “wholistic,” according to our trusted English experts.)

In applied kinesiology, which I practice, the goal is for the person to have a healthy balance in their structure, nutrition, emotional and electrical, or energy, support. When a person comes to me with a physical problem, I try to identify the underlying cause of the symptoms, rather than just treat the body. Often, people have emotional blocks, like suitcases of memories, dragging down their bodies and minds.

One example is a patient who grew up with a sibling who physically and emotionally abused the patient. Emotions from such experiences can have a terrible effect on someone, creating chronic pain and other conditions. In this situation, the patient had to relearn his thought process. He described his experience by saying there are some things in life that “leave an imprint.” Stop! Time to reprogram! We replaced “leave an imprint” with “lessons learned,” a process that moved him out of his past and into the present. His lesson: He has sympathy for others who had similar experiences and he could help them. He now had the tools to leave behind his heavy suitcase of memories. Patients who “graduate” by getting rid of their emotional blocks are able to heal, and rediscover health.

Recent research conducted by traditional medical practitioners in Europe found that among people who had chronic disease, and sought treatment with a holistic practitioner, about half of them were healed. The best thing is about holistic healing? No side effects.

(Photo: Adrian van Leen, rgbstock.com)