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By Les Scammell, October 26, 2007 1:32 pm

While surfing and reading other blogs it is really great to see how many individuals can use personal experiences to defy the so called scientific experts. I refer of course to my article on ‘positive thinking and cancer”.

The following blogs are well worth a read as follow ups to what I have written. In fact they are far more eloquent than I will ever be. Check them out:

Comments (4)

By Les Scammell, October 24, 2007 2:03 am

I find this not only hard to believe but also a very negative approach. One problem with research such as this is that it is too narrow in its approach and to its original question. Surely the question should be, does negative thinking and depression reduce the life expectancy of a cancer sufferer.

Cancer is probably one of the hardest illnesses to live with. It can be a long, slow and painful condition which if not dealt with early, leads to death. Quality of life is an important issue for both the sufferer and their friends and families. Being able to approach things in a positive way obviously makes life a little easier on everyone. Being negative often leads to depression which in itself has many effects.

My personal thoughts are that scientist really need to think about how the outcomes of their research findings are going to effect people suffering from various illnesses. In this case, if they had researched the effects of negative thinking on life expectancy of cancer sufferers, the results would have had no negative impact on those sufferers. If negative thoughts reduces life expectancy, the action is to try and improve their feelings; if negative thoughts had no effect, then no action would be required.

As it stands now, sufferers and their families look at these types of reports and come away with the feeling that it is all hopeless, it doesn’t matter if I help them feel good, it has no long term effect; or, the sufferer feels more depressed etc etc etc.

Time to think researchers – there is an obligation to think about how you going to report your findings, what effect your findings are going to have on the broader community, and whether or not you could better phrase the question.