Mindful medicine: New images of an old idea

Medical research, using cutting-edge technology, is showing just how the mind can cause health woes for the body.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Oct. 16, 2006.

The link between emotions and health was first detected by Hippocrates and his followers, and it has maintained its staying power over the centuries. For example, a few weeks ago, it caused James Applegate, MD, a family physician in Grand Rapids, Mich., to change the focus of an exam when a patient said she was in the midst of a divorce.

"She had come in for another problem, but we spent the whole visit talking about how she's dealing with the divorce," he said.

He had started with his usual question -- a simple question -- but one tailor-made to elicit a patient's emotional state: "How are things going?" If the response is negative, "You drop your pencil and you focus on that," he said.

"It's hard to get people really well," Dr. Applegate said. "You can improve cholesterol and blood pressure, but you can't get them really, really well until they are in a good place. And that's what you need to focus on."

This quest for a "good place" may be one that is joined by many other physicians as new research findings show just how turmoil in the mind can wreak havoc on the body. Advances in imaging technology and hormone measurements are demonstrating the damage as it occurs.

"The idea that the mind affects the body is a very old one," said William Lovallo, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. "And it's also true this has been an enormously difficult proposition to prove scientifically."