BBC: flu research - not all symptoms physical.

[V99]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8556519.stm

 

[Ecoclimber]

Whether they realize it or not, they are getting into the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true and you will bring them into your experience, proportionally to their occupancy of your thoughts”. All diseases can be cured with proper thought processes as we all know that illnesses are just negative thought responses in your mind which cause the body to exhibit physical symptoms. NOT...maybe the UK medical profession are unwittingly Christian Science practitioners.

 

[Carrigon]

Let them tell that to the parents of children who just died from Swine Flu. ALL symptoms of flu are PHYSICAL because it is a PHYSICAL disease. I think it's very creepy how people try to blame the victim. It's all for the profit of the psychiatric lobby.

 

[Athene]

Carrigon, did you read the article? It was talking about the physical phenomena taking place during depressive thoughts, not saying the illness is psychological. Look again!

 

[biophile]

The above BBC news article describes the research of Harrison et al 2009 ("Inflammation causes mood changes through alterations in subgenual cingulate activity and mesolimbic connectivity." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19423079)

It is an example of research that is interesting from a psychoneuroimmunological perspective but can potentially be used against ME/CFS patients to psychiatrize their symptoms rather than describe their symptoms from a biological perspective. The "subgenual anterior cingulate cortex" mentioned in the article(s) is strongly implicated in mood disorders (eg major depression), which helps to explain why mood suffers during infection.

However, beware of psychoneuroimmunology, it is a double-edged sword in general whenever the direction of causation is not clear. The brain-immune connection is known to be bidirectional, and biopsychosocial proponents have hypothesized that an initial infection triggers the "sickness response" (ie fatigue and other flu symptoms, poor mood and reduced motivation, etc) which is then primarily perpetuated by patients' cognitions and behaviour rather than an ongoing disease process once the "ordinary" infection resolves. And even if there is an ongoing infection, just blame "psychological factors" anyway. Sound familiar?

 

[gracenote]

However,beware of psychoneuroimmunology, it is a double-edged sword in general whenever the direction of causation is not clear. The brain-immune connection is known to be bidirectional, and biopsychosocial proponents have hypothesized that an initial infection triggers the "sickness response" (ie fatigue and other flu symptoms, poor mood and reduced motivation, etc) which is then primarily perpetuated by patients' cognitions and behaviour rather than an ongoing disease process once the "ordinary" infection resolves. And even if there is an ongoing infection, just blame "psychological factors" anyway. Sound familiar?

biopsychobabble

Thanks for your input here. It sounds very familiar. Can you point me in the direction of any articles that expand on this? I'm always looking for information that can clarify the larger picture, and would like to know more. Thanks.

And welcome to the forums.

gracenote

 

[Dolphin]

Carrigon, did you read the article? It was talking about the physical phenomena taking place during depressive thoughts, not saying the illness is psychological. Look again!

My guess is that Carrigon was replying to the previous poster. Although re-reading that, maybe I missed the "NOT" and it changes dramatically what the poster was saying?

 

[Athene]

Ah yes, I see what you mean Tomk.... all at cross purposes!

 

[biophile]

Hi gracenote, thanks for the welcome.

Can you point me in the direction of any articles that expand on this? I'm always looking for information that can clarify the larger picture, and would like to know more.

In my experience it is difficult to find complete literature online, I am still sifting through papers from doing searches at the PubMed database: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez (access to the full-text of medical journals will help, but some are freely accessible).

A very brief introduction to psychoneuroimmunology can be found here: http://eprints.utas.edu.au/287/41/Chapter_34[1]._Psychoneuroimmunology__neuroendocrinimmunology_.pdf. Wikipedia is an OK starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology.

I hope that is helpful, let me know if I can be of further assistance.

 

[Esther12]

Am I missing something?

They just seemed to be showing that certain responses to flu infection occured in the brain.

Surely the fact these occured in these recieving the flu shot, and not those recieving the placebo, shows that these changes had a 'physical' cause rather than one driven only by their beliefs?

 

[biophile]

Hi Esther12. Yes, that is my impression too, this study is about the emotional effects of vaccine-induced inflammation, not the beliefs of patients (and nothing specific to do with ME/CFS). I did not mean to imply this specific study will be used against ME/CFS patients, but rather the mechanisms involved are in a field which is creatively interpreted for hypotheses. For example, interleukin-6, the cytokine important to this study, can also be elevated in response to psychological stress.

 

[V99]

What if using this idea, you could show there is another differance between ME patients and depressed patients. Just like Kerr did. Obviously using patients that do not have depression, anxiety, etc.

 

[Dolphin]

What if using this idea, you could show there is another differance between ME patients and depressed patients. Just like Kerr did. Obviously using patients that do not have depression, anxiety, etc.

What exactly have you got in mind? Also, over the years, there have been quite a few studies that do this (although something doctors could use in their surgeries could still have a lot of value).

 

[Gerwyn]

Total fabrication from start to finish it is the amygdala region which is causative.Correlation is not causation.A viral infection would be expected to cause an activation pattern in the subgenual anterior cortex because of microgial cell content

The sickness response is natural and a product of evolution

 

[V99]

I don't really have anything in mind. Not really completing my thoughts am I. Also it's true, it will never change the minds of those like Wessley. I suppose the BBC must have been having a quiet news day to report this.