And if so, is there[br]any scientific evidence

to convince[br]skeptical physicians like me?

These are the questions that fueled[br]the last few years of my research

and what I discovered is that[br]the scientific community,

the medical establishment,[br]has being proving for over 50 years,

that the mind can heal the body.

We call it the "placebo effect".

And we've been trying[br]to outsmart it for decades.

(Laughter)

The placebo effect is a thorn in the side[br]of the medical establishment.

It's an inconvenient truth,[br]that gets in between,

trying to bring new treatments, new[br]surgeries into the medical establishment.

So it's a problem![br]Supposedly.

But I actually think,[br]this is really good news!

The placebo effect is excellent news!

Because it's concrete evidence

that the body holds within it[br]innate self repair mechanisms

that can make unthinkable[br]things happen to the body.

So, if you find this surprising,

if you have a hard time believing[br]that the body can heal itself,

you need look no further than[br]The Spontaneous Remission Project,

a database compiled[br]by the Institute of Noetic Sciences

of over 3500 case studies[br]in the medical literature

of patients who have gotten better[br]from seemingly "incurable" illnesses.

You think there's such[br]a thing as an incurable illness?

I swear, if you go look at this database,[br]it will blow your mind.

Everything is in there.

Stage 4 cancers that disappeared[br]without treatment.

HIV positive patients,[br]that became HIV negative.

Heart disease, kidney failure,[br]diabetes, high blood pressure,

thyroid disease,[br]autoimmune diseases, gone.

A great example of this[br]in the medical literature,

is a case study from 1957 of Mr. Wright[br]who had advanced lymphosarcoma.

So, things weren't going well for[br]Mr. Wright, time was really running out.

He had tumors the size of oranges in his[br]armpits, neck, chest, abdomen.

His liver and spleen were enlarged,

and his lungs were filling up with[br]two quarts of milky fluid every day

that have to be drained[br]in order for him to breathe.

But Mr. Wright wasn't giving up hope.

He had heard about[br]this wonder drug called Krebiozen,

and he was begging his doctor,

"Come on, just give me some of that[br]Krebiozen, it's all going to be good."

Now, unfortunately the Krebiozen was[br]only available on a research protocol

and the protocol required that the doctor[br]be able to make an assessment

that says that this guy has[br]at least three months to live.

And his doctor,[br]Dr. West just couldn't do that.

But Mr. Wright was tenacious[br]and he didn't give up.

He kept badgering his doctor,

until finally his doctor was like,[br]"OK, fine I'll give you the Krebiozen."

So he dosed him up on a Friday,

not expecting that Mr. Wright[br]would make it through the weekend.

But to his utter shock, when Dr. West[br]came in to do rounds on Monday,

Mr. Wright was up,[br]walking around the wards,

and his tumors had shrunk[br]to half of their original size.

They had melted like[br]snowballs on a hot stove.

And ten days after getting[br]the Krebiozen, they were gone.

So Mr. Wright was up[br]rocking and rolling like crazy

and Krebiozen is the miracle drug[br]he believed it to be, for two months,

until the initial reports[br]came out about Krebiozen

that said that it didn't really look like[br]Krebiozen was working so well.

Mr. Wright fell into a deep depression[br]and his cancer came back.

This time Dr. West decided to get sneaky,[br]and he told his patient, that,

"You know that Krebiozen that you got,[br]that was a tainted version, not so good.

But I got us some ultrapure[br]highly concentrated Krebiozen,

This stuff's got it going on."

He then injected Mr. Wright[br]with nothing but distilled water.

And once again, the tumors disappeared,[br]the fluid in his lungs went away.

Mr. Wright was up rocking and rolling[br]for another two months.

And then the American Medical Association[br]blew it, by publishing on a nationwide study

that prooved definitively that[br]Krebiozen was worthless.

Two days later, Mr. Wright[br]after hearing this news died.

Soon after that,[br]I came across another study

in the medical literature[br]that was the stuff of fairy tales.

Three baby girls were born,[br]delivered by a midwife,

on Friday the 13th in the Okefenokee[br]Swamp, near the Georgia-Florida border.

And the midwife pronounced[br]that these three babies,

born on such a faithful day,[br]were all hexed.

The first, she said, would die[br]before her 16th birthday.

The second, before her 21st.

The third, before her 23rd birthday.

And as it turned out, the first girl died[br]the day before her 16th birthday,

the second died the day[br]before her 21st birthday,

and the third girl, who knew what[br]had happened to the other two,

got wind of that, and the day[br]before her 23rd birthday,

she showed at the hospital[br]hyperventilating,

begging them,[br]to make sure she survived.

She wound up dying that night.

These two case studies are great[br]examples from the medical literature

of the placebo effect, and[br]its opposite, the nocebo effect.

When Mr. Wright got that distilled[br]water and his tumors melted away,

that's a great example[br]of the placebo effect.

When you get a seemingly[br]inert treatment

and yet something is happening[br]physiologically in the body,

such that the disease goes away.

The nocebo effect is the opposite.

So the three hexed girls are[br]an example of the nocebo effect.

When the minds believed that something[br]bad is going to happen in the body

then it comes to manifest.

So the scientific literature[br]that medical journals

like the New England[br]Journal of Medicine

and the Journal of the American[br]Medical Association,

these scientific journals are[br]full of evidence that the placebo effect,

and the nocebo effect[br]are incredibly powerful.

We've known this since the 1950s,

and we've seen countless case studies

that showed that in almost[br]everything you study,

if you give people[br]a fake treatment, a sugar pill

a saline injection, or most effectively,[br]a fake surgery,

(Laughter)[br]-- yeah, really --

18-80% of the time, people get better.

And it's not just in the mind, that's[br]what I thought in the beginning,

like "Oh! They're just feeling better,[br]they're thinking better."

But is not. It's actually in their physiology.[br]This is measurable.

You can actually see[br]what happens to the body.

So for example patients getting placebos

were found to have[br]ulcers that healed,

colons that became less inflamed,[br]bronchia that dilated

warts that disappeared, cells[br]looked different under the microscope.

It's provable, it's happening in the body,

even though it's initiated by the mind.

So, when you look at these,[br]some of the studies are just amazing.

I love the Rogain studies.

You get a bunch of bald men,[br]you give them placebos.

They grow hair

The opposite is also true,[br]so if you give people a placebo

and you tell them it's chemotherapy,

they vomit, and they lose their hair.

So this is really happening in the body.

My question was,

Is it just the mind's positive belief[br]that's making this happen?

Not according to Harvard[br]researcher Ted Kaptchuk.

According to him, he thinks[br]that the most essential part

is actually the nurturing care[br]of a health care provider,

more so even than[br]the mind's positive belief

that some of the studies actually say[br]that the doctor is the placebo or can be.

So Ted Kaptchuk wanted to study this,

and he did a great study[br]looking at patients

that were getting[br]placebos for an illness,

for treatment of an illness[br]and he told them,

"You're getting a placebo,[br]there's nothing in here,

inert ingredients, nothing active."[br]They still got better.

Most likely, Kaptchuk postulated,[br]because they felt tended, nurtured,

they felt like they were doing something,[br]they felt like somebody cared.

So to say that you can heal yourself[br]is sort of a misnomer.

You know, the body can heal itself.

The body has this innate[br]natural self repair mechanisms,

but the scientific data[br]proves that you need

the tending nurturing care of a healthcare[br]provider, of some sort of a healer,

to facilitate that process.

It's not an easy process[br]to go through alone,

so it makes a big difference

if somebody else is holding[br]that positive belief with you.

But the problem is while[br]the doctor can be the placebo,

the doctor can also be the nocebo.

So, what patients need from us,[br]as healthcare providers,

they need us to be forces of healing,[br]not forces of fear or pessimism.

So every time your doctor tells you,[br]"You have an incurable illness,

you're going to have to take that[br]medication for the rest of your life,"

Or God forbid,[br]you get cancer and they say,

"You've got a 5% five-year survival rate."

It's really no different that when[br]that midwife told those three baby girls

that they were hexed.

It's a form of medical hexing[br]that's so prevalent.

As doctors, we think[br]we're being realistic, you know?

We're giving people the kind of information[br]we think they need to know,

but we actually can be harming them.

Instead we need be more[br]like Dr. West. You know?

Picking that distilled water,[br]"Really Mr.Wright,

I promise, this is going to[br]do it for you."

But do we have to count on[br]our doctors to dupe us?

Do we have to get fake surgeries and[br]fake drugs, and wind up in clinical trials.

This is what led[br]the next phase of my research.

So in my last TEDx talk,[br]l talked about

a new wellness model[br]that I developed,

called the whole health cairn,

and this came about[br]as part of my research,

trying to find how else can[br]we harness this mind's power

that's clearly evidenced by the[br]placebo effect and the nocebo effect,

can we do something without[br]being in a clinical trial?

And my hypothesis was that[br]in order to heal ourselves,

in order to be optimally healthy,

we need more than just a good diet,[br]regular exercise program,

getting enough sleep, taking your[br]vitamins, following your doctors orders.

Those things all are great,[br]and critical and important.

But I also came to believe that[br]we need healthy relationships,

a healthy professional life,[br]a healthy creative life,

a healthy spiritual life,[br]a healthy sex life,

a healthy financial life,[br]a healthy environment.

In essence, we need a healthy mind.

So I wanted to try to prove this, and[br]I went into the medical literature

and the copious data that I found,

proving that all of those things[br]are essential, really blew my mind.

I compiled them all into my upcoming book,

"Mind Over Medicine: Scientific[br]proof you can heal yourself".

But I want to give you a few highlights[br]about what this is all about.

So you can see from[br]the whole health cairn,

that all this facets are built upon[br]a foundation stone

that I call your inner pilot light.

And for me that's the essential[br]authentic part of you,

that knows what's true for you.

That's willing to tell you the truth about[br]maybe what's out of alignment in your life,

what stones in your whole health cairn[br]might be out of balance.

And as you see I've put the body,[br]physical health,

on the top of the whole health cairn

because it's the most fragile,[br]the most precarious,

and the most easy to kind[br]of fall out of balance

if other things in your life[br]aren't going so well.

So what I found in the medical data[br]is that relationships matter.

People that have a strong social network[br]have half the rate of heart disease