Talk Cancer

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thanks much.

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While cheerfully asserting a healing value for laughter, I’d like to mention that Norman Cousins *also* took megadoses of vitamin C as part of his therapy.  He took at least 10,000 mg of vitamin C daily.  As vitamin C is specifically known to increase both the production of collagen and the strength of connective tissue, his recovery is not a miracle of Hollywood by any means. More information on vitamin C megadose therapy at http://www.orthomed.com http://www.vitamincfoundation.org http://www.cforyourself.com http://doctoryourself.com/titration.html and http://doctoryourself.com/klennerpaper.html http://doctoryourself.com/vitaminc.html http://doctoryourself.com/vitaminc2.html http://doctoryourself.com/ortho_c.html http://doctoryourself.com/klenner_table.html — Over 145 articles (indexed by topic, or keyword with an on-site search engine) plus nearly 1,600 scientific references on nutritional therapeutics are posted at http://doctoryourself.com  I have no – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Scientist 14[19]:1, Oct. 2, 2000 Humor: A Mind-body Connection Will researchers and comedy legends demonstrate laughter’s therapeutic qualities? By A.J.S. Rayl A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bone. –Proverbs 17:22     Can humor cause a positive physiological impact? Could the gags, quips, and shtick of such legends as Charlie Chaplin, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and the Marx Brothers, or some of today’s comedians, really be medicinal? During the last couple of decades–since the best- selling author Norman Cousins made headlines by laughing himself well–researchers have been working to uncover the physiological impact of laughter at the cellular and neurochemical level. By all indications, the eons-old notion is grinning and bearing out.     Cousins was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative connective tissue disease. Bedridden and so weak he could barely raise his fingers, he was given a one-in-500 chance of complete recovery. He could sleep, he discovered, only after watching Marx Brothers comedies and Candid Camera episodes. It seemed to reduce his pain. Then, somehow, in the process of laughing, Cousins began to heal, eventually making an against-all-odds recovery.1,2     Now University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), cancer researchers Margaret Stuber, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Lonnie Zeltzer, director of the Pediatric Pain Program at Mattel Children’s Hospital, have launched a five-year study–dubbed Rx Laughter–to investigate the impact of humor and laughter on the immune systems of dozens of healthy children and children confronting life-threatening diseases. The first physician-researchers to look at the impact of comedy on both healthy and sick children, Stuber and Zeltzer are calling on the talents of comedy’s legendary heroes to help them out.     "We’re not hypothesizing that humor will be curative or that it is going to take the place of any other kind of therapy, but we [believe] that humor is going to have an additional benefit over and above simply removing or reducing stress," explains Stuber. "What I’m hoping is that we’ll actually be changing the level of arousal in the autonomic nervous system, so we’ll get the children to relax at that central level."     Adds Zeltzer: "If you’re laughing, you feel better in general. And since it elevates your mood, it should do something physically in your body to create that feeling of well-being. I think we’re going to learn that exposing yourself to humor in life will not only change mood and reduce stress hormones but also influence serotonin levels, which are involved in the pain-control system. That would mean laughter could have an effect on chronic pain over time and enhance immunoreactivity, as well as help with depression and sleep and anxiety disorders."     Stuber and Zeltzer will measure direct physiological responses of the autonomic nervous system. Initially, they will take low-invasive measurements of the children’s heart rates, blood pressure, and stress hormones. They plan to extend the tests, adding blood surveys, among other things, to investigate the impact of humor on the immune system and on additional hormones, neurotransmitters, and natural killer (NK) cells. The researchers will also try to differentiate which comedies work best for which disorders or diseases and what types of individuals respond better to different types of humor.     The Rx Laughter study will add to the positive-thinking research that has been ongoing for the last 20 years at UCLA’s Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, endowed by the renowned writer in the late 1970s. It will also expand on the basic science investigations of Lee S. Berk, associate director at the Center for Neuroimmunology at Loma Linda University Medical Center, also in southern California. Berk and colleagues have been at the forefront of investigating the concept of eustress, or good stress paradigms, beginning in the 1970s with studies of exercise.     Actually, it was Cousins who set up Berk and colleagues with pilot study funds to begin investigating laughter as a "real eustress metaphor," says Berk. With a small cohort of mostly medical students, they established the parameters of the study and took blood samples via intravenous angiocatheters as the subjects watched a preselected, self-selected humor video, Over Your Head by comedian Gallagher (Paramount Home Video) to measure impact on the neuroendocrine system.     They found that mirthful laughter–which Berk defines as "happy laughter as opposed to coping laughter or black humor or derogatory humor"–reduces stress hormone levels.3 "The neuroendocrine responses produced were opposite to what is seen in classical stress," he says. "We fell on the floor in disbelief that something from our own apothecary could actually have such an impact. This silliness is really serious stuff. It’s real biology."     The publication of those findings drew notable media attention, including a segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Given that kind of notice and the age-old adage, perhaps the most surprising thing is that more researchers didn’t jump on the bandwagon. "To my surprise, there are really minimal studies looking at the impact of humor on sick individuals, and nothing in children," says Zeltzer. In fact, the amount of research into eustress and positive emotions has been minimal overall.     The reason, suggests Berk, "is because there were very few people who could bridge the gap across the borders of immunology, behavioral sciences, and the technologies of psychoneuroimmunology." Of course, funding was also an issue. "If you turned in a grant request for a project that crossed multiple boundaries, as I often have, nobody knew what to do with it," he adds. Berk, however, continued to add slowly to the knowledge base with his small cohort studies. It Came from Hollywood     If the scientific community at large was hesitating, the idea that laughter could help heal began emerging on other fronts. Rx Laughter actually came straight from Hollywood, the brainstorm of Sherry Dunay Hilber, a former ABC and CBS network programming executive who oversaw such hit sitcoms as Home Improvement, Roseanne, Coach, Who’s the Boss?, and Cybill. The study even has its own Web site: www.rxlaughter.org.     Hilber came up with the study idea about two years ago in the midst, she says,"of looking for some more meaningful way of using my abilities, something beyond worrying about the ratings of last night’s show." She pitched her concept to Stuber and Zeltzer, who immediately came on board as the co-principal investigators and honed the study plan, and then enlisted the support of the offspring of comedy’s legends. Included on Rx Laughter’s Advisory Board: Josephine Chaplin,daughter of Charlie Chaplin; Chris Costello, daughter of Lou Costello; Ronald J. Fields, grandson of W.C. Fields; Melissa Talmadge Cox, the granddaughter of Buster Keaton; and Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers.     For a scientific investigation, it is a unique teaming. But the descendants of comedy’s pioneers needed no convincing. Growing up in the whirlwind shadows of their famous forebears, they learned early that comedy was a potent and powerful force. "You grow up with what you know, and I grew up with some wackos who taught me that when you have a sense of humor, you automatically have an option in your view of life," says Marx. Fields agrees and adds, "Humor is nothing but extreme positive thinking."     With their support and assistance, Hilber secured all the necessary rights and permissions from the studios, free of any licensing charges–something that almost seems unbelievable. But, as Chris Costello puts it: "There are some things you just can’t put a price tag on."     One reason Hilber, Stuber, and Zeltzer agreed on the works of Chaplin, Costello, Fields, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers was that they had withstood the test of time. "We figured there’s got to be a reason for that, and so we felt pretty safe going with those," explains Hilber.     "When I was a child, I never really understood the impact of what my father did, but I was watching The King in New York recently and it is true: These films haven’t gone out of date. And if they haven’t gone out of date by now, they never will," says Josephine Chaplin.     The Rx Laughter team also figured that these movies and shorts would serve to establish a more objective reaction, because the

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The Scientist 14[19]:1, Oct. 2, 2000 Humor: A Mind-body Connection Will researchers and comedy legends demonstrate laughter’s therapeutic qualities? By A.J.S. Rayl A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bone. –Proverbs 17:22     Can humor cause a positive physiological impact? Could the gags, quips, and shtick of such legends as Charlie Chaplin, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and the Marx Brothers, or some of today’s comedians, really be medicinal? During the last couple of decades–since the best-selling author Norman Cousins made headlines by laughing himself well–researchers have been working to uncover the physiological impact of laughter at the cellular and neurochemical level. By all indications, the eons-old notion is grinning and bearing out.     Cousins was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative connective tissue disease. Bedridden and so weak he could barely raise his fingers, he was given a one-in-500 chance of complete recovery. He could sleep, he discovered, only after watching Marx Brothers comedies and Candid Camera episodes. It seemed to reduce his pain. Then, somehow, in the process of laughing, Cousins began to heal, eventually making an against-all-odds recovery.1,2     Now University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), cancer researchers Margaret Stuber, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Lonnie Zeltzer, director of the Pediatric Pain Program at Mattel Children’s Hospital, have launched a five-year study–dubbed Rx Laughter–to investigate the impact of humor and laughter on the immune systems of dozens of healthy children and children confronting life-threatening diseases. The first physician-researchers to look at the impact of comedy on both healthy and sick children, Stuber and Zeltzer are calling on the talents of comedy’s legendary heroes to help them out.     "We’re not hypothesizing that humor will be curative or that it is going to take the place of any other kind of therapy, but we [believe] that humor is going to have an additional benefit over and above simply removing or reducing stress," explains Stuber. "What I’m hoping is that we’ll actually be changing the level of arousal in the autonomic nervous system, so we’ll get the children to relax at that central level."     Adds Zeltzer: "If you’re laughing, you feel better in general. And since it elevates your mood, it should do something physically in your body to create that feeling of well-being. I think we’re going to learn that exposing yourself to humor in life will not only change mood and reduce stress hormones but also influence serotonin levels, which are involved in the pain-control system. That would mean laughter could have an effect on chronic pain over time and enhance immunoreactivity, as well as help with depression and sleep and anxiety disorders."     Stuber and Zeltzer will measure direct physiological responses of the autonomic nervous system. Initially, they will take low-invasive measurements of the children’s heart rates, blood pressure, and stress hormones. They plan to extend the tests, adding blood surveys, among other things, to investigate the impact of humor on the immune system and on additional hormones, neurotransmitters, and natural killer (NK) cells. The researchers will also try to differentiate which comedies work best for which disorders or diseases and what types of individuals respond better to different types of humor.     The Rx Laughter study will add to the positive-thinking research that has been ongoing for the last 20 years at UCLA’s Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, endowed by the renowned writer in the late 1970s. It will also expand on the basic science investigations of Lee S. Berk, associate director at the Center for Neuroimmunology at Loma Linda University Medical Center, also in southern California. Berk and colleagues have been at the forefront of investigating the concept of eustress, or good stress paradigms, beginning in the 1970s with studies of exercise.     Actually, it was Cousins who set up Berk and colleagues with pilot study funds to begin investigating laughter as a "real eustress metaphor," says Berk. With a small cohort of mostly medical students, they established the parameters of the study and took blood samples via intravenous angiocatheters as the subjects watched a preselected, self-selected humor video, Over Your Head by comedian Gallagher (Paramount Home Video) to measure impact on the neuroendocrine system.     They found that mirthful laughter–which Berk defines as "happy laughter as opposed to coping laughter or black humor or derogatory humor"–reduces stress hormone levels.3 "The neuroendocrine responses produced were opposite to what is seen in classical stress," he says. "We fell on the floor in disbelief that something from our own apothecary could actually have such an impact. This silliness is really serious stuff. It’s real biology."     The publication of those findings drew notable media attention, including a segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Given that kind of notice and the age-old adage, perhaps the most surprising thing is that more researchers didn’t jump on the bandwagon. "To my surprise, there are really minimal studies looking at the impact of humor on sick individuals, and nothing in children," says Zeltzer. In fact, the amount of research into eustress and positive emotions has been minimal overall.     The reason, suggests Berk, "is because there were very few people who could bridge the gap across the borders of immunology, behavioral sciences, and the technologies of psychoneuroimmunology." Of course, funding was also an issue. "If you turned in a grant request for a project that crossed multiple boundaries, as I often have, nobody knew what to do with it," he adds. Berk, however, continued to add slowly to the knowledge base with his small cohort studies. It Came from Hollywood     If the scientific community at large was hesitating, the idea that laughter could help heal began emerging on other fronts. Rx Laughter actually came straight from Hollywood, the brainstorm of Sherry Dunay Hilber, a former ABC and CBS network programming executive who oversaw such hit sitcoms as Home Improvement, Roseanne, Coach, Who’s the Boss?, and Cybill. The study even has its own Web site: www.rxlaughter.org.     Hilber came up with the study idea about two years ago in the midst, she says,"of looking for some more meaningful way of using my abilities, something beyond worrying about the ratings of last night’s show." She pitched her concept to Stuber and Zeltzer, who immediately came on board as the co-principal investigators and honed the study plan, and then enlisted the support of the offspring of comedy’s legends. Included on Rx Laughter’s Advisory Board: Josephine Chaplin,daughter of Charlie Chaplin; Chris Costello, daughter of Lou Costello; Ronald J. Fields, grandson of W.C. Fields; Melissa Talmadge Cox, the granddaughter of Buster Keaton; and Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers.     For a scientific investigation, it is a unique teaming. But the descendants of comedy’s pioneers needed no convincing. Growing up in the whirlwind shadows of their famous forebears, they learned early that comedy was a potent and powerful force. "You grow up with what you know, and I grew up with some wackos who taught me that when you have a sense of humor, you automatically have an option in your view of life," says Marx. Fields agrees and adds, "Humor is nothing but extreme positive thinking."     With their support and assistance, Hilber secured all the necessary rights and permissions from the studios, free of any licensing charges–something that almost seems unbelievable. But, as Chris Costello puts it: "There are some things you just can’t put a price tag on."     One reason Hilber, Stuber, and Zeltzer agreed on the works of Chaplin, Costello, Fields, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers was that they had withstood the test of time. "We figured there’s got to be a reason for that, and so we felt pretty safe going with those," explains Hilber.     "When I was a child, I never really understood the impact of what my father did, but I was watching The King in New York recently and it is true: These films haven’t gone out of date. And if they haven’t gone out of date by now, they never will," says Josephine Chaplin.     The Rx Laughter team also figured that these movies and shorts would serve to establish a more objective reaction, because the chances are good that most of the children have not seen many, if any, of them.     For funding, Hilber contacted Comedy Central, which several years ago had established its Comedy Rx program to promote the positive effects of laughter. The cable network responded enthusiastically by putting up the initial $75,000.     ‘Who’s on First?’     The impact of laughter on the immune systems of children has "just been waiting to be tested scientifically," says Zeltzer. "It seems like such a no-brainer." The concept may be obvious enough, but designing the parameters of a study like this is most certainly not a no-brainer. Comedy is highly subjective, while science strives to be objective beyond question. The levels of complexity in a study like this are as numerous as they are intricate, and there are a lot of critical, basic questions to consider, including:     * How does one determine what will be viewed as funny across the board?     * Does it matter how much somebody laughs versus how funny they think something is? In other words, is the physical act of laughter an operative factor?     * How does one test for differences across gender lines? Ethnicity lines? Age demographics?     In adult populations, says Berk, "We learned that there are a lot of potential pitfalls in selecting comedy. Self- selection of material is important, because what is funny to one person is not necessarily funny to someone … read more »

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