Praying for another’s wellbeing is problematic, even at this time of year when our thoughts might turn to miracles and healings of the sick.  It’s not a problem for the sender or receiver, but it most certainly is for the scientist, the researcher, the doctor and the sceptic, especially the sceptic.

Prayer and its other distant healing cousins, such as reiki, faith healing, spiritual and remote healing, shouldn’t work – but, on balance, the evidence suggests they do.

For the sceptic, this is impossible.  To suggest that prayer works also requires a new science of biology and a complete overhaul of what we think we are.  And we won’t even get into the existence of a God who answers prayers.

The science already exists, of course.  It’s quantum mechanics, and more specifically, non-locality, which suggests that something can affect something else even though it may be miles away.  As Einstein rather unkindly put it, it’s “spooky action at a distance.”

The trouble for medicine is that its own science of measurement is hopelessly cumbersome and inappropriate to capture such elusive effects.  This perhaps explains why the studies that have tried to monitor distant healing and prayer have been so contradictory.  Some say prayer works, others say it doesn’t; a few even suggest that prayer has a negative effect, and the condition of the person being prayed for actually worsens, which, at least, suggests some effect, I suppose.

But when researchers carry out meta-analyses of all the ‘good’ studies, they invariably discover – possibly to their own astonishment – that prayer does work.  Even arch-sceptic Edzard Ernst had to admit as much when he researched the subject.

And what are the metaphysical implications of this discovery?  Does it mean God exists, or that people have remarkable self-healing powers that are released when they know they are being prayed for, or that all of us are connected by some force?

This is the stuff of our Special Report this month – Spooky Healing at a Distance – (http://www.wddty.com/spooky-healing-at-a-distance.html) - and it should give us all pause.  It brings to mind Hamlet’s famous quote: “There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

And if belief is a constituent part of successful prayer, perhaps including it in our philosophy increases its possibility.

We live in an age of complexity. We switch on the lights in our home, but don’t really understand how the electricity works. We turn on the taps in our bathroom, without completely grasping how water can run through the pipes. We’re probably vague about how television images are transmitted to our screens. Or even how our car works. 

This age of complexity has brought forth a new breed: the expert. The expert makes the complex work, even if he doesn’t make it understandable. He fixes the TV, the electrical and water systems in the home to make them function safely, and our car to run. He stands at the gates to the complex, acting as our intermediary to the unfathomable. 

The complex has made our lives more comfortable, and electricity has replaced the candle, water systems the pump and bucket, the car for the cart. But the complex has also placed life at one remove. We don’t have direct access or control any longer. 

This is equally as true for the way we treat our ailments. Once, we relied on self-help therapies, herbs and tinctures. Today, in our age of complexity, we have an array of drugs that we don’t understand, and so we rely on the doctor as interpreter and guide. So, it is refreshing that this month’s special report explores a new therapy that couldn’t be simpler to implement, and which already has garnered a wide array of successful case studies.

Its creator, Clint Ober, calls it ‘Earthing’—and it merely requires you to take off your shoes and socks, and put your bare feet on the grass, earth or sand, ideally for 30 or 40 minutes every day. The theory behind this simple therapy seems to make sense.

Our bodies are electrical systems, and are subject to the same ‘interference’ as electrical products in our homes. That’s why all electrical items are grounded—in other words, they are in constant and immediate contact to the ‘zero ground’, rich in electrons and negative ions. Without this grounding, electrical equipment would suffer interference. And, claims Ober, the same happens to us—but because of our modern lifestyle, we are insulated from our ground, and so are more likely to suffer from interference, which manifests as disease, such as inflammation and heart problems. 

A simple therapy that all of us can do—and we don’t need the expert, whether he is the doctor or, indeed, the electrician. 

Read the full article, The Body Electric: Is Earthing the missing link to beat disease? :http://www.wddty.com/the-body-electric.html

By the early years of the 20^th century, mass production processes were being refined.  Soon, factories would produce thousands upon thousands of items inexpensively – from bottle tops, cola drinks, processed foods, to bicycles and motor cars.  Suddenly, everyone could have the same thing!

These new industrial processes weren’t restricted to consumer fare; they were also being introduced in the burgeoning petro-chemical industry, which would produce parts, components and pharmaceutical drugs.

Now everyone could have a new bicycle – and a drug, too.  Mass production created a new phenomenon – mass pharmaceuticals, the one-size-fits-all drug.

While the bicycle unarguably takes you from A to B, pharmaceuticals are supposed to deliver their own benefit.  They have to suppress symptoms or, heaven forefend, cure.  And this has to be demonstrated.

So, mass production spawned mass pharmaceuticals – which spawned mass medical science.  To demonstrate the efficacy of the mass-produced drug, scientists needed a mass of people who would display benefits from taking the very same pill everyone else was taking.  And, just to prove it really does work, they introduced the idea of a placebo, and nobody would be told what it was they were given.

Because of the elevated place that medicine holds in society, with its influence firmly established in the worlds of academia, politics and the media, the double-blind placebo mass drug trial quickly established itself as the gold standard of medical scientific rigour. 

This was muscular science, true science; everything else was quackery and wishful thinking.

The trouble was – mass medical science wasn’t delivering great results.  Soon, it was enough that a drug could outperform a placebo by a few percent for it to be an enormous success.  Often, results were stopped after just a few months of a trial – so what happened to the patient after a year or more?  Nobody knew.

Sometimes the results were just awful.  When they were, the trials weren’t even published.  Instead, they were put away into a filing cabinet, and this happened even when the researchers knew the drug was killing people.

Sometimes the results were ‘doctored’ – I wonder where they got the term from? – or academics were paid to put their name to research they hadn’t written.  Sometimes the whole thing was made up, and yet published in prestigious medical journals, nonetheless.

A GlaxoSmithKline executive famously let the cat out of the bag when he said at a private meeting that pharmaceuticals work only 30 per cent of the time.

Mass medicine helps some people some of the time, and nobody all the time.

What’s gone wrong? 

Mass production works fine when we deal with simple things: most of us are blessed with two legs to use the mass-produced cycle.  However, our body ‘inside’ – the organs, muscles, immune system - is not simple: it is complex and dynamic.  We are the sum of our genes, our environment, our diet, our disposition, and much else besides – and it’s a constantly moving target. 

Mix up that matrix, and its many variables, and you discover that each one of us is unique.  There’s nobody quite like you on the planet.  As your own eco-system is unique, so any one disease – despite being given a general description, such as lumbago or asthma – has its own special expression in you. 

Fascinating, but hopeless for mass-production medicine. 

So far, so bad, but what is the alternative, our medical researcher might ponder.  It’s the only show in town.  Everything else – alternative or complementary therapy – is non-medicine because it’s just quackery, a placebo dressed up as medicine.  It’s just not science.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves of our equation:  mass production + mass medicine = mass medical science.  In other words, the science was invented to legitimise mass production processes for a mass market.

Now let’s look at the other equation.  Genes+environment+diet+disposition = unique individual.  If each of us is unique, and changing, we cannot run a mass scientific trial and hope to get a consistent result. 

Yes, medicine – and I include all of medicine in this, alternative and allopathic – is scientific inasmuch as it looks for a cause/effect, even though – in a complex system – cause A can have effect Z.

But let’s not confuse that with mass-production science.  Medicine is a one-case-at-a-time process, a hit-and-miss blend of science, art and intuition.

This has always been the position of natural medicine, which has not been overly troubled by mass production processes.  So the question is: do I want a medicine that thinks I, and my disease, are the exact same as everyone else’s, or do I want one that recognises my uniqueness, and treats me as such?

Do I want a pharmaceutical drug that probably won’t work – and because of its chemical toxicity may do me great harm – or utilise a therapy that probably will in time?

I might want a bicycle like yours, but I don’t want your drug. 

Couch potatoes rejoice!  As of today, you don't have to eat those five portions of fruit and vegetables every day in order to ward off cancer.  Researchers have discovered that the advice of every government has, all along, been wrong.  The beneficial effect is modest, say researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, after they profiled the lifestyles of 500,000 participants around Europe.

As the average couch potato never even got close to consuming five portions of fruit and vegetables anyway, the news represents more of a salve to his conscience than a rethink to his diet.  And those who eat healthily will continue to do so, irrespective of this latest piece of research.

And the reason why nothing will change is because it's mass consumer advice from the world of medicine that still works on the concept of mass production.  One drug suits all; one piece of advice works for everyone.

The truth is more subtle, and more interesting.  Cancer isn't one disease, it's around 200.  Not all fruits and vegetables are created equal as cancer fighters; some, such as broccoli and the berries, are very effective, some are ineffective.  And if they're not fresh, if they've been plastered with pesticides, and then if they are boiled beyond recognition, any health-giving qualities that the vegetables and fruits might once have had have been reduced to almost zero.

But did the researchers actually ask these questions?  I suppose not, so it's back to the burgers and fries for those who never stopped eating them in the first place.

Nobody has anything nice to say about NICE - so, being a contrarian, I will!  As you may know, NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) determines the drugs that should be made available on the National Health Service based upon their effectiveness and price. 

Invariably it makes decisions that upset some groups, and is seen as a skinflint denying life-saving pharmaceuticals to people in desperate need.  That's the rub, of course.  People in desperate need a magic bullet, and are more than willing to swallow any drug company hype, whereas NICE has to take a more considered view.

The institute has hit the headlines again in the past week, this time urging doctors to reduce the prescriptions on drugs such as Ritalin for children with ADHD (attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder).  It wants to see the numbers of prescriptions reduced to a third of their current levels, and reserved only for the most extreme cases.

There are a number of pressures going on here, and NICE is being the voice of reason.  The first pressure is from the drug's manufacturer.  Years ago, WDDTY got hold of a secret memo to the salesforce, stating that it was concerned that too few children in the UK were taking Ritalin.  It was the start of a concerted drive, and, as usual, the doctors were willing accomplices.

The second pressure is from parents and doctors alike, who both see any form of errant behaviour as 'ADHD'.  It's a catch-all umbrella term that captures any form of problematic behaviour that, once upon a time, was dismissed as 'boys being boys' and the like.  Any excitability is exacerbated by diet, and often times the removal of sweets and processed foods from the diet will result in an almost immediate improvement to any bad behaviour.

Of course, this is not to diminish the problems of ADHD and the hell that parents of genuinely afflicted children go through.  But NICE has it about right - the prescriptions need to be reduced to around a third of the level of where they are now.

It's time to stop seeing every childhood problem as ADHD in order to sell more drugs.