Sit Back, Relax, And…

In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinions of hypnotherapy, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

• About 58% said “It is a good, evidenced-based practice that can help alleviate many conditions”
• Exactly 25% said “It is a scam and sham and/or wishful thinking at best, and should be avoided by all”
• About 13% said “It works only for those who are particularly suggestible—but it does work for them”
• One (1) person said “It is useful only for brain-centric conditions e.g. addictions, anxiety, phobias, etc”

So what does the science say?

Hypnotherapy is all in the patient’s head: True or False?

True! But guess which part of your body controls much of the rest of it.

So while hypnotherapy may be “all in the head”, its effects are not.

Since placebo effect, nocebo effect, and psychosomatic effect in general are well-documented, it’s quite safe to say at the very least that hypnotherapy thus “may be useful”.

Which prompts the question…

Hypnotherapy is just placebo: True or False?

False, probably. At the very least, if it’s placebo, it’s an unusually effective placebo.

And yes, even though testing against placebo is considered a good method of doing randomized controlled trials, some placebos are definitely better than others. If a placebo starts giving results much better than other placebos, is it still a placebo? Possibly a philosophical question whose answer may be rooted in semantics, but happily we do have a more useful answer…

Here’s an interesting paper which: a) begins its abstract with the strong, unequivocal statement “Hypnosis has proven clinical utility”, and b) goes on to examine the changes in neural activity during hypnosis:

Brain Activity and Functional Connectivity Associated with Hypnosis

It works only for the very suggestible: True or False?

False, broadly. As with any medical and/or therapeutic procedure, a patient’s expectations can affect the treatment outcome.

And, especially worthy of note, a patient’s level of engagement will vastly affect it treatment that has patient involvement. So for example, if a doctor prescribes a patient pills, which the patient does not think will work, so the patient takes them intermittently, because they’re slow to get the prescription refilled, etc, then surprise, the pills won’t get as good results (since they’re often not being taken).

How this plays out in hypnotherapy: because hypnotherapy is a guided process, part of its efficacy relies on the patient following instructions. If the hypnotherapist guides the patient’s mind, and internally the patient is just going “nope nope nope, what a lot of rubbish” then of course it will not work, just like if you ask for directions in the street and then ignore them, you won’t get to where you want to be.

For those who didn’t click on the above link by the way, you might want to go back and have a look at it, because it included groups of individuals with “high/low hypnotizability” per several ways of scoring such.

It works only for brain-centric things, e.g. addictions, anxieties, phobias, etc: True or False?

False—but it is better at those. Here for example is the UK’s Royal College of Psychiatrists’ information page, and if you go to “What conditions can hypnotherapy help to treat”, you’ll see two broad categories; the first is almost entirely brain-stuff; the second is more varied, and includes pain relief of various kinds, burn care, cancer treatment side effects, and even menopause symptoms. Finally, warts and other various skin conditions get their own (positive) mention, per “this is possible through the positive effects hypnosis has on the immune system”:

RCPsych | Hypnosis And Hypnotherapy

Wondering how much psychosomatic effect can do?

You might like this previous article; it’s not about hypnotherapy, but it is about the difference the mind can make on physical markers of aging:

Aging, Counterclockwise: When Age Is A Flexible Number

Take care!

Vaping: A Lot Of Hot Air?

Yesterday, we asked you for your (health-related) opinions on vaping, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

• A little over a third of respondents said it’s actually more dangerous than smoking
• A little under a third of respondents said it’s no better nor worse, just different
• A little over 10% of respondents said it’s marginally less harmful, but still very bad
• A little over 10% of respondents said it’s a much healthier alternative to smoking

So what does the science say?

Vaping is basically just steam inhalation, plus the active ingredient of your choice (e.g. nicotine, CBD, THC, etc): True or False?

False! There really are a lot of other chemicals in there.

And “chemicals” per se does not necessarily mean evil green glowing substances that a comicbook villain would market, but there are some unpleasantries in there too:

• Potential harmful health effects of inhaling nicotine-free shisha-pen vapor: a chemical risk assessment of the main components propylene glycol and glycerol
• Inflammatory and Oxidative Responses Induced by Exposure to Commonly Used e-Cigarette Flavoring Chemicals and Flavored e-Liquids without Nicotine

So, the substrate itself can cause irritation, and flavorings (with cinnamaldehyde, the cinnamon flavoring, being one of the worst) can really mess with our body’s inflammatory and oxidative responses.

Vaping can cause “popcorn lung”: True or False?

True and False! Popcorn lung is so-called after it came to attention when workers at a popcorn factory came down with it, due to exposure to diacetyl, a chemical used there.

That chemical was at that time also found in most vapes, but has since been banned in many places, including the US, Canada, the EU and the UK.

Vaping is just as bad as smoking: True or False?

False, per se. In fact, it’s recommended as a means of quitting smoking, by the UK’s famously thrifty NHS, that absolutely does not want people to be sick because that costs money:

NHS | Vaping To Quit Smoking

Of course, the active ingredients (e.g. nicotine, in the assumed case above) will still be the same, mg for mg, as they are for smoking.

Vaping is causing a health crisis amongst “kids nowadays”: True or False?

True—it just happens to be less serious on a case-by-case basis to the risks of smoking.

However, it is worth noting that the perceived harmlessness of vapes is surely a contributing factor in their widespread use amongst young people—decades after actual smoking (thankfully) went out of fashion.

On the other hand, there’s a flipside to this:

Flavored vape restrictions lead to higher cigarette sales

So, it may indeed be the case of “the lesser of two evils”.

Want to know more?

For a more in-depth science-ful exploration than we have room for here…

BMJ | Impact of vaping on respiratory health

Take care!