Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/14740
also recommend the use of herbal medication (especially things like ginger and turmeric), mind-body methods (everything from guided imagery to stress reduction), lifestyle counseling, different forms of exercise, and sometimes the use of Chinese medicine. For depression, I think there are a huge range of approaches that are very effective, from aerobic exercise to high-dose fish oil, and various dietary supplements. I find the anxiety-reducing breathing exercise that I teach to be more effective than the standard pharmaceutical drugs. LK: How is it that all these methods are effective? People generally expect to have to do something high-tech to respond to something that’s gone awry in their bodies. AW: I think this is the key question of what’s wrong with American health care. It has us all dependent on high-tech solutions that are expensive. I think these low-tech methods work because the body has an innate healing capacity, and there are many ways of accessing it. I think that people, in this culture especially, have little confidence in their body’s ability to restore health. Many of these methods have very sensible mechanisms behind them. High-dose fish oil affects brain chemistry; there’s a lot of research on that. With breathing exercises for anxiety, there is a logical mechanism—breath affects the involuntary nervous system. There is very little research on the impact of breath work, because it is something that is just not taken seriously by the research community, probably because it is so simple. I have worked for years to try and get studies going on it. The lack of interest in this kind of stuff is remarkable. LK: What is the backstory on scientific studies of massage? “ 12 Body Sense AW: Unlike pharmaceuticals, which can be manufactured to small tolerances, dosed by weight, and compared to placebos, bodywork is less consistent and often better tailored to an individual’s needs. Massage therapy, nonetheless, has been studied and scientifically proven to be effective for reducing pain, fatigue, anxiety, and stress in patients with a wide range of medical problems, and to relieve a variety of symptoms in people with specific illnesses. In addition, the number of sound research trials into the potential benefits of massage therapy has grown significantly in recent years. Still, funding remains an issue. As is the case with any CAM therapy, funding will never be as accessible for research into massage therapy as it is for drug company studies. A strong body of research that defines the clinical effectiveness of, and indications for, massage therapy will help promote greater acceptance of the approach and perhaps lead to wider coverage by insurance companies. I would like to see more studies comparing the effects of massage therapy to pharmaceutical agents for the relief of pain and anxiety, as well as cost-benefit analyses of the preventive effects of regular massage. Further investigation into the underlying mechanisms behind the benefits of massage should be encouraged as well. LK: What do you tell people who insist on having hard scientific data before trying something from the CAM toolbox? AW: There is a lot of science out there. It is just often published in places that most doctors don’t look. I think the first thing is to see what evidence there is. Second, we should get into the habit of using a sliding scale of evidence, which works like this: the greater the potential of a treatment to cause harm, the stricter the standards of evidence it should be held to for “The United States lags behind many other countries where massage is considered a trusted effective medical intervention.” —Dr. Andrew Weil autumn/winter 2010