Sunday, April 6, 2008

New wonder drug named Placebo

We are currently denied hormone treatment due to delays in getting the pre-req test results, and radiotherapy due to delay in access to the equipment. The wonder drug placebo gives us hope whilst we wait, after all veggies, placebos and telling jokes is all we can do! Oops, and leave it in God's almighty hands!

I am still trying to understand why we give such trust to radiotherapy. I looked at this old but scholarly research that compares three treatments, radio, chemo, and the new wonder drug "placebo".

The details looked at 5 year survival from breast cancer:

From page 724 of the report for post menopausal women 56% survive using radio, whereas 60% survive after chemo and 62% survive using a placebo. So Placebo was the best! It means at the time of this report (dated) the best conventional treatments did more harm than good. This scares and annoys me. I have seen business fire folk for such poor results.

Admittedly placebo only wins in the less serious cancer cases, real treatment wins in more serious cases. But Jan's is in the simpler category as she has no node involvement. Placebo, maybe we want it!

It shows the utmost importance of mental state upon cure. Faith in a sovereign God that has this all under control must help enormously. I am not saying that prayer is a placebo, after all I believe Jesus physically rose from the dead. But the mental state one has from faith must aid any cure.

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