Focused Love May Help Cancer Patients

A hug may not be able to cure cancer, but a new study that looks at the benefits of compassion toward cancer patients is on its way to showing that a little TLC goes a long way.

Responding to cancer patients' romantic partners and those partners' feelings of helplessness, researchers at California Pacific Medical Center have set out to measure loving feelings and examine their physiological effect on patients.

What happened when they monitored patients and partners who were practicing loving meditation surprised even the skeptics, though, when meditation led to increased brain activity for both subjects.

More than 1 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year, and nearly 600,000 die from it; this study represents an area of medicine where traditionalists are making room for complementary medicine so that both can fight what in recent years has been called a national epidemic.

It is a growing area of once-disparaged medical care that even the National Institute of Health gave credence to several years ago by creating the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

In the past, "the emphasis was on the physical and the psychological experience became suspect," said Dr. Marilyn Schlitz, a senior scientist at California Pacific who is also the vice president for research and education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a research facility that studies the mind-body connection.

"What we started seeing 20 years ago is a reconciliation between the mind and body and a greater appreciation for the fact that psychological and subjective experiences can have an effect on one's physiology," she said.

In this specific study, cancer patients and their partners were recruited in doctors' offices, churches, support groups and cancer centers. Participants had to have at least six-month prognoses, they had to be in a committed relationship of at least 12 months, they could not be undergoing any energy healing, and they could not be in couples' therapy.

In a randomized, controlled trial carefully designed to quell skeptics' concerns of "hokiness," partners were trained in meditation techniques for three months.

In the lab, the couples were monitored in separate, soundproof rooms. Patients had no stimuli other than a camera lens. Partners had only a monitor, which would intermittently show pictures of the patient, at which point partners channeled loving feelings.

All along, researchers monitored the couple's heart rates, brain activity and blood pressures to see if any changes occurred during the meditative periods.

Dr. Ellen Levine, principal investigator, said the preliminary results showed that her subjects' brainwaves became synchronized during testing.

Shocked? So was she.

"Oh my God, this actually works," she said she thought to herself as she watched the monitors.

Originally cast as a study of breast cancer patients, the study opened itself to all cancer patients in order to attract more participants; so far, roughly 100 couples have been recruited, but only four have begun trials.

While landmark results seem far off, Levine acknowledged that the study could predicate changes in medical treatment that rely on complementary medicine.

Levine, a self-described "straight, behavioral medicine" scientist, said she would never say don't take medicine "because we do know the medicine works."

But she does envision beefed up hospital chaplain services, doctors who integrate pastoral care into their practice and compassionate meditation classes at hospitals.

Still, there are traditionalists who say Levine's research cannot be possible; that "it's nuts; it's weird," as Levine admits she herself once thought.

For that reason, the California researchers took pains to make the study as tight as possible by relying on randomized, controlled subjects.

"It's tighter than a lot of studies out there," said Levine, "because the naysayers and straight scientists say this is crazy."

But whether the study is crazy or not may be a matter of how one perceives the mind-body connection and how it affects one's health.

Levine pointed out that in ancient times, Greeks and Egyptians believed the mind and body were completely connected, relying on "humors" or physical characteristics to interpret personality traits. It was only Descartes and other thinkers in modern times who insisted the mind and body were completely separate.

But the last decade or so has seen a revival of sorts of ancient perceptions that the mind and body are, in fact, connected.

Schlitz pointed out that in mind-body medicine, depression can have detrimental effects on patients' immune systems, while upbeat attitudes have positive effects.

"If we believe that there are forces beyond the physical that have bearing on health and well-being," she said, it is up to researchers to "study that from a scientific point of view."

When asked how she justifies the results she has witnessed so far, Levine replied, "I am a scientist who definitely believes in God."

E.B. Solomont is a freelance writer living in New York City.

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