Consciousness at Work:

Article Outline

• Consciousness and Self
• Consciousness and Matter
• Consciousness and Others
• The Elephant in the Living Room
• Exposure to Polychlorinated Biphenyls May Reduce the Effectiveness of Vaccines in Children
• Botanical Medicine Residency Project Launched
• Yoon to Direct Summit Center for Health and Healing
• Integrative Medicine Practice-Based Research Network to be Established
• The Efficacy of Conventional Medicine
• NCCAM Announces New Career Development Award
• PIM Launches Ayurveda Course Online
• Tai Sophia Institute Receives Regional Accreditation
• Biography
• Copyright

Recently published research in peer-reviewed medical journals is providing strong evidence in support of the age-old belief that consciousness can produce a real and measurable effect in the world.

Three studies in particular provide a compelling view of “consciousness at work.” The first study of interest looked at the biological effects produced by individuals on themselves when these individuals changed their states of consciousness through meditation. The second study explored the effects produced in water by the intentions of a group of people located on a different continent, and the third study examined what biological effects were produced in a person when a healer attempted to help that person through distant intentionality (DI) alone, with no physical contact. All three studies produced statistically significant results.

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Consciousness and Self 

The first study—Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation (Psychosomatic Medicine. 2003;65:564-570)—was a randomized controlled trial that looked at what effects on brain and immune function were produced when people engaged in a mindfulness meditation program. The research team—which included Richard J. Davidson, PhD, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD—measured brain electrical activity before and immediately after, and then 4 months after an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Twenty-five subjects were tested in the meditation group. Sixteen people in the wait-list control group were tested at the same points in time as the meditators. At the end of the 8-week period, subjects in both groups were vaccinated with influenza vaccine.

The researchers found significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. They also found significant increases in antibody titers to the influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation group as compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.

In their conclusion, the authors stated that, “These findings demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings also suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.”

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Consciousness and Matter 

The second study—Double-Blind Test of the Effects of Distant Intention on Water Crystal Formation (Explore. 2006;2:408-411)—tested the effects of human consciousness on water and revealed that when directed, our intentions can exert a measurable influence. Dean Radin, PhD, and Gail Hayssen, attempting to replicate the work of Japanese water researcher Masaru Emoto, took four bottles of the same brand of commercial bottled water and randomly designated them for either treatment or controls. A picture was taken of the two bottles selected for treatment and mailed to Emoto in Tokyo. On November 16, 2005, the approximately 2,000 people who were gathered in Tokyo for the Second International Water for Life Conference were shown a picture of the Institute for Noetic Science campus, some 5,000 miles away in California, and a picture of the two bottles to be treated. Emoto then led the 2,000 people in a five-minute “prayer of gratitude” that was specifically directed towards the water in California.

The day after the conference, all four bottles—the two treated ones and the two controls—were sent to Tokyo. Fifty drops of water from each bottle were frozen at −30°C for at least three hours, after which the drops were examined. If a crystalline shape was found at the apex of an ice drop, then a digital image was taken. Slightly more (60%) of the crystals came from the treated bottles, which is not remarkable in itself. However, 100 volunteers viewed and rated the 40 images, and the average aesthetic ratings of the 40 crystals showed a highly significant difference (P = .001), with the crystals from the treated bottles judged as being more beautiful than crystals from the control bottles.

As the authors reported in their paper, “The results were consistent with the hypothesis that water treated with positive intentions would result in more pleasing crystal shapes.”

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Consciousness and Others 

The third study—Evidence for Correlations Between Distant Intentionality and Brain Function in Recipients: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis (J Altern Complement Med. 2005;11:965-971)—put the question of distant healing to a rigorous test. Jeanne Achterberg, PhD, and a team at North Hawaii Community Hospital on the big island of Hawaii set out to prove—or disprove—that measurable biological changes occur when a healer engages with a patient, even though there is no physical contact.

To test the hypothesis, they recruited eleven healers who were recognized as being skilled by the communities they served. Their practices included, among others, Healing Touch, Hawaiian pule, Peruvian shamanism, Reiki, sound healing, and Qigoing. Each healer then chose a recipient for the DI experiment with whom he or she felt some connection. During the course of the study, each DI recipient spent 34 minutes in a functional magnetic resonance machine while the assigned healer, in an electromagnetic shield room, practiced his or her art in random two-minute “send” or “no-send” intervals, as assigned by the researchers.

Significant differences in the brain scans of each of the recipients were found in the “send” and “no-send” periods. Areas of high activation during the “send” sessions were the anterior and middle cingulate cortex, precuneus, and frontal superior regions. Most notable is that these same areas were activated in all the recipients, regardless of which healing modality was used.

The authors concluded that, “These findings support previous research on distant healing, suggesting that human interactions may directly affect others in ways that are not entirely understood.”

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The Elephant in the Living Room 

“These studies are buttressed by scores of prior experiments pointing to correlations between intentions and measurable changes in the physical world,” says Larry Dossey, MD, Executive Editor of EXPLORE. “The studies fall into two broad categories: (1) local effects occurring within an individual, as in the Davidson et al study above, and (2) distant or nonlocal effects occurring between individuals or objects, as in the Radin et al and Achterberg et al studies above. The distant or nonlocal effects of thought and intention offer profound challenges to the conventional notion that mental phenomena are confined to the individual brain and body. Yet the evidence favoring an expanded, nonlocal view of consciousness is abundant.”

Perhaps the most complete review of this evidence is that of Wayne Jonas, MD, former director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and his associate Cindy C. Crawford (Jonas WB, Crawford CC. Healing, Intention and Energy Medicine. New York, NY: Churchill Livingstone; 2003: xv-xix). “Healing practices using intention, prayer, mental focus and laying-on-of-hands have been used since the dawn of mankind. The tools of science have been applied to medicine and healing for the last 200 years but rarely to the evaluation of intentional healing practices. This book is the result of a three-year effort to systematically and critically summarize existing research on intentional healing practices and related research in order to determine its evidence-base and to establish standards for its scientific evaluation,” says Jonas.

Jonas and Crawford found over 2,200 published reports, including books, articles, dissertations, abstracts and other writings on spiritual healing, energy medicine, and mental intention effects. This included 122 laboratory studies; 80 randomized controlled trials; 128 summaries or reviews; 95 reports of observational studies and nonrandomized trials; 271 descriptive studies; case reports and surveys; 1286 other writings including opinions, claims, anecdotes, letters to editors, commentaries, critiques and meeting reports; and 259 selected books. How good are these laboratory experiments and randomized controlled studies of the nonlocal effects of thought and intention? Jonas and Crawford graded the quality of studies by applying strict CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) criteria. They gave the highest grade, an “A,” to mind-matter interaction studies, such as the Radin et al study above. They gave a “B” to healing studies in general, such as the above experiment of Achterberg et al.

“The field of intentional healing research is in its infancy,” explains Jonas, “but the evidence and implications of these practices so far warrant a concerted scientific effort.”

“The often-heard comments of skeptics—that very few intentionality studies exist, that they are hopelessly flawed, and that they cannot be replicated—are false. Ignoring data does not make it go away,” adds Dossey. “We appear to be nearing the day when the elephant in the living room of science—the local and nonlocal effects of consciousness—will at long last be acknowledged.”

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Exposure to Polychlorinated Biphenyls May Reduce the Effectiveness of Vaccines in Children 

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• Philippe Grandjean, DMSc, MD

Why do some children, when vaccinated, produce lesser amounts of antibodies than other children? A growing body of research suggests that part of the answer might lie in the degree to which the child has been exposed to environmental toxicants.

Most recently, according to a study published in the August 22, 2006, online edition of PLoS Medicine, increased perinatal exposure to PCBs can adversely impact on immune responses to childhood vaccinations. Researchers came to this conclusion when the data revealed that some of the children in the study who were exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) during the last months of pregnancy or shortly after birth did not produce the necessary quantities of antibodies to make the tetanus and diphtheria vaccines 100% effective.

The study—“Reduced Antibody Responses to Vaccinations in Children Exposed to Polychlorinated Biphenyls”—looked at two groups of children in the Faeroe Islands, which are located in the North Atlantic. The traditional diet in these islands includes whale blubber, some of which may be contaminated with PCBs. Blood and milk samples taken during pregnancy from the mothers were analyzed to determine the children’s prenatal PCB exposure. After routine childhood vaccinations against tetanus and diphtheria, the two groups of children were examined at age 18 months and 7 years, and blood samples were examined for tetanus and diphtheria antibodies.

The findings showed an association between increased PCB contamination and lowered antibody response to the vaccines. At 18 months, the diphtheria antibody concentration decreased by 24% for each doubling of the PCB exposure. At 7 years, the tetanus antibody response showed the strongest response and decreased by 16% for each doubling of the prenatal exposure.

“Our study raises concern that exposure to PCB and similar compounds may make childhood vaccinations less efficient,” said Philippe Grandjean, DMSc, MD, adjunct professor at Harvard School of Public Health and coauthor of the paper. Exposed children may also be more susceptible to infections in general, he said.

Polychlorinated biphenyls are a group of 209 synthetic organic compounds that were manufactured in the United States between 1930 and 1977. But even though PCBs were banned from industrial use in 1977, they do not readily break down in the environment and therefore persist for a very long time.

Polychlorinated biphenyls are present in fatty fish worldwide and are known from laboratory studies to affect the development of the immune system. The evidence that PCB exposure may have adverse effects on the immune function in children suggests that vaccine effectiveness may be an additional reason to prevent exposures to PCBs and other environmental pollutants. (For more information on PCBs, please visit the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Web site at www.atsdr.cdc.gov/.)

“PCB is just one of many pollutants that are known from rodent studies to have a toxic impact on the immune system,” Grandjean said. He therefore suggests that these compounds be examined

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for their possible effect on the efficiency of childhood immunizations.

Carsten Heilmann of National University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, was lead author of the study. The work was supported by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Danish Medical Research Council, and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

A PDF of the complete manuscript is available for free at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1549-1676.

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Botanical Medicine Residency Project Launched 

The University of Arizona Program in Integrative Medicine (PIM), in collaboration with the Beth Israel/Albert Einstein Department of Family Medicine in New York, is piloting a new botanical medicine course for primary care residency programs.

The multisite project is designed to test the feasibility and educational impact of incorporating a web-based teaching module on botanical medicine into residency training. “With the growing use of herbal medicine by patients, residents must be educated in their safe and effective use,” said Victoria Maizes MD, Executive Director of the PIM. “Yet, many medical schools and residency programs lack faculty with expertise in this area and so are unable to teach the subject. Botanical Medicine: A Primer for Physicians addresses this need.”

Fourteen residency programs around the nation in family medicine, internal medicine, and obstetrics-gynecology residencies have already signed up for the free program. Participating programs can incorporate the project into their own academic schedule; however, the course is to be considered a requirement. Residencies slated to take part in the project include the University of Arizona Departments of Family Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology; the Beth Israel Department of Family Medicine; the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine; Stamford Hospital’s Departments of Obstetrics/Gynecology, Family Medicine, and Internal Medicine; the University of New Mexico; State University of New York Upstate; the University of Texas; Tufts, Boston University; Carolina’s Healthcare System; and Maine Medical Center’s Family Medicine program.

The course development was led by Program in Integrative Medicine, Education Director Tieroana Low Dog, MD. The online, interactive course provides reviews of research articles, case histories, and clinical challenges in botanical medicine. Upon completion of the module, residents will be able to discuss and recommend herbs, accurately read labels, access resources, discern quality botanical research, and discuss and recommend appropriate herbs used for menopause.

For more information on the Botanical Medicine in Residency Project, please contact Victoria Maizes, MD, (520) 626-6417, vmaizes@ahsc.arizona.edu or Ben Kligler, MD, MPH, (646) 935-2251, bkligler@chpnet.org.

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Yoon to Direct Summit Center for Health and Healing 

Yoon-Hang “John” Kim, MD, MPH, has recently been named Chief Executive Officer for the Janie Bell Powell Summit Center for Health and Healing near Atlanta, Georgia. In his new capacity, he will develop integrative medicine services for the Center.

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• Yoon-Hang Kim, MD, MPH

The Summit Center for Health and Healing, a nonprofit organization, is part of the larger Summit Healthplex network, which includes the Summit Center for Health and Healing, Georgia Bone and Joint, Georgia Rehabilitation Center, Newnan Medical Imaging, Summit Occupational Medicine, The Summit Orthopaedic Surgery Center, PAPP Clinic Internal Medicine, The Summit Pharmacy, Southern Crescent Pain Center, and Summit Family YMCA.

The Summit Center for Health and Healing currently offers integrative medicine consultations, integrative pain management, optimal wellness consultations, and acupuncture and oriental medicine.

Yoon Hang Kim is board certified in preventive medicine, medical acupuncture, and holistic medicine. A graduate of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, he has served as a board member for many integrative medicine organizations, including the American Holistic Medical Association.

Dr. Kim graduated from the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he was honored as a Howard Hughes Fellow. After attending medical school, he completed two years of Family Medicine residency with the University of Wisconsin, finishing his residency with the University of California, San Diego Preventive Medicine residency program. In addition, Dr. Kim, who holds a master’s degree in public health (MPH), focusing on health promotion, also completed the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Acupuncture Training. Most recently, Dr. Kim served as the Dean of Integrative Medicine at the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College, Berkeley, where he developed integrative medicine programs in consulting, clinical services, and education.

For more information about the Janie Bell Powell Summit Center for Health and Healing, please visit http://www.summitwellbeing.com.

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Integrative Medicine Practice-Based Research Network to be Established 

The Bravewell Collaborative is establishing the first integrative medicine practice-based research network (PBRN) to help advance integrative medicine by providing clinical use, clinical outcomes, and cost benefit data that has previously not been available to the medical and scientific communities.

“The PBRN model addresses critical questions, which must be answered to bring the findings from basic science and controlled trials into real-world medical practice,” said Constance Pechura, PhD, Executive Director of the Treatment Research Institute and a consultant to the Collaborative. “PBRNs have been so successful in other areas of medicine, such as cancer treatment, that the establishment of a PBRN in integrative medicine is tremendously exciting.”

The newly formed PBRN will consist of the eight member clinics of the Bravewell Clinical Network—Advocate Center for Complementary Medicine, Alliance Institute for Integrative Medicine, Continuum Center for Health and Healing, Duke Center for Integrative Medicine, Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine, Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, and the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine. The PBRN will help these clinics answer practice-relevant questions, link outcomes data with services and billing information, and develop new models of care based on evidence.

The Bravewell Collaborative was founded in 2002 by a small group of leading philanthropists dedicated to transforming healthcare by advancing the principles of integrative medicine. For more information, please visit www.bravewell.org.

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The Efficacy of Conventional Medicine 

The British Medical Journal maintains a Web site called Clinical Evidence, whose purpose is to help people make informed choices about conventional therapies. The site highlights treatments that are known to be effective and for which the benefits outweigh the harm. The site also reports on treatments that do not work and for which the potential harm outweighs the benefits.

So far, the clinical team for the site has assessed 2,404 treatments for a variety of conditions. Surprisingly, of the 2,404 treatments covered,

The authors of the site advise that “the figures above suggest that the research community has a large task ahead and that most decisions about treatments still rest on the individual judgments of clinicians and patients.”

To visit the Web site, go to http://www.clinicalevidence.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp.

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NCCAM Announces New Career Development Award 

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) recently announced a prestigious career development award designed to diminish the barriers that prevent complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) clinicians from exploring a career in research. The award was created in partnership with The Bernard Osher Foundation through a grant to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

“We are extremely pleased to have this opportunity to join forces with The Osher Foundation in addressing one of NCCAM’s primary goals—creating a cadre of well-trained CAM researchers,” said Dr. Margaret A. Chesney, Acting Director of NCCAM.

The Bernard Osher Foundation/NCCAM CAM Practitioner Research Career Development Award will promote the science of complementary and alternative medicine through research training and mentorship. The award is for individual CAM practitioners with clinical CAM doctorates who have had limited opportunities for research training but who have a strong desire to pursue a career in CAM research.

Awardees will receive up to five years of intensive, supervised career development research training in the biomedical, behavioral, or clinical sciences related to CAM. Applicants should hold a health professional doctoral degree from a CAM institution, such as Doctor of Chiropractic (DC), Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (ND), Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (DAOM and DOM), or Doctor of Osteopathy (DO).

The Bernard Osher Foundation, which is based in San Francisco, supports three integrative medicine research centers: the University of California, San Francisco, Harvard University, and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. “Because of our high regard for Dr. Stephen E. Straus, the founding director of NCCAM, we are particularly pleased to promote the future of integrative medicine research through this new award,” said Bernard Osher, founder and treasurer of the Osher Foundation.

Interested parties should visit nccam.nih.gov/training/ for more information.

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PIM Launches Ayurveda Course Online 

The Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Medical School in Tucson, Arizona, recently announced the launch of their newest online course: Introduction to Ayurveda.

Created in collaboration with Dr. Vasant Lad, the founder and director of the Ayurvedic Institute, Introduction to Ayurveda provides an initiation into the concepts and elements of this ancient traditional medicine. Key concepts explored include: doshas, agni, srotamsi, Ayurvedic pharmacology, diet and lifestyle, and evidence and research regarding Ayurvedic botanicals and yoga.

For more information on Introduction to Ayurveda, or to register, please visit the PIM website at www.integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/online_courses/.

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Tai Sophia Institute Receives Regional Accreditation 

The Tai Sophia Institute, a graduate academic institution for wellness-based education, clinical care, research, and public policy discourse based in Laurel, MD, has received regional accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Originally founded as a clinic for acupuncture in 1975, the Institute now offers master’s degrees in acupuncture, herbal medicine, and the applied healing arts. “Receiving regional accreditation demonstrates the progress and evolution of the Institute from a small school to an Institution with a broad outlook about healing and wellness. When we first taught acupuncture we were considered outside the mainstream. Today, the concepts of ‘wellness’ and ‘healing’ have become more accepted and we are in the vanguard of preparing practitioners in these areas,” said Robert Duggan, president of the Tai Sophia Institute.

The Tai Sophia Institute has more than 900 alumni practicing acupuncture, herbal medicine, and other healing arts around the country. Its current enrollment totals more than 320 graduate students in its Master of Acupuncture, Master of Science in Herbal Medicine, and Master of Arts in Applied Healing Arts programs. For more information about the Tai Sophia Institute, please visit http://www.tai.edu/home_tai.html.