Cure A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body

I've had a rough 12 months, health-wise, and a lovely friend from my Book Club loaned me this book.

I'm not adverse to alternate therapies, even with my science background. I've had more 'success' from some practices than I've had from conventional medicine. I've been sporadically truing to find something to get my out of my recent quagmire, but it takes energy and effort to 'research' it and see what I think might help. I had just finished reading Jon Kabat-Zin's Beginner's Guide to Mindfulness (his work is quoted in this book) so this was a timely read.

Marchant states right up front that she's skeptical of alternate therapies and this is evident throughout, but she has given time, space and a hearing to many practices a lot of people wouldn't have considered.

If you're 100% behind alternate therapies, or conventional medicine, then I think this book may disappoint (or upset) you. I thought Marchant walked quite a good line to show how mind science and physical body science could be complementary.

Marchant clearly showed the problems faced trying to 'prove' mind science using the traditional double-blind trials favoured by conventional medicine. I thought she gave many and varied examples of scientific experiments, using as much scientific rigour as possible, to show the effects of the mind on the body and on health.

There was a lot of information presented in a very readable format, suitable for most people. However, if you're a sufferer of a particular illness looking for a 'cure', then I don;t think this book delivers - and I don;t think that was Marchant's purpose in writing this.

For myself, as a CFS sufferer, I've come away with more of an understanding of the mind-body interaction. I believe I contracted Ross River Fever and Glandular Fever and have been unable to recover, because of stress. For the 2 years before I collapsed, I had 6 of the top 10 stress events occur - 3 of them within the same month. On page 174, "Over time, stress physically rewires our brains."

Over the past 12 years, I've completely changed my life and have been on an unrelenting hunt to find things that will 'improve' my health. These have included changing the way I think, the way I work, the way I interact with people. These changes have included my daily routines, exercise routines, almost every single aspect of my life.

I'm a bit fussy about what I try. I like to do my 'research' before spending my hard-earned money on something. I want some kind of 'proof' that something has a hope of working. I belong to a wider society where we all share our health experiments and their results. We discuss what we find when researching cutting-edge treatments. This has been a godsend to me. It's shown me I'm not alone.

This book, Cure, seemed to be a good summary of some of the medical trials and alternate therapies that I've tried/been following/heard about. Although, most of the Italian work was new to me, and exciting.

I'm concerned that so much of the mind research in Cure, seemed to indicate that the society we're so quickly developing, is detrimental to our health.
I liked that Cure gave me hope - that the world may change, that medicine may not be so drug-dependent, and that chronic conditions may get some recognition, belief and assistance.