The cancer patient cured by a broken radiotherapy machine and the paralysed man who walked again after visiting Lourdes: New book shows incredible influence of the mind over the body



Dr Lissa Rankin's Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself draws on scientific studies to prove the power of self-healing

Dr Rankin was medically trained but became frustrated by seeing patients who were clearly ill but who returned negative test results

She says she was cynical about views that the mind had power over the body as she was brought up by a father who was a 'conventional physician'



Other cases she refers to include a woman who was cured from severe nausea by a pill which causes vomiting - because she was told it would help



Dr Lissa Rankin's book, Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, aims to demonstrate the power of the mind

It is often said that the mind has a huge amount of power over the body and a new book has set out to prove just how powerful it can be.



In Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, Dr Lissa Rankin lays out many remarkable examples of how the mind can affect the body.

For example, she cites one study in which a group of patients were given a saline solution which they were told could be chemotherapy.

Despite the fact it was only salt water, 30 per cent of the patients lost their hair.

She also mentions the case of a psychiatric patient with a split personality who is diabetic when she is in one personality and not when she is in the other to the point where her blood sugar readings change dramatically.



Dr Rankin, a Western-trained physician and obstetrics and gynaecology doctor from California, pored over hundreds of peer-reviewed studies from medical journals to find proof for her theory that the mind can cure the body.



In her book, she shares some of the extraordinary cases that she came across.



These also include a patient who suffered from severe nausea and vomiting who was given a drug that she was told would undoubtedly cure her.



Within a few minutes, she recovered entirely despite the fact that the doctors had lied to her – she had actually been given a drug known not to prevent nausea, but to cause it.

Through her research, Dr Rankin discovered that patients who are given placebos do not just feel better – they can actually become clinically better.

She writes: 'I had been thoroughly indoctrinated into the dogmatic principles of evidence-based medicine, which I worshipped like the Bible.

'I refused to trust anything I couldn’t prove with a randomised, controlled clinical trial.



'Plus, having been raised by my father, a very conventional physician who made fun of anything New Age, I was as hard-nosed, closed-minded, and cynical as they come.'

However, as her experience of medicine grew, her views started to change.

She wrote: 'Even the most closed-minded doctors witness patients who get well when, by every scientific rationale, they shouldn’t.

Dr Rankin cites one study in which a group of patients were given a saline solution which they were told could be chemotherapy. Despite the fact it was only salt water, 30 per cent of the patients lost their hair

'When we witness such things, we can’t help questioning everything we hold dear in modern medicine. We start to wonder if there is something more mystical at play.'

She went on: 'But what if we’ve got it all wrong? What if, by denying the fact that the body is naturally wired to heal itself and the mind operates this self-healing system, we’re actually sabotaging ourselves?



'You hear people whispering about the woman whose cancer shrank away to nothingness during radiation.



'Only afterward did the doctors discover that the radiation machine was busted. She hadn’t actually received one lick of radiation, but she believed she had. So did her doctors.



'Yet another woman broke her neck. After being taken to a hospital and getting X-rays that confirmed that she had broken her neck in two places, she opted to refuse medical intervention and saw a faith healer instead, despite her doctors’ vehement objections. Without any medical treatment, she was out jogging a month later.'

Dr Rankin, a Western-trained physician, pored over hundreds of peer-reviewed studies from medical journals to find proof for her theory that the mind can cure the body

She continued: 'A woman with [motor neurone] disease went to see the healer John of God, and afterward her neurologist proclaimed her cured.



'A paralysed man made a pilgrimage to the healing waters of Lourdes and left walking.



'A woman with stage 4 ovarian cancer “just knew” she wasn’t going to die, and, after rallying the support of the people who love her, is still alive ten years later.



'A man with blocked coronary arteries diagnosed after a heart attack was told he would die within a year if he didn’t have heart surgery. After refusing surgery, he lived 20 more years and died - not from heart disease - at 92.



'As I heard these stories, I couldn’t ignore the gnawing voice within me.



'Surely, these people couldn’t all be liars. But if they weren’t lying, the only explanation was something beyond what I had learned in conventional medicine.



'I couldn’t help wondering if, perhaps, by not at least considering the possibility that patients might have some control over healing themselves, I was being an irresponsible doctor and violating the sacred Hippocratic Oath.



'Surely, if I were a good doctor, I would be willing to open my mind in service to the patients I cared for.'



In her book, she encourages the reader to improve their health not by taking medications, but by addressing psychological and lifestyle factors that are causing their illnesses.



Dr Rankin worked as a doctor until she became frustrated that she saw so many patients who were clearly ill and suffering, but who continually returned negative test results.



She says she was seeing 40 patients a day and knew she was not helping them by diagnosing them ‘well’ from test results despite seeing they were chronically fatigued, anxious and in pain.



After a while, she started to experience similar problems herself.



Through her research, Dr Rankin discovered that patients who are given placebos do not just feel better - they can actually become clinically better

By the time she was 32 she had been through two divorces, was on three medications for high blood pressure, and had just been diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells in her cervix.



She was disillusioned with her job and fed up of wearing all the ‘masks’ of professional doctor, perfect wife and new mother.



She then experienced her ‘perfect storm’.



Within two weeks of giving birth to her daughter, Dr Rankin’s 16-year old dog died, her brother was admitted to surgery with acute liver failure, her husband cut two of his fingers off with a table saw, and her father died of a brain tumour.



‘They say when your life falls apart, you either grow or you grow a tumour. Fortunately for me I decided to grow,’ she said.



As a result, she left her job and now she works as an author and inspirational speaker preaching that patients have self-healing powers and that they can solve their own health problems.

She writes: 'There’s proof that you can radically alter your body’s physiology just by changing your mind.



'There’s also proof that you can make yourself sick when your mind thinks unhealthy thoughts. And it’s not just mental. It’s physiological.'

Below are extracts from Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself.

The patients who los t their hair because they thought they were having chemotherapy - but were actually being given s aline



In Love, Medicine & Miracles, Dr Bernie Siegel cites one study showing that patients in a control group for a new chemotherapy drug were given nothing but saline, yet they were warned it could be chemotherapy, and 30 per cent of them lost their hair.



In another study, hospitalised patients were given sugar water and told it would make them throw up. Eighty per cent of them vomited.

The woman whose vomiting was stopped by drugs that should have made it worse

Dr Rankin mentions the case of a woman who suffered from severe nausea and vomiting. She was told she was being given anti-nausea medication that would cure her but she was actually given medications that causes nausea. Within minutes of taking the drugs, she stopped vomiting (picture posed by models)

Another patient detailed in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suffered from severe nausea and vomiting.



Instruments measured the contractions in her stomach, indicating a chaotic pattern that matched her diagnosis.



Then she was offered a new, magical, extremely potent drug, which her doctors promised would undoubtedly cure her nausea.



Within a few minutes, her nausea vanished, and the instruments measured a normal pattern. But the doctors had lied. Instead of receiving a potent new drug, she had been dosed with ipecac, a substance known not to prevent nausea, but to induce it.



Why Chinese-Americans are more likely to die early if they have an inauspicious birth year



Researchers in San Diego examined the death records of almost 30,000 Chinese-Americans and compared them to over 400,000 randomly selected white people.



What they found was that Chinese-Americans, but not whites, die significantly earlier than normal (by as much as five years) if they have a combination of disease and birth year that Chinese astrology and Chinese medicine consider ill-fated.



The researchers found that the more strongly the Chinese-Americans attached to traditional Chinese traditions, the earlier they died.



When they examined the data, they concluded that the reduction in life expectancy could not be explained by genetic factors, the lifestyle choices or behaviour of the patient, the skill of the doctor, or any other variable.



Why did the Chinese-Americans die younger? The researchers concluded that they died younger not because they had Chinese genes, but because they had Chinese beliefs.



They believed they would die younger because the stars had hexed them. And their negative belief manifested as a shorter life.



The psychiatric patient who was sometimes diabetic and sometimes not



One fascinating case study described a psychiatric patient with a split personality. As one personality, the patient was not diabetic. However, the moment she became her alter ego, she believed she was diabetic, and she literally became diabetic

One fascinating case study described a psychiatric patient with a split personality.



As one personality, the patient was not diabetic and her blood glucose levels were normal.



However, the moment she became her alter ego, she believed she was diabetic, and she literally became diabetic.



Her entire physiology shifted. Her blood sugars rose, and from all medical evidence, she was, in fact, diabetic.



When her personality flipped back, her blood sugars returned to normal.

How having lots of friends can increase your life expectancy

The degree of social support you experience even affects the likelihood of cure if you do wind up sick.



A University of California, San Francisco study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology investigated the social networks of nearly 3,000 nurses with breast cancer.



This study found that the women who had been socially isolated before their breast cancer diagnosis had a 66 per cent higher risk of mortality from any cause and a twofold risk of breast cancer mortality.



The nurses who went through cancer alone were found to be four times more likely to die from their disease than those with ten or more friends supporting their journey.



The cancer patient who was so convinced drugs would save him that his terminal cancer disappeared



A 1957 case study by Dr Bruno Klopfer reports the story of Dr Philip West and his patient Mr Wright.



Dr West was treating Mr Wright, who had an advanced cancer called lymphosarcoma.



All treatments had failed, and time was running out. Dr West didn’t expect him to last a week.



Dr Rankin also writes about a patient with lymphosarcoma (pictured) who recovered miraculously when given a drug he believed would save him despite the fact that all of the later evidence suggested the drug was ineffective

But Mr Wright desperately wanted to live, and he hung his hope on a promising new drug called Krebiozen.



He begged his doctor to treat him with the new drug, but the drug was only being offered in clinical trials to people who were believed to have at least three months left to live.



Mr Wright was too sick to qualify. But he didn’t give up. Knowing the drug existed and believing the drug would be his miracle cure, he pestered his doc until Dr West reluctantly gave in and injected him with Krebiozen.



Dr West performed the procedure on a Friday, but deep down, he didn’t believe Mr Wright would last the weekend.



To his utter shock, the following Monday, Dr West found his patient walking around out of bed.



According to Dr Klopfer, Mr Wright’s ‘tumour masses had melted like snowballs on a hot stove’ and were half their original size. Ten days after the first dose of Krebiozen, Mr Wright left the hospital, apparently cancer-free.



Then scientific literature began reporting that Krebiozen didn’t seem to be effective.



Mr Wright, who trusted what he read in the literature, fell into a deep depression, and his cancer came back.



This time, Dr West, who genuinely wanted to help save his patient, decided to get sneaky.



He told Mr Wright that some of the initial supplies of the drug had deteriorated during shipping, making them less effective, but that he had scored a new batch of highly concentrated, ultra-pure Krebiozen, which he could give him. (Of course, this was a bald-faced lie.)



Dr West then injected Mr Wright with distilled water. The tumours melted away, the fluid in his chest disappeared, and Mr Wright was feeling great again for another two months.



Then the American Medical Association blew it by announcing that a nationwide study of Krebiozen proved that the drug was utterly worthless.



This time, Mr Wright lost all faith in his treatment. His cancer came right back, and he died two days later.



Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself is published by Hay House, £12.99.