Laugh Your Way To Health

Friday, May 22, 2009 by: Cindie Leonard, citizen journalist
(NaturalNews)


In Jimmy Buffett's famous song, "Changes in Latitudes," a key line in the chorus is: "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." This verse in this fun and somewhat philosophical song is supported by scientific research. Our mental health is positively enhanced by laughter.


Using laughter as medicine is not a new concept. As early as the 14th Century, French surgeon Henri de Mondeville used humor therapy to aid recovery from surgery. He wrote: "Let the surgeon take care to regulate the whole regimen of the patient's life for joy and happiness, allowing his relatives and special friends to cheer him and by having someone tell him jokes."

In the 1930s U.S. hospitals began to bring in clowns to cheer children hospitalized with polio. In 1972, the Gesundheit Institute (of Patch Adams fame) was founded to bring "fun, friendship, and the joy of service back into health care."

Norman Cousins calls laughter "internal jogging." Cousins had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, an experience that had led him to question Western medicine. Cousins found the treatments suggested by his doctors to be totally lacking, so he checked himself out of the hospital and checked into a hotel. From here on, he literally laughed himself back to health. He immersed himself in only funny movies and television shows. He enjoyed every one of the Charlie Chaplin movies, and watched "Candid Camera" episodes until his sides hurt, laughing. His illness disappeared. From this experience, he wrote an enlightening book, "Anatomy of an Illness."

Even the Bible suggests that we keep a happy heart: "A cheerful heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit makes one sick." Proverbs 17:22

Solid scientific research demonstrates that laughter offers the following benefits:

Lowering blood pressure

Strengthening cardiovascular functions

Reducing stress hormones

Improving circulation

Increasing muscle flexion

Oxygenating the body by boosting the respiratory system

Boosting immune function by raising levels of infection-fighting T-cells, disease-fighting proteins called Gamma interferon and B-cells, which produce disease-destroying antibodies.

Triggering the release of endorphins, the body's natural painkillers

Producing a general sense of well-being.

Even anticipating laughter can enhance our biochemistry. In a novel experiment conducted at Loma Linda University, researchers studied a group of 16 healthy male volunteers. The participants were assigned to two groups. Blood was drawn from both groups four times during the event and three times afterward. The experiment group was told that they would be watching a humorous video. The control group was not. The findings were astounding. The experiment group showed not only a decrease in stress hormones (cortisol, epinephrine, and dopac,) but also an increase in beta-endorphins (chemicals that alleviate depression) and human growth hormone (which boosts immunity.)

Dr. Lee Berk, the team's lead researcher, sums up the study: "Our findings lead us to believe that by seeking out positive experiences that make us laugh we can do a lot with our physiology to stay well."

In an earlier study conducted by Dr. Berk and her team, the experimental group watched a humorous video. Blood samples were measured on both the experimental group (that watched the humorous video) and a control group (that did not watch the video.) The results were similar to the above experiment showing positive biochemical changes by those who watched the funny video. In addition, this study also demonstrated the positive physiological changes that occur after a session of laughter. Dr. Berk states: "The physiological effects of a single one-hour session viewing a humorous video appear to last anywhere from 12 to 24 hours in different individuals."

Interestingly, one can exercise both mind and body is a class called "laughter yoga." This trend has been active in India and China for years and is now part of a growing trend in the United States. The students are re-learning something children already know instinctively -- that laughter makes you feel better. Barb Fisher, a certified laughter yoga teacher, states that "kids laugh about 400 times a day, and adults only about 15...Laughter is a gift that has been given to us to make us feel better."

Laughter is proving to be a tool to protect ourselves from heart disease. Dr. Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, sums up the benefits of laughter: "We don't know yet why laughing protects the heart, but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels. This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack...The ability to laugh -- either naturally or as learned behavior may have important implications in societies such as the U.S. where heart disease remains the number one killer."

Research into the positive effects of laughter is generating a global interest into humor and well-being. The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor sites this official definition of Therapeutic Humor: "Any intervention that promotes health and wellness by stimulating a playful discovery, expression or appreciation of the absurdity or incongruity of life's situations...This intervention may enhance health or be used as a complementary treatment of illness to facilitate healing or coping, whether physical, emotional, cognitive, social or spiritual."


How many other therapies can you think of that are effective, free, and have no known negative effects?



"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
~E.E. Cummings



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Pharmaceutical Biotech Scientist Discovers New Molecule to Treat Chronic Pain

08-15-2008


Northeastern University Pharmaceutical Sciences professor and Center for Drug Discovery director Alexandros Makriyannis and a team of researchers have created a synthetic molecule that could be used to treat chronic pain in patients with diseases such as diabetes or shingles.

The findings were published in a recent issue of Psychopharmacology in an article titled “Discriminative stimulus functions in rats of AM1346, a high-affinity CB1R selective anandamide analog.” The team of researchers involved in this study included Northeastern University Pharmaceutical Sciences researchUniversity of Connecticut. associate professor Torbjorn U.C. Jarbe, as well as Chen Li and Qian Liu, formerly of the

The new molecule, AM1346, mimics, though is more powerful than, anandamide an endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter found prominently in the brains of humans and animals. Anandamide is a naturally occurring part of the endocannabinoid system that regulates pain, controls heart rate and blood pressure, and modulates mood and appetite.

In order to test anandamide against AM1346, the researchers studied discriminative behavior in rats and concluded that the animals act in a similar fashion when injected with the two agents. Makriyannis said the rats were trained to respond to an injection of AM1346 by pushing a lever that delivered food to the animals. When trained without exposure to AM1346, an alternate lever produced food. Thus, the presence or absence of the training drug controlled the choice behavior of the animals. Additionally, the cannabinoid antidote rimonabant blocked these drug effects. That is, the animals selected the nondrug associated lever in tests with rimonabant and the other drugs.

“AM1346 is a more potent and stable synthetic compound than anandamide,” Makriyannis said. “It will serve as a test compound to study and understand more completely the endocannabinoid system and could have potential therapeutic implications as a topically applied pain killer,” he said, adding that there is considerable interest from the pharmaceutical industry for researchers to discover new medications within the body’s biochemical system.

For more information on Professor Makriyannis’ research, please contact Jason Kornwitz at 617-373-5729 or j.kornwitz@neu.edu.