Feb 15 2012
Bravewell Puts Integrative Cart Before Science Horse
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Bravewell Puts Integrative Cart Before Science Horse”.
25 Responses to “Bravewell Puts Integrative Cart Before Science Horse”
“They are well-funded…”
What is the source of their funding?
They don’t have any obvious place on their web site that discloses where their money came from, but they are what’s called an “operating foundation,” which means they are basically spending an endowment. It appears, from their history, that it comes from the George Family Foundation. I don’t know how they George’s made their money, but they appear to have plenty of it.
Answering my own question:
Penny George, wife of Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic
Christy Mack, wife of John J. Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley
Blythe Brenden, Brenden Mann Foundation; think Mann’s Chinese Theatre
A less charitable person than I might speculate that Bravewell is the product of aging trophy wives with more dollars than sense.
Orac has some more details on funding: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/02/surveying_the_integrative_medicine_lands.php
Essentially – a few wealthy and woo-friendly donors trying to promote their spiritual world-view
“In the 1980s I was taught in medical school about the biopsychosocial model of medicine – taking into account not just the biological illness but the social and cultural factors in which it is embedded, and the patient’s psychological response to their illness and the patient-physician relationship.”
The tradition in mainstream scientific medicine dates back to much earlier than that. I was taught the same biopsychosocial model of medicine in medical school in the 1960s, and it was particularly emphasized in my training as a family physician. Even back in 1927, Francis Peabody argued in the JAMA for “integrating” psychosocial factors with biological factors, concluding “The secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.” His essay is well worth reading today: http://cell2soul.typepad.com/files/the_care_of_the_patient-1.pdf
I’ll repeat what I said about naturopaths: what they do that is good is not special, and what they do that is special is not good. That applies as well to all of CAM and Integrative Medicine.
How sad that millions of dollars are being wasted on marketing and ineffective treatments when there so many pressing needs in U.S. health care: access to care, educating and training more primary care physicians, research, etc., etc. It’s sickening to think how many uninsured (and underinsured) people could have been treated with all of this money.
[...] jumping in myself, but before you read the blather I have to lay down, you really should read what Steve wrote about it. It’s that good. (Also, he’s our fearless leader, and I wouldn’t want him to [...]
I don’t know about yoga and massage, but the assertion that there is “no evidence” for “anything special” about meditation is incorrect. There are a number of interesting studies that have been done. For example this one small study:
Lutz A, Slagter HA, Rawlings NB, Francis AD, Greischar LL, Davidson RJ.
“Mental training enhances attentional stability: neural and behavioral evidence.”
J Neurosci. 2009 Oct 21;29(42):13418-27.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19846729
This is not to say that there is magical “evidence” that one can think happy thoughts and cure cancer or athlete’s foot but it is to say that current research in neuroscience has shown measurable effects of meditation. In addition, investigations into concepts such as neuroplasticity and the general shift away from viewing the brain as hard-wired support the plausible notion that a thing like meditation can do more than simply relax the body but also change brain function.
Unfortunately in cases of people like the Bravewell group, cart-before-horse thinking turns promising new areas of research into potentially lucrative businesses whose products are sold by testimonials and often carry the ultimate imprimatur, “As Seen On TV!”
Many of the centers and hospitals listed by Bravewell were also funded by NIH NCCAM. The medical impact of this funding can be assessed by using NIH project reporter, checking the project proposal submitted by the institution, and reading the resulting research publications. If anyone finds a important medical breakthrough missed in our article ( Mielczarek, Engler) Measuring Mythology please let us know.
I think you hit the nail on its proverbial head.
More than you know, Kimball. More than you know:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411
Quill:
“the assertion that there is “no evidence” for “anything special” about meditation is incorrect. There are a number of interesting studies that have been done.”
Indeed. So also for Yoga and many other practices. The problem, to me, is that not one such study (at least that I have been able to find) has bothered to define any of these practices operationally. What is the demonstrable difference between someone “meditating” and someone else “just sitting there”? The difference between a person “doing Tai Chi” and somebody “moving around slowly”? Between “Yoga” and “standing in a funny pose”?
Until an empirically meaningful (not philosophical) boundary can be established between “meditation” and “sitting on a pillow,” between “acupuncture” and “sticking needles in people,” there can be no sense in discussing any evidence from studies.
@ Rabbit: If you click on the Pubmed link I posted and look just below the end of the abstract, you’ll find a free link to the whole paper. They do go into some detail about what kind of meditation was used and while I’d agree that it is very difficult at present to quantify different kinds of meditation it is distinct from simply sitting around all day. There are active processes involved that are not just relaxing or contemplating random thoughts and continued use of these specific processes do seem to change brain function.
@Gorski & Atwood: perhaps yes it’s “aging trophy wives with more dollars than sense,” but I’ll guarantee you the spouses and their lawyers have a lot of sense in this matter. Why? Letting them run a business is vastly cheaper than divorce.
Why can’t I get a loan from the fed on the same terms as those wives of those financial geniuses? Maybe the fed is becoming a zombie bank. Zombie banks only support zombie institutions and not actual ones.
@Quill,
Would memorizing the multiplication table change brain function?
along the lines of weing here…. yes, there is still nothing special about meditation or yoga. It is plainly understood scientific knowledge that exercise and increased flexibility (yoga) has positive health effects for myriad reasons. And that thinking and engaging your cognitive functions in a conducive environment has positive cognitive effects (meditation).
But there is nothing special about “meditation” that isn’t similarly encapsulated by me sitting down and pondering biochemistry or simply being introspective about my day.
The “changing the brain” this is also oversold. Experience changes the brain – that’s kind of the whole point of learning and memory. This study shows that practicing attention can make subjects a little better at attention – they learned to have better attention. This is not surprising, and does not imply that there is anything special about meditation as a form of relaxation. I also specifically mentioned “transcendental” meditation for a reason – there is especially no reason to assume anything special about TM from any other form of quietly reflecting.
[...] the same time, it was clear during the media briefing and from some responses since that this report from the Bravewell Collaborative of philanthropists in integrative medicine is not [...]
[...] the same time, it was clear during the media briefing and from some responses since that this report from the Bravewell Collaborative of philanthropists in integrative medicine is not [...]
@Quill, I suggest you read the part of Owen Flanagan’s book ‘The Bodhisattva’s Brain’ about the research into mediation and happiness. He is a philosopher of mind who has a lot of contact with the Dali Lama, and has written extensively about both mind science and Buddhism. Flanagan is extremely skeptical that the scientific research has shown anything like what the media reports about the power of meditation. He brings up a lot of interesting assumptions that the lay public wrongly makes when trying to interpret these neuroimaging studies.
@ Daniel M: Thanks for recommending one of Professor Flanagan’s books. I’m familiar with several and think he’s contributing mightily to emerging areas of human knowledge. Plus he writes well, always a pleasant surprise when dealing with the meeting of the physical and metaphysical.
[...] the same time, it was clear during the media briefing and from some responses since that this report from the Bravewell Collaborative of philanthropists in integrative medicine is not [...]
[...] “Integrative Medicine in America” report published by the Bravewell Collaborative. Drs. Novella and Gorski have already given that report its due, so I won’t repeat the background [...]
[...] three recent posts, Drs. Novella, Gorski and Atwood took the Bravewell Collaborative to task over a report on its recent survey of [...]
[...] report. Many of the issues of the Bravewell report have already been discussed by Dr’s Gorski, Novella and Atwood; I might as well pile on. What is striking about the report is how many of what I would [...]