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What Is the Placebo Effect?

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Having a positive attitude can be as vital for healing as any drug.  Your brain can directly affect how fast you recover from an ailment and how healthy you stay afterward.

Hence the Placebo Effect.

If a patient is convinced beyond all doubt a gelcap filled with sugar will cure them, then it very well may.  Of course, most of the time this patient has to be convinced that this gelcap contains a powerful / miracle drug.

In light of the Placebo Effect, you should try to observe the effect of the different treatments or lifestyle changes as objectively as possible.  Ideally, you should keep a positive attitude all the time.  But, since this is most likely not realistic (not for me at least), you might try rotating psoriasis treatments and see what effect they have over the long run.

It is because of the Placebo Effect that drugs or herbal remedies should be tested with double-blind studies.  These are studies in which large numbers of people (with psoriasis for example) take either a placebo or a test-medication at random.  The patients must not know which they are taking to maintain the study’s integrity.  But the doctors keep track of this and report success if significantly more of the people who took the medication improved beyond those who took the placebo.

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What Effect Does Eating Turkey Have on Psoriasis?

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Both psoriatics and doctors tend to agree that a diet with minimal meat content is ideal for fending off Psoriasis. This was confirmed during World War 2 when large numbers of people (including individuals with psoriasis) where held in prison camps, where they were forced to live off of low protein diets.  Despite their all-around bad health, those with psoriasis saw their condition improve.

Later on, in the late 60′s, researchers thought they had discovered a new anti-psoriatic food with turkey.  They believed that turkey was low in the amino acid, tryptophan, which was thought to be the reason for this therapeutic quality.  It turns out that turkey actually has high quantities of tryptophan, and the meat itself it actually not much of an anti-psoriatic food.  Meat in general, including turkey, tends to aggravate psoriasis symptoms.

It is now believed that tryptophan makes psoriasis outbreaks worse.  In fact, tryptophan may be a vital ingredient involved in creating the skin lesions that characterize psoriasis.

You might try verifying this claim in about month when Thanksgiving comes around again.  Trying out different types of food and observing your body’s reaction is one of the most effective ways (maybe the the only way) to weed out the foods that exacerbate your psoriasis outbreaks.

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Food Allergies and Psoriasis

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Allergic reactions can trigger psoriasis outbreaks.   In particular, the food you eat on a regular basis might be keeping your body in a state of continual allergic irritation, thus compounding your psoriasis symptoms.

Rotating your meals, or eating different foods on a regular basis, will allows you observe your body’s reactions to different foods, thus narrowing down what food groups you might be allergic to  You can also have allergy tests done using skin a blood samples.  Just keep in mind that these skin and blood tests all by themselves tend to be insufficient to for determining food allergies.  It is better to have an idea of what your food allergies are based on everyday observation and then request a blood or skin lab test based on your observations/suspicions.

After you eat something your body is allergic to you might notice any of the following: Rashes, nausea, abdominal pain, headaches or heart palpitations.  Generally, an allergic reaction will throw off some of your basic bodily functions.

People with psoriasis have reported sensitivity to the following foods:

  • Nuts (peanuts in particular)
  • Cow’s milk
  • Bananas
  • Beef (red meat)
  • Eggs
  • Pork
  • Caffeine (including chocolate)
  • Wheat
  • White rice
  • Processed food (anything with a lot of preservatives)

This list doesn’t represent all the food you must be allergic to, these are just some of the more foods that people with psoriasis commonly have issues with.

Much like psoriasis, your allergies will probably evolve over time.  People can “outgrow” their allergies, which is good, but then the old allergies may be replaced with new ones, so you’ll have to keep on your toes in any case.

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The Effects of Alcohol on Psoriasis

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Have you ever read the novel Brave New World (by Aldous Huxley)?  Toward the beginning of the book, the process of human engineering is explained, the main ingredient of which is alcohol — fetuses develop well or not so well based on how much alcohol they are exposed to (deliberately).  I bring this up to illustrate the general fact that alcohol is a poison to our bodies.

It is no surprise, therefore, that alcohol weakens the full grown human body, especially vital elements such as the liver, blood and immune system. The weaker the body is, the more susceptible it will be to psoriasis flare ups.

It has been observed that people suffering from psoriasis tend to drink more than those without, which then makes the condition worsen.  On the other hand, people who abstain from alcohol altogether tend to see noticeable (sometimes dramatic) improvements in their psoriasis.

Alcohol can also hinder psoriasis medications, or cause them to function adversely.  This is also a general rule with all body-altering medications, whether or not it mentions alcohol on the bottle.

Also, alcohol (I hate to admit) is an ineffective method for dealing with stress.  Whereas emotional stress causes wear and tear on the body in one way, alcohol only introduces another kind of physical stress, thus introducing the body to an unhealthy cycle from which it will struggle to recover.  Such patterns steadily weaken the body’s natural defenses, thus opening it up to unbridled psoriasis break-outs.

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