Hypnosis News

The more abnormalities in intestinal and brain function that IBS sufferers have, the more severe their symptoms of this functional bowel disorder, and the more adversely their everyday life is affected. This is shown by a Sahlgrenska Academy study indicating that patients with IBS should get treatments for different abnormalities simultaneously, to improve both bowel function and signaling from the brain to the gut.

IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is very common. Up to one out of ten adults in Sweden has this functional bowel disorder to some degree of severity. Diagnostic criteria for the IBS diagnosis include abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea, and irregular bowel activity over a long period. The underlying causes are not entirely known, but abnormalities both locally in the intestines and in the central nervous system are thought to be implicated.

Currently, no available treatment cures IBS, but its symptoms can be alleviated. There are drugs that can improve intestinal function in various ways, and in some cases brain-directed therapy is also given.

There are studies showing that hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and antidepressants can all have an effect against IBS. The view of the gut and brain working together in IBS is beginning to be increasingly accepted, so many gastroenterology clinics are striving to work holistically, in multiprofessional teams, to manage their IBS patients.”

A large proportion of the world’s estimated 9.3 million breast cancer survivors experience menopausal symptoms or clinical manifestations of estrogen deficiency. A comprehensive review published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism focuses on current and future approaches to management of menopausal symptoms after breast cancer.

Menopause is a normal part of a woman’s aging process but pre-menopausal women treated with chemotherapy can also develop premature menopause, and consequently, severe menopausal symptoms including sleep disorders, vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA), vasomotor symptoms (VMS), mood changes, depressive symptoms, cardiovascular disease, osteopenia, and osteoporosis. Hormone therapy may help relieve a woman’s menopausal symptoms but is not recommended for women who have had breast cancer.

“Following breast cancer, women should generally not be treated with menopausal hormone therapy but should instead focus on lifestyle modifications such as smoking cessation, weight loss, and regular physical activity,” said the study’s first author, Richard J. Santen, M.D., of the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Va. “Pharmacologic agents are also available to treat women with severe symptoms. The most important thing to remember is that therapy must be individualized based on each woman’s needs and goals.”

Santen and colleagues reviewed controlled clinical trials, observational studies, evidence-based guidelines, and expert opinion from professional societies to address the gap in treatment recommendations for management of menopausal symptoms after breast cancer.

A new study published Feb. 20, 2020, in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine details the first comprehensive look across the scientific literature at the role of mind-body therapies in addressing opioid-treated pain. The researchers found that certain mind-body therapies can reduce pain, as well as reduce opioid use, among patients treated with prescription opioids.

Garland explained that mind-body therapies focus on changing behavior and the function of the brain with the goal of improving quality of life and health. Mind-body therapies include clinical use of meditation/mindfulness, hypnosis, relaxation, guided imagery, therapeutic suggestion and cognitive-behavioral therapy.

The researchers examined over 4,200 articles to identify 60 previously published randomized controlled trials on psychologically oriented mind-body therapies for opioid-treated pain. The randomized controlled trials included in the study involved more than 6,400 study participants. The research team looked at the type of pain experienced by the study participants (such as short-term pain from a medical procedure or long-term chronic pain), the type of mind-body therapy used, its effect on the severity of pain and the use (or misuse) of opioids.

They found that meditation/mindfulness, hypnosis, therapeutic suggestion and cognitive-behavioral therapy all demonstrated significant improvements in pain severity. They also found that the majority of the meditation/mindfulness, therapeutic suggestion and cognitive-behavioral therapy studies showed improvements in opioid use or misuse. In contrast, two studies utilizing relaxation found significantly worsened results in opioid dosing.

Notably, mind-body therapies seem to be effective at reducing acute pain from medical procedures, as well as chronic pain. The researchers highlighted this as an important finding, as mind-body therapies could be easily integrated into standard medical practice and could potentially prevent chronic use of opioids and opioid use disorder.