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Lessons from Outliers. When the extraordinary becomes the ordinary in health care

April 17, 2014 By christiansciencewi

extraordinary health care eric nelson wisconsin
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Spontaneous remission of cancer, drugs from bugs, what do these two recent news articles published on the same day have in common?  Outliers.  Finding  extraordinary health results in the ordinary and natural. My colleague Eric Nelson from northern California explores this topic in an article published in Communities Digital News April 14, 2014.  In the Wisconsin State Journal on April 14, 2014  health reporter David Wahlberg tells about UW Madison researcher Cameron Currie  and colleagues receiving a $16 million grant to discover what bugs may offer in treating  drug-resistant infections.   Both stories suggest outliers may carry the key to better health.  An excerpt from Nelson’s article is  found below.   Click at the bottom for a link to Eric’s  full article.

By Eric Nelson — When asked during a recent AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) interview on Reddit what he thought about spontaneous remission of cancer, David Agus, M.D., was quick to respond: “We need to focus on outliers. The physics world has learned the most by explaining the outliers. We have ignored them unfortunately.”

Outliers – in medical parlance, something that stands apart from the rest, as in the physical recovery from disease or injury that is effected through unexpected or unexplainable means – are at once good news and bad news for people who study these kinds of things. Good news because it’s always nice to see someone get better, regardless of how it happens. Bad news because they force us, often reluctantly, to give up the old for the new as it relates to our perception of how the body heals, which may explain why such data are often ignored.

Unfortunately, this tendency to deny the potential significance of even the smallest bit of evidence could very well be what’s keeping us from making greater headway in the treatment of disease. When asked how cancer research is progressing, for instance, Agus, author of The End of Illness and co-founder of Navigenics, a personalized medicine company, didn’t mince words: “Not well enough!”

Click here to read more

Filed Under: Health and Wellbeing Tagged With: California, Cameron Currie, cancer remission, David Agus, David Wahlberg, drug resistance, eric nelson, health, health care, MD, Navigenics, outliers, UW Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin State Journal

About Margaret

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I have had a life-long interest in learning and public service.  Currently, I am researching and engaging in the conversation about the role prayer and spirituality play in our health.  Through this blog, I am sharing articles, ideas, and studies on the trends in this field.

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