Anyone who watched Derren Brown’s latest phsychological programme will have seen him having quite staggering results helping people to overcome their fears using a placebo drug.
Sounds great, but some of the people on the programme had allergies, asthma and dermatitis. The coverage was sketchy but there were random comments from participants saying they had less asthma and their skin was better.
On one hand, this is great.
It would seem that by mastering feelings of self belief, conquering low self esteem, realising the power we all have as individuals to achieve whatever we want to achieve that we can, if we wish really hard and click our heels together, rid ourselves of our allergies, eczema, psoriasis, asthma etc.
Oh how I wish that that were true.
However there is some truth in this. I know that everything seems better when I am not stressed, not overdoing it with work (not easy when you work freelance and all the work comes in at once), am getting plenty of exercise and feeling generally good about myself.
Anyone who has suffered with depression in the past will know what an important part the mind can play on so many other aspects of our lives. Finding and keeping that work vs life balance and maintaining a healthy immune system are vital for those living with allergies.
If I eat any dairy I will still have an allergic reaction, but if my asthma is well managed, I am not stressed out and am able to remain calm, not panic and am fit and healthy I have a far less swift and dangerous attack. This isn’t always the case as a big dose of dairy or nuts by mistake can have very fast and debilitating affects, but I also know from experience that generally I have fewer reactions and of less severity when I’m really healthy.
On the other hand this is really damaging for those of us fighting for better awareness of the very real danger that allergies pose to those unfortunate enough to have life threatening reactions. It just compounds the belief of many that people with allergies are making it up.
That we are fussy.
That it is all in our heads.
I can assure you Derren, it is not all in my head.
I don’t fear the food, by my body does. It will react even when I don’t know I’ve been given the allergen in question, by mistake or from cross contamination. It is NOT something you can cure with a placebo drug.
What is important is that a real allergy is the immune system reacting to protein in food as an invader. It isn’t going to just stop doing that just because you are happier or think someone has given you a drug to cure you and it’s dangerous to suggest it might.
I do hope that in the future science will grasp exactly how to block these reactions but for the time being the only solution is vigilence and complete avoidance of the allergens that trigger anaphylaxis.
I wonder whether Derren has any real experience of someone who has life threatening anaphylaxis or chronic asthma. Perhaps footage was cut that wasn’t deemed to be quite so news worthy. Perhaps the people on the programme didn’t have very bad skin, allergies etc. but we the viewers were not given that information.
I’m interested to hear what everyone else thought of this programme. Did you watch it?
Was this research in any way scientific? Did they rank or score the participants level of fear, allergy or phobia before the trial began? How did they monitor the results? What was really going on there? Was it just another highly edited and sensationalist stunt – just what we have come to expect from Derren.
So, what do you think? Would love to hear all your views.
Derren – if you’re reading this are you man enough to comment?
My two year old daughter is milk soya intolerant and wheat allergic. I wish it was stress that caused her dermatitis, and made her vomiting and stomach cramps, and it was all in her head, but a year of hell tells me it was most definitely not. At the end of the day its a TV program its all cameras and behind the scenes. Like u say…I’d love to see him actually try and make a difference to someone that it would really make a severe change to. I have a friend whose wee boy has really bad asthma…. is that in his head. Being scared of social interaction….not really what I want to watch on TV. Most people don’t like uncomfortable social situations…so we don’t throw ourselves in front of the camera and trust some in trustworthy guy.
Yes it is very different with children. The placebo effect doesn’t really work with them. We all know it’s real but the TV and radio do very little to dispel the myth that ‘allergies are all in the mind’
I’ve not seen it yet, I confess. But all you need to know is that Derren Brown is a magician. He plays tricks. Even he says that. It’s not real, folks, it’s a TV show as Cassie says. That said, power of the mind is absolutely vital in any illness – the fastest branch of medicine is psychoneuroimmunology – the link between mind and body.
The mind is very powerful, stress, positive thinking, it all helps me cope with my allergies better when I can control this aspect of my life. But control is the key word here. It just worries me that programmes like this only further confuse allergy awarness and give more fodder for the ‘allergies are in your head’ brigade. Woe betide the next person who tells me that.
Allergies have nothing to do with illusion and magic. They are potentially life threatening and always have massive impact on quality of life. We already have a poor allergy service in the UK. In the past 6 years we have had two White Papers from the House of Lords and three from the Royal College of Physions condemning the state of the service. I recently had one client complaining her GP called all allergies black magic.! Intolerances or hypersensitivity which effect approx 45% of the population ( Allergy UK ) also can have adverse quality of life issues but are not potentionally fatal. Both of these conditions are on the increase .
Stress can play a part epically in eczema but it is not the underlying cause. Darren has a very entertaining show but when it comes to allergy that is all it is. If it was as simple as that then the WHO and health services globally could save millions of pounds per year.
Lets not trivialise these conditions further when already the service patients receive is inadequate to say the least.
Lords
I totally agree Marlene, I actually enjoyed the programme but with the state of allergy services and allergy awareness in the UK this sort of coverage is hardly going to help. We all know Stress plays a part and the placebo effect can also have startling results, but real IgE mediated allergy resposes aren’t going to go away after taking a sugar based placebo and having a chat with Derren.