On: The Parasite Underground

[Houshalter]

Well it's still the most interesting part to me. It's crazy that a medical condition as objective as diarrhea or stomach pain can be so heavily influenced by psychology.

[refurb → Houshalter]

Don't forget that's it's common for autoimmune diseases to wax and wane. Even if a patients get no therapy at all, the disease often gets better for a short period of time.

[cpncrunch → refurb]

Also, stress affects autoimmunity [1], so it's possible that the placebo effect modulated the autoimmune disease itself.

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568997207...

[cpncrunch → Houshalter]

Yes it is fascinating. It's well established that the stress system modulates bowel motility (via crh) and absorption (via cortisol).