The Science
Connecting Health and Emotions
M.P. Note: I first heard of Dr. Sternberg from our board
member Elias Guerrero, M.D., M.P.A. who had arranged for Dr. Sternberg to speak
at the National Hispanic Medical Association conference this year. He was so enthusiastic
about her sharing and the audience response that he bought me a copy of her book.
I am presently reading it slowly and decided to share with you excerpts from the
book jacket copy because, like Elias, I am very impressed by this landmark scientific
work.
Since ancient times humans have felt intuitively that emotions
and health are linked, and recently there has been much popular speculation about
this notion. But until now, without compelling evidence, it has been impossible
to say for sure that such a connection really exists and especially how it works.
Now that evidence has been discovered.
A thrilling scientific detective story, The Balance Within
tells how researchers finally uncovered the elusive mind-body connection and what
it means for our health. In this beautifully written book, Dr. Ester Sternberg,
whose discoveries were pivotal in helping to solve this mystery, provides firsthand
accounts of the breakthrough experiments that revealed the physical mechanisms
- the nerves, cells, and hormones - used by the brain and the immune system to
communicate with each other. She describes just how stress can make us more susceptible
to all types of illness, and how the immune system can alter our moods.
A fascinating, elegantly written portrait of this rapidly emerging
field with enormous potential for finding new ways to treat disease and cope with
stress...essential reading for anyone interested in making their body and mind
whole again.
Esther
M. Sternberg, MD., Director, Integrative Neural Immune
Program, National Institute of Mental Health/National Institutes
of Health, Rheumatologist and Author, was trained in rheumatology
at McGill University and practiced medicine in Montreal before
returning to a research career and teaching at Washington University
in St. Louis. The winner of the Public Health Service Superior
Service Award and President of the International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation,
Dr. Sternberg has written over one hundred scientific papers,
reviews, and book chapters on the subject of brain-immune connections.
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