A quote I heard from an attending:
"Every so often, I cut someone off in traffic. I figure that will ensure I don't get cancer or ALS."
(Actually, I don't think this guy had anything to worry about...)
Is there any truth to that statement? Is being nice a poor prognostic factor?
Not sure about that concept per se.. but I do recall reading that men who are very giving and devote a lot of their time to helping others have a slightly more than average likelihood of infidelity because they feel like all the good things they do helps them to mentally justify that one area of weakness.
ReplyDeleteI will also say that in my experience of caring for cancer patients, they usually are sweet and wonderful people- much moreso than a run of the mill CHFer, for example. I also think terminal cancer can change a person in positive ways so it's a chicken or the egg thing, too.
Haha. I don't think there's much to it.... perhaps when people get really sick they BECOME nicer in order for people to not hate caring for them, as kind of an adaptive mechanism.
ReplyDeleteI don't know... generally speaking, when I get the newly diagnosed, the nicest ones have the worst prognoses. Came in with a headache and now you have brain mets with an unknown primary? Chances are you'll rival mother Teresa for woman of the century. *sigh* Makes me glad I'm on maternity leave right now.
ReplyDeleteIn my very limited experience, the nicer patients have always had the more serious illness. The exception was the really really mean guy with a CD4 count of 10.
ReplyDeleteOne truth in medicine is that awful people live FOREVER. And they often live on your service.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe the awful people demand help sooner, wheras the nice ones are less demanding and don't get it as soon as they don't want to 'bother' people?
ReplyDeleteGood people tend to die early, but that could just be because good people are emotional people, and emotional people are stressed.
ReplyDeleteLOL Max!
ReplyDeletei would vote for the opposite!
ReplyDelete"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
ReplyDelete--Ernest Hemingway from "A Farewell to Arms"
Seems like a conundrum. Hopefully the apparent generality indicates a false/positive reaction... of sorts. Like an allergy reaction... might indicate sensitivity but could be truly be a dis-ease.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably a reach but, yes, being nice is a poor prognostic factor. Being mean to people means you are more likely to die from trauma because people get pissed off and try to hurt you. Cancer is generally a disease of people who live long. Since mean people are more likely to be murdered, they are less likely to get cancer.
ReplyDeleteIt is probably a reason why people keep saying the best ones die young.. From experience, yes the niest ones have the worse conditions!
ReplyDeleteThey think that ALS comes from cyanobacteria, so cutting someone off will work if they are carrying the shipment of infected bottom feeders to the seafood restaurant s/he was planning on going to!
ReplyDeleteI actually think it's damn nifty that they've found this link to ALS, and it's clustered with people getting water from the same infected source or from eating certain things like blue crabs from Florida. It's in Houston's main water source, too, but they presumable filter and clean the water in the way it needs to be done. http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/was-lou-gehrigs-als-caused-by-tap-water-38804/
What Cait says makes sense
ReplyDeleteThere is a fascinating book "When the body says no" by Gabor Mate, in which he describes the mind-body connection. There is indeed some evidence (some of it anecdotal, but some researched) that nice people are more likely to get some diseases. It's a fascinating read, and the thesis is that suppressed negative emotions (nice people who are incapable of expressing or dealing with negative emotions) causes immune suppression that ultimately leads to disease. A great book!
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