John’s Tai-Blog @ Camp Tai ChiTai Chi and anything I can relate to Tai Chi … like life

Has Tai Chi Become a Dead Salmon?

There is a lot of tai chi being taught around the world by people with little knowledge of the basics of tai chi as a martial art.  The students of these teachers are still seeing some pretty incredible health benefits.  How is this possible and does that mean that tai chi has fallen prey to the newly discovered “Dead Salmon Syndrome”?

What I’m referring to as the Dead Salmon Syndrome is a positive result, as it was discussed in a news story on LiveScience.com, about a Salmon purchased at a local market that’s now become a celebrity of sorts.  “The Salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations with a specified emotional valence [state]. The salmon was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.”  I’ll go into more detail about the Celebrity Salmon in a moment.

How the Dead Salmon Syndrome relates to the benefits of tai chi is what I’d like to talk about here.  The list of potential and proven health results attributed to tai chi could just as easily be the ever present dialogue of a snake-oil salesman at an 19th Century American Fair Ground.  How is it possible that a slow and relaxed series of choreographed movements could increase blood flow to the extremities, decrease blood pressure, increase physical energy levels, reduce headaches, increase lung functioning, decrease stress and stress related illnesses, stabilize thyroid functioning, decrease the need for a myriad of medications, increase overall health, provide a feeling of overall well being, and on and on?

Is it possible that these fantastic results are nothing more than the Placebo Effect in action?  Yes and no.  For years people have argued that the results garnered from small scientific and pseudo-scientific studies are anomalies, or that the conclusion were influenced by researcher bias.  While this is no doubt true in some cases, the sheer volume of data, along with a host of properly implemented scientific studies proves otherwise.

But wait, wouldn’t the sheer volume of studies dictate that some positive results would found even if tai chi weren’t all that effective?  While that’s true, there is very little data available that states tai chi has little positive effect on our health, quite the contrary.

Medical doctors have long known that a patient’s expectations can have a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of any treatment.  In fact it’s been demonstrated that physicians who tell their patients about the effectiveness of a treatment as it is being prescribed, have a higher cure rate than those who say nothing about the effectiveness of the treatment.  Remember though, that doesn’t mean the treatment is a placebo, or that it’s not effective in and of itself.

According to the LiveScience.com story:

The scientific saga of the salmon is as long and complex as a salmon’s journey from the ocean to a mountain stream to spawn.

It began in 2005 when Bennett picked up a salmon at a local market. An hour later he and colleagues stuck the fish in an fMRI scanner and did a bunch of different scans as part of a project at Dartmouth College to develop MRI protocols. They had previously scanned a pumpkin and a dead bird.  “The salmon was approximately 18 inches long, weighed 3.8 lbs, and was not alive at the time of scanning,” the poster presentation states. “The salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations with a specified emotional valence. The salmon was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.

“By far it was our crowning achievement in terms of ridiculous objects to scan,” Bennett recently wrote, on his blog, of the fish.

Then in 2008, Bennett was working with one of his advisers on a presentation about false positives in MRI data, specifically about misleading results that can come from what’s called a “multiple comparisons problem.” Bennett ran his 2005 fish data through some statistical programs and, sure enough, three false positives showed up in the salmon’s brain.

Scientific study after scientific study has shown that tai chi is highly beneficial for many, many ailments.  Does this mean that tai chi is an effective treatment for this long, long list of ailments?  Yes and no.  If the person practicing tai chi believes they will benefit, without a doubt the likelihood they will benefit increases.  Yet, people who doubt that tai chi will help them have a slightly lower success rate.  What we think about most often does matter, whether we’re taking medication, practicing tai chi, or both.  So keep up your practice and think good thoughts.  It never hurts to hedge your bets.

If this sounds fishy to you, tell me about it.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one.

John

P.S.  You can read the full LiveScience.com story here:  http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090927-dead-salmon-brain.html

I found this salmon pic here:  http://www.salmonfishingusa.com/