Patients may have more accurate knowledge of their health than the information found in doctors’ blood tests, as reported in the study summarized below. The credibility of patient self-knowledge provides an added reason, besides respect for freedom, why government should not mandate an individual’s food and drug decisions.
(p. D4) . . . a . . . study . . . suggests that how patients say they feel may be a better predictor of health than objective measures like a blood test. The study, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, used data from 1,500 people who took part in the Texas City Stress and Health Study, which tracked the stress and health levels of people living near Houston.
. . .
The study found that when people said they felt poorly, they had high virus and inflammation levels. People who reported feeling well had low virus and inflammation levels.
“I think the take-home message is that self-reported health matters,” said Christopher P. Fagundes, an assistant psychology professor at Rice University and a co-author of the study. “Physicians should pay close to attention to their patients. There are likely biological mechanisms underlying why they feel their health is poor.”
For the full story see:
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 15, 2016 [sic], and has the title “Doctors Should Listen to Patient Instincts.”)
The academic paper co-authored by Fagundes and mentioned above is: