Heritage Snapshot: Part 194

Lee S. Berk, DrPH, MPH, and his associates’ studies have documented the beneficial effects of mirthful laughter on the loss of appetite, depression, bereavement, aging, spirituality, fatigue, inflammation, and even anger. As described last week, Loma Linda research has demonstrated that expectation and anticipation, as much as the humor intervention episode itself, can initiate changes in mood states prior to the actual experience. It lowers three stress hormones: cortisol, epinephrine, and dopac. Research has shown that chronically high stress hormone levels can be detrimental to a person’s health, particularly the immune system. Berk’s research has shown that mirthful laughter also increases production of antibodies and activates the body’s protective cells, especially natural killer cells’ killing activity of tumor cells. It also enhances mood, lowers bad cholesterol and systolic blood pressure, and raises good cholesterol. Berk and his colleagues’ research results have been broadcast by CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, WebMd, National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, the Korean equivalent of “60 Minutes,” “Beyond 2000,” “Good Morning America,” “CBS This Morning,” Discovery’s The Learning Channel, ABC’s “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings” and National Public Radio’s “Science Friday.” It also has been published by the Los Angeles Times, The Telegraph (Great Britain), USA Today, The Sydney Morning-Herald, National Geographic World, and The Scientist: The News Journal for the Life Scientist. His work has been featured by news media in Australia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Switzerland. The Canadian Broadcasting Company’s segment was entitled, “He who laughs, Lasts.” The interview on ABC’s “World News Tonight” was motivated by the motion picture, Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams, which tells the true story of Hunter “Patch” Adams, MD. Dr. Adams, a friend of Dr. Berk, used humor and laughter for years in his medical practice. Dr. Berk discussed the effects of mirthful spirit on the immune system and how a positive attitude affects wellness with television personalities Steve Allen and his wife Jayne Meadows on the television program, “Lifestyle Magazine,” hosted by Dan Matthews. The program was aired throughout the United States in 1998. The BBC interviewed Dr. Berk for a program titled “The Secret Life of Happiness” which explored some of the scientific and psychological reasons behind the emotion of happiness. It was aired throughout the United Kingdom in 2001. The benefits of routine aerobic exercise, promoted by Kenneth Cooper, “the father of aerobic exercise,” at first rejected, eventually became the cornerstone of preventive medicine. Later, in the late 1970s, when Dr. Berk and William Fry, MD, at Stanford University School of Medicine, started a pilot study that demonstrated reductions in stress hormones while watching humorous videos, Dr. Berk received a telephone call from Norman Cousins. He told Berk he needed to talk and made plans to come to Loma Linda. Cousins credits laughing from Marx Brothers films as one reason he survived a severe illness with a poor initial prognosis and with pain-free sleep. He not only published an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, but also wrote a best seller which was made into a movie, “Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing.” When Cousins asked what it would take to research laughter further, Berk answered that start-up money would be needed to begin the project. Cousins replied: “Who do I write the check to?” “And that was the beginning,” says Dr. Berk. Results were published last week. Dr. Berk is an internationally known expert on laughter and healing. He calls laughter “internal jogging.” Dr. Berk is contacted several times a week by medical institutions wanting to add more whole-person components to their total healing curricula, such as humor and music. Psychoneuroimmunology is more than a study of the benefits of mirthful laughter to the immune system. Dr. Berk and his team of doctoral physical therapy students in the Loma Linda University School of Allied Health Professions have expanded his understanding of Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Their latest research includes the electroencephalography (EEG) study of brain waves. Volunteers watched 10-minute video clips that were either humorous or stressful while connected to an EEG monitor. The B-Alert 10X System measured and recorded the amount and intensity of all brain wave frequencies up to 40 Hz. To their knowledge, this is one of the first studies to compare the positive brain state of humor–associated mirthful laughter to a stressed state using digital EEG. According to Berk, results documented that humor and its associated mirthful laughter produced the greatest amount of gamma wave activity in the brain that helps different parts of the brain function together to improve memory, perception, clear thinking and thought integration. Other benefits of increasing gamma brain waves include: Increased memory recall, increased sensory perception, increased compassion, enhanced learning ability, increased IQ, more positive thinking, more energy, peak physical and mental performance, and stronger feelings of blessings and peace. The digital technology, which Dr. Berk began using in 2014, has added a new dimension to his previous findings that laughter improves bodily health and wholeness by specifically lowering detrimental stress hormones and improving immune cell activity. “Laughter may be a good medicine not only for the health of your body but also for your brain cognition,” he says. Next Berk plans to research possible therapeutic effects of eating dark chocolate (at least 70 percent cocoa). Though thought of mainly as a confection, Berk says that cocoa appears to be one of the foods that makes us feel better. He is currently conducting an analysis of peer-reviewed literature on cocoa and plans to do EEG studies. A story written by Heather Reifsnyder and Herbert Atienza and published in the Winter edition of Scope, the Magazine of Loma Linda University Health, ends with, “He probably won’t have trouble finding study volunteers.”