The task that faces the patient includes: (1) identifying the needs being met through the illness, and (2) finding ways of meeting those needs directly without illness. How can you identify these needs? We invite you to participate in an exercise we use with our patients to help them begin to recognize the benefits of their illness.Get a piece of paper and list the five most important benefits you received from a major illness in your life. (You may find that there are more than five.) If you have or have had cancer, use this as the basis for this exercise.The following is an example of how the exercise can work. During the preparation of this book, we had a conference with a business associate in Vail, Colorado. We got through the conference ahead of schedule and our associate, a nonskier, decided he would take some skiing lessons. He returned from the lessons exhausted and flew home. By the next day, he had developed a case of the flu that kept him in bed for two full weeks. In an effort to get well again and to apply the concepts we had described to him in Vail, he discussed the situation preceding the onset of the flu and then listed six benefits he derived from his illness.At the time I became ill, I was having a lot of trouble finishing a job in which I had a great emotional and financial stake. It was very important to me that it be completed in a splendid fashion, but the work was going slowly and I had doubts about the product I was producing. By getting sick I was able to meet many needs at once:1. I wanted my wife’s help on the project but felt that, unless I literally couldn’t do it myself, it would be wrong for me to distract her from her own activities to help me.2. I needed the excuse of “something beyond my control” for not finishing the project on time.3. I may also have been preparing an excuse for any imperfections that might appear in it.4. It gave me a reason to get seriously involved with my own health, which meant among other things resolving that when I got well I would find the time to play tennis, an activity that I enjoy but which I normally don’t do because I’m “too busy.”5. It was a simple rest from my daily labors, which were giving me a lot of stress.6. The work at Vail called up many memories of my father’s own death from a brain tumor. The unresolved issues of that situation were very much on my mind.Clearly his physical exhaustion, both from the unusual exertion of skiing and the stress of completing a major job, contributed to his susceptibility to disease. But, as his answers show, the disease also gave him permission to rest, to ask for help, to take care of himself, to recharge his energy, to release himself from’ the tension of meeting very high standards, to remake decisions regarding priorities and lifestyle—all of which he had been unable to do without the illness.The final pressure, the feelings about his father’s death, was stirred up by the discussion of our approach to cancer treatment. Getting comfortable with this approach required that he start to resolve his feelings about his father’s death.In going over the lists our patients write, we find five major areas in which they most frequently benefit from their illnesses:1. Receiving permission to get out of dealing with a troublesome problem or situation.2. Getting attention, care, nurturing from people around them.3. Having an opportunity to regroup their psychological energy to deal with a problem or to gain a new perspective.4. Gaining an incentive for personal growth or for modifying undesirable habits.5. Not having to meet their own or others’ high expectations.Now review your own list. Consider what underlying needs were met by your illness: relief from stress, love and attention an opportunity to renew your energy, and so forth. Next, try to identify the rules or beliefs that limit you from meeting each of these needs when you are well.One of our patients discovered that she felt a lack of physical closeness from her husband, but it was unthinkable for her simply to ask for affection and caring when she was well. Now she has given herself permission to say to her husband at any time, “I want a hug.” She also learned some important things about herself as she looked at why it was so difficult to ask for physical closeness from her husband.Ask yourself if you have been unable to allow yourself periods of release from tension. What personal beliefs stop you from giving yourself this freedom without needing the illness as justification? You might believe, for example, that it is a “sign of weakness” to give in to pressure or tension, or that it is your duty to put others’ needs ahead of your own. Because these rules are mostly unconscious, this self-examination will take effort. But taking preventive action to avoid future illness is worth your time and energy. Once you begin to become aware of your internal rules and are able to see alternative ways of viewing situations, you are on the road to a healthier life.By using the lessons of illness as a starting point, we can educate ourselves to recognize our needs and take the opportunity to satisfy them. This is the creative use of illness.*38\347\2*

Individuals with eating disorders usually have a difficult time absorbing the nutrient any other way. This is because zinc in powder, tablet, or capsule form must first be absorbed by the small intestine before it can do any good. And if the zinc is combined with another element (as it is in zinc sulfate, gluconate, or picolinate, for example), first the complex has to be broken down in the stomach to liberate the zinc, then it must be absorbed by the small intestine. People with eating disorders usually have digestive difficulties; therefore, these products are relatively useless. Liquid zinc, on the other hand, will bypass the stomach and small intestine and directly enter the blood and liver. Once the liver recognizes zinc’s presence, a positive chain of events will be set into motion.It may take some time, anywhere from three days to three weeks, before the effects of liquid zinc are seen. This is because zinc depends on a protein carrier, and it generally takes several days for zinc to facilitate its production. Once the protein carrier is synthesized, zinc is transported to where it needs to go. The nutrient begins to saturate brain tissue and effect a positive shift in perceptions. As zinc is involved in over 200 enzyme reactions in the brain, this influx begins to correct the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the eating disorder.Schauss is not the only researcher to praise the benefits of liquid zinc. Its value has been confirmed worldwide in several studies performed since the 1980s. Placebo-controlled, double-blind experiments do confirm that most eating-disorder patients are zinc-deficient and that administering liquid zinc is highly beneficial. Further, five years after initial treatment with liquid zinc, follow-up studies find that nearly 65 percent of bulimics and 85 percent of anorexics remain fully recovered. Additionally, liquid zinc has been correlated with mood improvement. The latter findings have implications not just for people with eating disorders but for a wider population with mental health concerns.Clearly then, liquid zinc should be a first line of defense in any eating disorders program. Available in the United States since 1984, the product is safe, effective, and easy to use. A problem, however, is that most eating-disorder treatment facilities have been slow to recognize zinc’s importance. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, including financial ones. Institutional costs of programs that combat eating disorders can add up to nearly $30,000 a month. By contrast, liquid zinc costs $2 to $5 a day and promises good results.It should be remembered that, even if you don’t have an eating disorder, zinc is an important nutrient for appetite regulation as well as for bolstering the immune system and maintaining optimum skin condition. Some good food sources of this mineral include wheat germ, lima beans, lentils, almonds, split peas, tuna, and pumpkin seeds.*63\233\8*

In the 1940s and 50s, before the days of coronary bypass surgery, an operation intended to improve the circulation of blood through the heart was carried out on many thousands of patients with angina. The method was to ligate two arteries below the sternum in the belief that new blood vessels would grow to bypass the block, helping the heart. The rationale for this important operation, which was successful, came to be doubted when the new irrigation of the heart could not be observed. Astonishingly, two groups of surgeons and physicians, one at Harvard and the other at the University of Pennsylvania, obtained ethical permission to carry out a placebo trial. In one group of patients, arteries were exposed and ligated in the approved fashion, while in the other group the arteries were exposed but not blocked. The observing physicians and the volunteer patients did not know who had the true operation and who had the sham. The majority of patients in both groups of patients showed great improvement in the amount of reported pain, in their walking distance, in their consumption of drugs, and in some cases in the shape of their electrocardiogram. This is a rare example of surgery being submitted to a placebo trial, and the improvement of both groups was maintained over six months of observation despite a general belief that placebos have only a brief fading action.*63\219\2*