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Laughter is the best medicine
By Isabel Oakeshott Last updated at 00:00am on 10.04.03A little comedy can lift even the darkest mood - and now it appears that a good laugh can work wonders for the body, too.
Researchers have uncovered the most conclusive evidence yet of a link between laughter and the ability to fight disease.
In a major new study, they found roaring with laughter can boost the immune system by up to 40 per cent. They now believe health professionals should look more seriously at humour as a complementary therapy.
The research, at Indiana State University in the US, involved 33 healthy women, half of whom watched a comedy video together while the others watched a dull video on tourism. The comedy watchers could choose from films starring Bill Cosby, Tim Allen or Robin Williams. When the films were over, scientists took samples of the women's immune cells, known as natural killer cells, and mixed them with cancer cells to see how effectively they attacked the disease.
They found that the women who had found the comedy funny enough to laugh out loud had significantly healthier immune systems afterwards than those who had watched the tourism film.
Dr Mary Bennett, who led the research, said: "This could be clinically important.
The use of humour to stimulate laughter could be an effective complementary therapy to decrease stress and improve natural killer cell activity in persons with viral illness or cancer."
In America, humour workshops are already marketed for self-healing and reducing stress. Complementary health experts say Britain lags behind and believe the new research shows the need for such services.
Edzard Ernst, Britain's only professor of complementary medicine, said: "There is increasing evidence that laughter does more than just improve the mood. It is already being used as a therapy in some ways, for example, on some paediatric wards, where they bring people in to cheer up the kids.
"There is scope to expand this. Generally speaking, we laugh too little."
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