The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: From Orgone Accumulator to Cancer Protection for Schizophrenics: Difference between revisions

instead of stabbing his wife Adele, he would have gone on to develop cancer.{{sfn|Harrington|2008|p=90-91}} She does not suggest that he thought fear of cancer allowed one to act out one’s rage, nor do his characters propose such violence. However, Mailer had no doubt that failure to act in a moment of great emotion causes the disease.

An estimated two million Americans have schizophrenia, a biological condition that affects a person’s ability to think clearly, distinguish reality from fantasy, manage emotions, make decisions, and relate to others. The World Health Organization has identified schizophrenia as one of the ten most debilitating diseases affecting humans. The fact that those who suffer from schizophrenia are a population of very heavy smokers (up to 88%) would lead one to expect that they had a high incidence of cancer. {{sfn|Hughes|Hatsukami|Mitchell|Dahlgren|1986|p=995}} However, the opposite is true. Norman Mailer believed that their mental illness protected them.

Researchers at National Institutes of Mental Health emphasize that many of the genes associated with schizophrenia are the same as those that are associated with cancer, but the disorders use them in opposite ways. While cancer results from changes in the genes that cause the cells to go into {{pg|448|449}} overdrive and multiply rapidly, the same genes cause cells in schizophrenia to slow to a crawl.

Dr. Amanda Law of the University of Oxford, who heads a team at National Institutes of Mental Health, explored specific pathways that cells use

to make basic decisions about their development and their fate. She says,<blockquote>“This is about basic decision making by cells—whether to multiply, move, or change their basic architecture....Cancer and schizophrenia may be strange bedfellows that have similarities at the molecular level. The differences lie in how cells respond to external stimuli: in cancer the molecular system functions to

Understanding these pathways might provide us with some new strategies for thinking about cancer.”{{sfn|Reis|2007}} Dr. Weinberger adds that future research involving this information will explore ways to reverse these processes—speeding the system up in schizophrenia and slowing it down in cancer—with implications that may help in the treatment of both diseases. The most advanced research today is attempting to target cancer cells and turn down their genetic instructions to multiply, invade, occupy, and overcome all resistance by using the cell’s own dimmer switch.{{sfn|Dotinga|2008}} Turning

down the intensity of uncontrolled growth is a big step towards turning it off. The human cell, with the infinite complexity of its ultramicroscopic components, has been revealing its secrets to scientists who now envision

cancer vaccines made of cells from a victim’s own cancer.{{sfn|Reis|2007}}

cancer? Does any substantiation exist? Evidence in a study of the tumor suppressor gene APC (adenomatous polyposis coli), which protects people from cancer growth, indicates a significant association between APC and schizophrenia. This gene is thought to confirm susceptibility to schizophrenia and reduce vulnerability to cancer. {{sfn|Cui|Jiang|Jiang|Xu|Yao|2005|p=675}}

However, one fact must not be overlooked. Cancer is a disease of old age, and the mentally ill die earlier than the general population. In the article{{pg|449|450}}“Dying too Young; Cardiovascular Neglect of the Mentally Ill,” we learn that earlier studies of the mentally ill estimated their life spans to average 20% fewer years than the rest of the population. Recent figures vary from state to state, but are alarmingly higher. In Ohio schizophrenics average a loss of thirty-two years of life. As a rule, they take poor care of themselves, have an unhealthy lifestyle, and suffer from metabolic syndrome (idle, overweight, poor nutrition).{{sfn|Nasrallah|2007}} It is possible that many of them do not live long enough to suffer from cancer. Mailer’s newly discovered handwritten hypothesis, which connects “impotent

emotion” and cancer, draws attention to the feeling we are most likely to label “stress.” The bane of modern humankind, stress causes a myriad of toxic effects. “When the weight of impossible desire is suffered within, the tension becomes acute and the cells live at the edge of rebellion.” According to Mailer, they may “secede from the body or face their death.” It is an impossible situation. “Man is made of mind and body” and Mailer concludes, when the situation “becomes intolerable, either the mind or the body must divide itself from the whole.” {{sfn|Mailer|n.d.}}

It is interesting that a Dissociative State (a term used in mental illness) can be a temporary condition that follows a period of high stress. It may involve a sudden disappearance which includes travel or wandering and sometimes the establishment of a new identity. The missing period is called a Fugue. The Fugue is followed by a return to normal, often with no memories of the interim. This sounds very much like an “intolerable” situation, perhaps due

to an impossible desire, which drives the mind to separate itself from the body. The Dissociative State can become permanent, of course, or cyclical, like schizophrenia, bipolar, and other mental illnesses. When cells on the edge of rebellion don’t secede from the body, but instead they commit cell suicide, they become cancerous. In either case Norman Mailer’s “impotent

emotion” refers to a powerful force or experience which drives one to the edge of disaster and beyond. He understood the concept organically and was correct to relate human behavior to cellular activity.

From 1989 to 2003 researchers mapped more than the 20,000 genes each person carries in the hope of comparing defective and healthy ones in order

to reveal the secrets of diseases like cancer. The human genome is the DNA blueprint for the body. The equivalent of hundreds of volumes of instructions exists on each genome to direct how cells are assembled and work together.{{sfn|Beil|2008}} There is as much mystery in the cell as there is in outer space. {{pg|450|451}} Norman Mailer was actively interested in all of it and we know this by the passion of his opinions.

 

* {{cite journal |last=Beil |first=Laura |date=2008 |title=Medicine’s New Epicenter? Epigenetics |journal=Cure: Cancer Updates, Research & Education ||volume=Winter 2008|publisher=CURE Media Group |ref=harv }}

* {{cite journal |last1=Hughes |first1=J.R. |last2=Hatsukami |first2=D.K. |last3=Mitchell |first3=J.E. |last4=Dahlgren |first4=L.A. |date=1986 |title=Prevalence of Smoking Among Psychiatric Outpatients |journal=American Journal of Psychiatry ||volume=143.8 |pages=993-997 |ref=harv }}