The magic of Mozart

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Its called the Mozart Effect and now it's been found to help Colonoscopists become more efficient at detecting precancerous adenomata in the bowel.

But first the Mozart effect. This refers to a set of research results that found listening to Mozart's music may result in significant short-term improvement in spatial temporal reasoning - in other words you operate better and become more efficient in what you do!

Colonoscopists are those medical experts who spend their lives peering into the part of the body that the rest of us try to forget about: the bowel, or as the experts call it, the Colon.

An Adenoma is a small lesion that can grow in the wall of the colon and in some cases can lead on to becoming a cancer. In fact the more you have, the greater the chance that one of them will "turn" into a cancer.

A new study unveiled at the American College of Gastroenterology's (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington found that adenoma detection rate increased from baseline values with music compared to without music. If you extrapolate that, then you will find more cancers earlier and save more lives, as the survival rates for the early detection of colorectal cancer exceed 90 percent.

So don't worry if your colonoscopist plugs in his headphones and appears not to hear what your saying, it's just hers or his way of saying that he's getting some help from Mozart!

PS if you listen to Mozart whilst you read this column, you're more likely to remember it too!