[phkahler]

>> Why is it so hard to believe that the mind controls the body at a cellular level?

Because modern medicine (and science) does not like to believe anything that it has no explanation for. You can show not only correlations, but causative action and a lot of people will reject the finding if it is unintuitive and has no known mechanism. IMHO this has become a problem.

Even though we claim science starts with observation, people still don't believe what is in front of them unless they have something conceptual to hang it on.

[darkmighty]

An important remark, but let me remind you that scientists are used to the 90% of the times where the current models are correct but observations/experiments are erroneous, specially when things deviate so much from known models. Of course, the 10% of times the models can't explain the observation are indeed crucial to science.

[collyw]

It is well known that stress can alter hormone levels as well as many other negative physiological effects. That seems like the mind controlling the body. Every movement you make is the mind altering the body via the nervous system if you want to be pedantic about it.