The Placebo Effect

​Medicinet.com defines the placebo effect as

• ​“...A remarkable phenomenon in which a placebo -- a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution -- can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful. Expectation to plays a potent role in the placebo effect. The more a person believes they are going to benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that they will experience a benefit.”
  

It’s the kiss a mom plants on her toddler’s “boo-boo.” This could also be called the power of positive thinking - nothing new. The Talmud, the ancient compendium of Jewish thought, said, "Where there is hope, there is life." In other words, thinking positive.
​
Science has been aware of the placebo effect since at least the 1950s. Anesthesiologist Henry Beecher published his pioneering meta-analysis of 26 studies, “The Powerful Placebo,” in 1955. Beecher concluded that an average of 32% of patients responded to placebo, receiving measurable physiological effects. The study participants exhibited increased pulse rate, increased blood pressure, and faster reaction speeds, when told they have taken a stimulant. When participants were told they had taken a sleep-producing drug, they had the opposite effects.
​
Study into the placebo effect is ongoing. There are whole departments at prestigious teaching hospitals dedicated to the study of placebos. Studies are continuing to show that humans react positively to a charismatic healer even if that healer gives the patient absolutely nothing. After all, the word “placebo” comes from the Latin for “I shall please.”
​
Researchers are studying the mechanism by which placebo effect works. In a 2017 study Dr Marian van der Meulen, neuropsychologist at the University of Luxembourg, explained,

• "Brain scans showed researchers that specific regions in the brain react when a person receives a placebo and as a result experiences less pain…(the) regions in the brain that process pain become less active, which demonstrates that the placebo effect is real. But the psychological mechanism is still very little understood, and it is unclear why some people show a much stronger placebo response than others." ​

​​Interestingly enough, people can experience the placebo effect even when they know they’re receiving a fake medication or procedure.
​
Dr. Ted J. Kaptchuk, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard-wide Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter (PiPS) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has been studying these “open-label placebos,” for several years.

• “In one study, Kaptchuk looked at people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a common condition that causes abdominal cramping and diarrhea or constipation that can be debilitating for many. Half of the study volunteers were told they were getting an “open-label” placebo and the others got nothing at all. He found that there was a dramatic and significant improvement in the placebo group’s IBS symptoms, even though they were explicitly told they were getting a “sugar pill” without any active medication.”
  

​Of course, placebos don’t work to lower cholesterol or cure cancer, but they can work for symptoms like pain, nausea, or fatigue. And the longer the trial, the greater the placebo effect. This is becoming a problem in studies because subjects in clinical trials often experience a higher response to legitimate drugs than they should, skewing results of studies. Oddly enough, this seems to be happening more in the U.S. than in other countries.
​
However, most patients can’t control their own placebo response very well. In other words, people can’t just “think positively” and treat their own ailments very effectively. It usually requires some kind of healer or doctor or guru to administer the “drug” for the placebo response to be noticeable.
​

REFERENCES
University of Luxembourg, "Pain, Emotions and the Placebo Effect," ScienceDaily, August 29, 2017, accessed August 30, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/SciDaily-Placebo

​Mallika Marshall, MD, "A Placebo Can Work Even When You Know It's a Placebo," Harvard Health Blog, June 23, 2016, accessed July 30, 2017, http://healthHarvard-Placebo.
​
Peter Dockrill, "The 'Placebo Effect' Is Getting Even Stronger With Time, Study Finds," ScienceAlert, October 8, 2015, accessed July 30, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/SciAlert-placeboStronger.

Quora, "The Power And Problems Of The Placebo Response," Forbes, March 23, 2017, accessed July 30, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/Forbes-PlacebPowrProb.

Jennifer Jo Thompson, Cheryl Ritenbaugh, and Mark Nichter, "Reconsidering the Placebo Response from a Broad Anthropological Perspective," Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, March 2009, accessed July 30, 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730465/.

​Want more? Buy the book: Scam-Proof: Good Information & Critical Thinking for an Evidence-Based Life.  Amazon - $1.99 Kindle, $6.25 paperback​