Placebos – Is Mind more important than Matter?
Posted by MindScape at 14:40, 25 Feb 2010In a review of recent research, international experts say there is increasing evidence that fake treatments, or placebos, have an actual biological effect in the body.
The doctor-patient relationship, plus the expectation of recovery, may sometimes be enough to change a patient’s brain, body and behavior, experts write. The review of previous research on placebos was published online Friday in Lancet, the British medical journal.
“It’s not that placebos or inert substances help,” said Linda Blair, a Bath-based psychologist and spokeswoman for the British Psychological Society. Blair was not linked to the research. “It’s that people’s belief in inert substances help.”
Read the full article at http://www.brainwaving.com/2010/02/19/pl...
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22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
In a review of recent research, international experts say there is increasing evidence that fake treatments, or placebos, have an actual biological effect in the body.
Is this new? I thought this was well known.
People also get physically ill by imagining being ill, when nothing was wrong with them before, and without another cause. I remember hearing about this as being ordinary when I was a small child, which is some time ago. And I heard it from medical professionals.
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We are the cat.
21 February 2009
1 day 4 hours
Its called the nocebo effect.
This is definitely not new. It is very important to take into account the fact that people will respond to placebo.
They will also respond to time as well. Most people go to the doctor near the top of an illness cycle as they wait until they are bad until they go. This means they are going to start getting better soon anyway. Experiments need to factor this in as well.
This is why many placebos work so well against things that were going to get better anyway, helping you feel better in the meantime. Any pill can do this (or chocolate). Just so long as your body is close to starting to cure you anyway. This is also the reason placebo is so bad when it is an illness that is not going to get better without treatment that goes beyond placebo.
If an experiment is run with 3 groups, one given nothing, one given a placebo and one given a treatment and the placebo group gets better 10% quicker, while the treatment group gets better 90% quicker then i would still go with the treatment though.
As for placebo's having a biological affect instead of just a mental one, of course they do, or they wouldn't do anything at all. Explaining it from different perpectives is the fun bit.