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Placebo effect is not some magic, like faith healing. It's statistical quirk. So placebo effect works whether or not you believe in it :-D
by mamon 10y ago
Placebo effect is not some magic, like faith healing. It's statistical quirk. So placebo effect works whether or not you believe in it :-D
- dekhn 10y agoit's not a "statistical quirk". The placebo effect is reproducible and appears to be something that biology "does". how this works is an open area of research but not one that is really studied in detail.
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoAre you sure? I read into it a while ago and it seemed people were converging on statistical quirk as the accepted answer.
- derefr 10y agoAFAIK, the "real" placebo effect is a very small and specific thing that goes on when pain alleviation or inflammation are experimental variables, because of the body's μ-opioid system. The rest of the placebo effect, outside of that domain, is being increasingly found to be the result of under-powered experiments.
- dekhn 10y agoWe can choose the argue about the scope of the effect (I think it goes beyond just pain and inflammation, and don't think it's limited to mu-opioids), but generally, yes, pain and inflammation are the two areas where the placebo effect has been seen to occur in a well-powered, well-controlled study.
- mamon 10y agoOk, I'll be more specific: the reason why drug trials are placebo-controlled is that human body is already equipped with the most miraculous drug of all: our own immune system. So, to accurately measure effectiveness of the drug we have to benchmark it against effectiveness of immune system. Placebo effect is just our own body fighting disease, no mystical forces involved.
- junke 10y agoAs far as I know, a placebo is all about symptoms and how a patient perceives them. When you take care of a patient and give him/her a pill, statistically the patient will report to have recovered quickly or suffered less. There might a body reaction where some hormone is released which blocks pain (http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/mood/articles/2012/the-power-of-the-placebo/ http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/mood/art...), but no direct action as a cure.