4 ms·

Here's a paper supporting this point of view: http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459

• cpncrunch 12y ago
  Perhaps the difference is that falling at terminal velocity isn't likely to be affected by the placebo effect, whereas diarrhea has been proven to be highly amenable to it (see my comments above). Anyway, thanks for helping to prove my point that most people don't understand the placebo effect (the downvotes also help to prove it :)
  • jlebar 12y ago
    I don't understand your point. Just as the survivability of a fall from great heights is unlikely to be affected by the placebo effect, I would expect that kicking an antibiotic-resistant infection that's had you hospitalized for weeks/months would be unlikely to be affected. I don't see how diarrhea factors into it. Are you saying that you think the patients will experience less diarrhea because they knew they were swallowing poop?
    • cpncrunch 12y ago
      As I pointed out above, if you actually look at the study itself (not the NY Times article), the participants didn't "kick an antibiotic resistant infection" as you put it. All they did was have reduced bowel movements and better self-rated health. Interestingly the study did a stool test for C dificile before the study (to see if the participants actually had the infection) but they didn't do any stool analysis after the study. All in all, there are a lot of deficiencies with this study and it doesn't really tell us much. And yes, the placebo effect has been shown to reduce diarrhea (as I pointed out above). This is expected, as the HPA axis (the body's stress system) is one of the systems that controls bowel movement.