4 ms·

Placebo effect caught in the act in spinal nerves

38 points by prat 17y ago

zackattack 17y ago
Pharmaceutical companies have big financial incentives to keep this kind of information out of the public consciousness.
- JabavuAdams 17y ago
  Not really. Placebos are cheap to make, and require the user to believe -- i.e. benefit from marketing. In our society, I could see the following: the $10 sexily-marketed placebo pill / treatment must be better than the $2 knock-off, so people buy the $10 pill. Okay, they likely won't be buying $50k / year treatments, but all of a sudden the meds only cost cents to produce. Pharma => Apple
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    Or, you know, they could exploit the actual pain-killing mechanism discussed in TFA...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
josefresco 17y ago
I recently read an article (or maybe it was 60 min) that highlighted the distressing (to drug makers) increase in placebo effectiveness over the last couple decades. Big pharma's best drugs are now having trouble beating out placebos. Anyone have the source?
- gambling8nt 17y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783912 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783912 was a Wired article on that topic on HN two months ago; perhaps that's what you are remembering?
prat 17y ago
I recently watched an episode of house (medical TV show) in which house used the (probably) well known mirror box method to relieve pain in the phantom limb of an amputee. That just reinforces the possibility that pain may be more of a psychosomatic symptom than we think. This is from Wikipedia article for phantom limb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb "One particularly novel treatment for phantom limb pain is the mirror box developed by Vilayanur Ramachandran and colleagues (Ramachandran, Rogers-Ramachandran & Cobb 1995). Through the use of artificial visual feedback it becomes possible for the patient to "move" the phantom limb, and to unclench it from potentially painful positions. Repeated training in some subjects has led to long-term improvement, and in one exceptional case, even to the complete elimination of the phantom limb between the hand and the shoulder (so that the phantom hand was dangling from the shoulder)."
- sp332 17y ago
  Ramachandran gave an excellent TED talk, including detailed analysis of the mirror box. http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind...

38 points by prat 17y ago

Pharmaceutical companies have big financial incentives to keep this kind of information out of the public consciousness.

JabavuAdams 17y ago
Not really. Placebos are cheap to make, and require the user to believe -- i.e. benefit from marketing. In our society, I could see the following: the $10 sexily-marketed placebo pill / treatment must be better than the $2 knock-off, so people buy the $10 pill. Okay, they likely won't be buying $50k / year treatments, but all of a sudden the meds only cost cents to produce. Pharma => Apple
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Or, you know, they could exploit the actual pain-killing mechanism discussed in TFA...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

josefresco 17y ago

I recently read an article (or maybe it was 60 min) that highlighted the distressing (to drug makers) increase in placebo effectiveness over the last couple decades. Big pharma's best drugs are now having trouble beating out placebos. Anyone have the source?

gambling8nt 17y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783912 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783912 was a Wired article on that topic on HN two months ago; perhaps that's what you are remembering?

prat 17y ago

I recently watched an episode of house (medical TV show) in which house used the (probably) well known mirror box method to relieve pain in the phantom limb of an amputee. That just reinforces the possibility that pain may be more of a psychosomatic symptom than we think. This is from Wikipedia article for phantom limb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb "One particularly novel treatment for phantom limb pain is the mirror box developed by Vilayanur Ramachandran and colleagues (Ramachandran, Rogers-Ramachandran & Cobb 1995). Through the use of artificial visual feedback it becomes possible for the patient to "move" the phantom limb, and to unclench it from potentially painful positions. Repeated training in some subjects has led to long-term improvement, and in one exceptional case, even to the complete elimination of the phantom limb between the hand and the shoulder (so that the phantom hand was dangling from the shoulder)."

sp332 17y ago
Ramachandran gave an excellent TED talk, including detailed analysis of the mirror box. http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind...