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Placebo Effect Goes On Working


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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3175217/Placebos-work-patients-know-treatment-getting-fake.html

The gist of the article is: if a patient uses a treatment approximately four times and then believes it is working, when they are then told it is a placebo and they accept that is true, the placebo will still work because the brain accepts that it does. (Hope I've got that right).

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Yeah, the placebo effect is well-documented.

It's causation and effects, though, are not well understood.

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One of the suggestive causation is a massive release of endorphins.

How this translates into "healing" is unknown. Often it does not.

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I guess it's the intent behind it's use. A positively (emotionally) charged intent seems to keep working. (yes I know negative emotions do the same thing). It's that weird mind-body thing.

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Well, that sure makes a hole into some "alternative" medicines.... if a placebo works so should medicine that is diluted to the extend that it is medically ineffective.... which has nothing to do with the medicine itself.

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Well i would also bet that any cool wet gel could sooth a burn a little...

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On all discussions about the Placebo effect it should not be forgotten that this effect, or better said the very single positive effects on

some individuals, are too often overrated by the media. Placebos, besides the investigational drug itself, are always in use in clinical

trials to evaluate the effectiveness of the investigational drug, that is given to patients/participants of the so called verum group, by

comparison with patients/participants of the called controll group, so ppl who got placebos instead of the investigational drug.

If the placebo effect would be such frequent as some ppl think it is, placebos would not be used in clinical trials as frequent positive

effects would dilute the clinical trial data resulting into data that would not document the effectiveness of the investigational drug in

an objective fashion.

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I think part of the effect is that you've taken a pill that will take care of your pain, so you forget about it and it goes away by itself. How many of you have had a headache or other annoying pain that you'd normally that something for, but couldn't at that particular moment. You start doing something and all of a sudden you realize the pain is gone. I know I have. Not quite the same, but the result is the same. You're "cured" without taking any medication.

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It could be that since we are social beings we are wired to respond to someone caring enough to help us. Try having the groups apply the gel themselves and see what happens then. Have them pick out whatever gel they think might work best from bottles that look different but have the same gel in them so they don't even feel like they're really being cared for and see if the placebo effect still happens. I bet it would be greatly diminished.

Edited by Kiltedmusician
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Placebos certainly work when the person knows it is a placebo . So that knocks out the theory that is caused by the belief that the placebo is the real drug.

I want to test it by removing the experiment to the outside of the person.

We tell two groups of people that we are testing one of those electronic rodent repellent machines. They test the machines and tab the results. but one group (who we dont tell) machines dont work.

I know it sounds crazy ... but until the experiment is done ...... ?

Edited by back to earth
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