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In Brief
- In recent decades reports have confirmed the efficacy of various sham treatments in nearly all areas of medicine. Placebos have helped alleviate pain, depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, inflammatory disorders and even cancer.
- Placebo effects can arise not only from a conscious belief in a drug but also from subconscious associations between recovery and the experience of being treated—from the pinch of a shot to a doctor’s white coat. Such subliminal conditioning can control bodily processes of which we are unaware, such as immune responses and the release of hormones.
- Researchers have decoded some of the biology of placebo responses, demonstrating that they stem from active processes in the brain.
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Dummy-Drug Doping?
A man whom his doctors referred to as “Mr. Wright” was dying from cancer of the lymph nodes. Orange-size tumors had invaded his neck, groin, chest and abdomen, and his doctors had exhausted all available treatments. Nevertheless, Mr. Wright was confident that a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen would cure him, according to a 1957 report by psychologist Bruno Klopfer of the University of California, Los Angeles, entitled “Psychological Variables in Human Cancer.”
Mr. Wright was bedridden and fighting for each breath when he received his first injection. But three days later he was cheerfully ambling around the unit, joking with the nurses. Mr. Wright’s tumors had shrunk by half, and after 10 more days of treatment he was discharged from the hospital. And yet the other patients in the hospital who had received Krebiozen showed no improvement.
This article was originally published with the title Cure in the Mind.
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13 Comments
Add CommentI suggest that placebo effect has a strong cultural dimension, i.e. that there is not only a conviction of an individual at play here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResults of some, long term studies of populations strongly indicate how our partners, siblings and friends impact us in many, mostly non-conscious ways. Apparently, even strangers can impact our wellbeing. A relaxed attitude towards body weight of our social circles could also help explain obesity epidemic.
I believe that we now have enough data from a variety of studies to articulate a larger picture.
Kind regards,
Mind can make heaven or hell out of life is a trusim that helps the patient when confronted by conditions of helath that do not have immediate cure. The will to live and a strong faith that he or she can surmount the problem with health sustaining drugs do play a role in maintaining life. I know a patient with an irrepairable condition of the heart lived for two years when death could strike him at any time because of his mental resolve. I had another patient who lived with a conduction defect for seven long years without medication but with placebo treatment with vitamins. Dr.Diet, Dr.Quiet and Dr.Merry Man do play role in our health and disease. Every individual physiology and how the body will react are areas that will determine the basic health of an individual. sheriff
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI�d like to inform the author that the experiment of his friend Schedlowski was performed for the first time by Ader and Cohen in 1982 (see Science 1982 Mar 19;215(4539):1534-6). Radkin Honzak, psychiatrist, Prague, Czech Republic
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a fascinating area of research for me, especiallly given my long-held belief that there indeed can be very positive placebo effects, a belief based, in large measure, on personal experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight after I was born, I developed tonsilitis. It took about four years for me to get to the point my doctor felt comfortable with the remaining risks -- this was in the mid 1950's -- involved with going ahead to remove my tonsils.
During the interval, my Mother, desperate to help me, wouyld put me in a tub of warm water and massage me with a warm, wet cloth while muttering soothing sounds, as pain medication appeared not to be doing me much good.
While I have no recollection of that period, to this day if I get a headache or some other minor discomfort, a nice, long soak in a warm bath does me a world of good almost every time.
The story of the cancer patient and his lapse in belief is interesting, and may point to an ethical dilemma for researchers. On the one hand, if rigorous lab and field experimentation indicate nothing's happening in the scientifically-measurable sphere, then researchers are bound to report it.
But perhaps the problem arises from the precise meaning of "it," as used above.
Maybe researchers can frame their results something along these lines: "After [x] years of lab and field research, we were unable to determine any physical explanation of reported benefits. However, some of the reported benefits were confirmed by independent testing, so clearly there's something occurring for the benefit of the patient that we have yet to identify."
Such phrasing would both announce in a straightforward manner "we ain't found nuthin'" *and* "but something's happening."
After all -- what do I care about the reality in the lab if in my *own* reality I'm at least feeling better, and maybe even demonstrably *getting* better???
Some people beleive in black magic, but I wouldn't recommend relying on it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd just like to say, what a fascinating article! The body and mind never ceases to amaze.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI`m interested in science and especially in Biology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe information in this article was very helpful. I take imigran for migraines, and although the migraines have been reduced significantly this year after taking a two-month course of Chinese medicine, I'm still getting a few a month. I'm going to try taking imigran with a special drink or food from now on and see what happens later on if I take a similar-looking acidophilus pill with the special drink or food. I suppose I'll have to disguise the bitter taste of the imigran, though. Maybe by wrapping it in a bit of bread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll placebo affect is hypnosis and all hypnosis is self hypnosis. You can say it doesn't exist, but if you haven't experienced it or used it, you won't have much credibility in the argument. After years of patients being ridiculed for using yoga, mental imagery and all the other kooky stuff patients do when desperate, now we have mainstream cancer centers offering those things. Maybe it is all economic, but you wouldn't get a medical director to buy in to it if there wasn't some evidence of effect. And although some vitamins may be placebo, Doc's who haven't done their research and rely on someone else who says alternative medicine and supplements is a placebo aren't doing their patients much service. Do all people respond to hypnosis, no because like medicine and doctors, not all hypnosis and not all hypnotists are the same. Simple problems respond to simple stuff. Complex problems respond to hypnosis that is really difficult for the patient and the hypnotist. Doctors seem to get queezy when prescribing something they know won't work if they call it a placebo, but they prescribe antibiotics all day long for virus related illnesses and somehow justify that. Are doc's afraid that if patients can get better without a drug, they will find out they really don't need a doctor. Most doc's don't realize that their white coat and stethoscope are placebos. If a doctor sees 10 people with flu and gives all ten the same drug,but only tells 5 it is really good and will work fast, he is using a placebo or at least the placebo affect (and waking hypnosis) on those 5. Is that wrong or right and does it matter if he is too ignorant to know the difference?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlongside the 'Placebo' effect there is also the 'Nocebo' effect,'casting spells on people', or 'possessing them'. Only superstitious people try to use nocebos as they were considered immoral by a former Pope and banned. People were burned at the stake for less! Malediction!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm curious if any researcher or physician interested in this topic have read the book "Coyote Medicine" by Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Copyright 1997, Library of Congress Card Catalog number 96-32714, ISBN 0-684-80271-6, Scribner, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10020. It's be some time since I read it and as I recall somewhat antedotical but still informative. It's has information about the placebo effect and it's use in shamanism and how it might be used in modern medicine. I would be interested in comments by those researching or physicians encountering the placebo effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoctors using placebos on unsuspecting patients makes me cringe. It is a form of crass manipulative dishonesty that would destroy any trust I had once I found out about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever... in noting the placebo effect we have learned the mind can, indeed, effect the body in profound ways.
So... instead of just bullshitting the patient (to put it in plain clear, language).... which is so obviously and thoroughly unethical it isn't even subject to discussion... how about learning/studying on conscious use of the mind to assist in health?
The body constantly heals itself. It may be a cut or a cold or the inexplicable healing of a apparently terminal illness. The person with these afflictions may have gone through a process which may have been initiated over a period of time or through some sort change in the body mind interaction that has facilitated a change in the conditions in the body that makes the affliction unviable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't this what the placebo affect does? Or it may be the unquantifiable phenomenon called 'luck' which is that often used term, even in an emperical context and is the often used truly pseudo-scientific explanation that is the equivalent to a cop out - the occurance of the unexplained.
The body may even have a 'pre-placebo' affect that has prevented the onset of an illness before it has manifested. This is constantly happening in well documented situations where bacteria or viruses are present in an organism but do not manifest.
When the Placebo affect can be understood and can be used by a subject I would say it will be the most powerful healing mechanism ever devised.