The Placebo Effect

Can we think ourselves better?

Allow me to quote something I have been reading about, then see what you think.


" The placebo effect is what happens when patients with a genuine illness take a fake medicine, but it makes them feel better.
A placebo might be a sugar pill or just a spoonful of water. It has no active substances to affect the body or brain, but somehow it still produces real health benefits.

A British doctor called John Haygarth first experimented with this in 1799, and from his experiments he concluded that the brian has a powerful effect on the way we respond to treatments, even if they are fake.

"Since Haygarth's experiment, there have been thousands of tests in which people taking placebo's have reported feeling healthier.
Testing gets even tricker because the effect still works even when people know they are taking a placebo!

"Other tests show that the colour, shape, size and taste of the placebo can have different effects too.

"Because placebo's can be an effective therapy, doctors can still give them to patients when they have no other alternatives to offer them.
In one survey of family doctors, 97% had recommended a placebo at least once.

"Professor Ted Kaptchuk, a researcher at Harvard University in the US says - " Placebo's may make you feel better, but they will not cure you though."
They have been most effective for conditions like pain management, insomnia, and some of the side effects caused by cancer treatments like fatigue and nausia."

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What I find most strange (and interesting), is apparently placebo's have also been shown to work on dogs and other animals too.
So if we really can 'think ourselves better', it seems the animals can too!

Re: The Placebo Effect

In terms of the effect on animals, I think that narrows it down substantially to what I have read about the placebo effect before. There is a great deal of healing power in the personal contact between the cared for and the care giver. So a substantial part of healing must be taking place in the administration of the placebo and not the contents of the medication. I think this is a variable we know little about and it would be difficult to conduct unbiased studies because the effects would depend on the relationship dynamics.

If you look at the nurturing bond between mother and baby it makes sense that the health benefits of "human to human" nurturing do not end in infancy.

If we have an environment of safety and nurturing then this will promote the healing of many conditions. I just wish that the medical profession took this more seriously. Where I have seen scientific reports about placebos, the nurturing element is mentioned but not as a significant input. IMO that sums up the knowledge gap!

Re: The Placebo Effect

Excellent post, and I completely agree about the medics!

Re: The Placebo Effect

Placebo's are an interesting concept, Mups. Like Annie - I wish the medics took them seriously or, at the very least, didn't just dismiss them out of hand. I have seen them work - in humans and in animals. Animals have no way of differentiating between real medicine and placebo - they just trust us to heal them.

Re: The Placebo Effect

Can the placebo effect be compared with homeopathic treatments? There are many proponents of homeopathy and their `treat like with like` remedies which introduce microscopic amounts of a plant or substance to water in an extremely diluted form of tonic. Both dispensers of placebo and homeopathic remedies swear by them despite any evidence to the contrary.

Re: The Placebo Effect

I have many books on the subject of homeopathy, Judd, both for humans and animals. I have 'dabbled' in it for around thirty years or more.

You might also question why spiritual healing, or the many, many different types of 'hands on' healing also appear to work some people but not others, too.

Likewise, some orthodox drugs help some patients but not others. For example, look at my recent episode of an antibiotic I was given that makes me worse than when I started!

I honestly don't think it's a case of 'One pill fits all', because we are all individuals and react differently to problems - as the homeopaths discovered a very long time ago.

A simple example is the common cold.

Some people solder on and have little more than a blocked nose, sore throat and sneezing.
Others feel terrible and take to their beds with throbbing headaches and fever.
It is still a cold, but we all react differently to it. That is why homeopathy believes in treating each person/animal both emotionally and physically according to how it is affecting them, - not Fred down the road!

Some people get depresssion more easily than others - but it's still depression regardless.

Take my Gertie for another example.
When the other girls were spayed, they took it in their stride and were up and about in no time.
Gertie however, got it fixed in her head she couldn't move.
She stayed in her bed for three whole days.
I carried her out for a wee and carried her back to her bed.
This was not a case of me being 'soft,' or her playing me up, this was a mental problem, a fixed idea she had after her operation.

This approach does not seem to be catered for at all by orthodox practitioners. It is usually a one pill fits all diagnosis.

Re: The Placebo Effect

Nope



Homeopathy has been properly debunked under laboratory conditions and independent testing. The great James Randhi devoted one of his TV shows to debunking it.

He also begins many of his live presentations by taking a packet of homeopathy sleep pills and eating the entire packet as he begins talking to show people that they have no effect whatsoever.


Homeopathy's own theory itself doesn't hold water (pun intended!) because the stated levels of dilution would require that none of the original water molecules were present.

So Homeopathy is best avoided TBH.


On the other issue though, Placebos or the wider area which it is just a part of, that of making changes in your universe with the power of will alone, yes that has truth and power to it imho.

Turns out there actually IS a huge energy field all around us which science has identified. It's everywhere, right across the universe. If we can tap into it then many things are possible.

The key is understanding the right way to tap into it. As it is an energy field you don't speak to it or pray to it. That's like trying to talk to a tree. Just silly. Those that have discovered it suggest that it responds to the electromagnetic fields of our own hearts and the energies from our brains. These are scientific things, demonstrable energies/fields. There are some who believe the way to tap into the universal energy field is to do 2 things.

Firstly, with the brain, establish the will or desire of the outcome you want. No speaking, no praying, because the energy field has no ears. Just thinking clearly of the thing you want to happen.

Then secondly, from the heart, imagine how you would feel when that outcome happens and concentrate that feeling to the extent that you are feeling "AS IF" it had already happened.

So one, will or desire for the outcome, and two, feel as if it had already happened.

That's the theory. I've personally been trying it and practising it for a while with some interesting outcomes.

I believe this is what the Placebo effect is all about.

With the Placebo effect you are expressing the will or desire to effect your outcome (being healed) which is evident from your visiting the doctor or chemist for pills.

Then by taking them you are already believing in your heart that they are going to make you better and you already feel that relief there that you have the pills and are on the mend. In short you are already feeling "as if" you are healing.

I believe this is all the one and the same thing.

This also means the exact opposite is true. If you dwell on a thing that is upsetting you, if for example you worry constantly about cancer and that you are going to die because of it then you are hurting yourself. You are expressing the will and desire through constantly thinking about it and you are feeling "as if" it was going to happen in your heart.

This energy field is neutral. There is no good or bad or right or wrong. It does what you will of it.

That's likely why people say it is important to have a positive mental attitude.

We are creatures of energy. Our brains and hearts emit forms of energy, they have individual energy fields.

There is definitely something in all of this which I think people are starting to discover. Placebo is just an example of it working without the person really understanding how.

Re: The Placebo Effect

I know a little about energy fields. I have Kirlian photo's of my own energy as proof, which I would rather believe than somebody on telly.

However, after your huge post, Realist, the part saying -

Quote: Firstly, with the brain, establish the will or desire of the outcome you want. No speaking, no praying, because the energy field has no ears. Just thinking clearly of the thing you want to happen.

Then secondly, from the heart, imagine how you would feel when that outcome happens and concentrate that feeling to the extent that you are feeling "AS IF" it had already happened.

So one, will or desire for the outcome, and two, feel as if it had already happened.

Unquote:

How to you explain placebo's working on dogs and other animals then?
Do you think they sit there and think about getting better, then imagine how they would feel if it happens?

We will probably never know what they think, but I find it very interesting that placebo's have been demonstrated to work on them also.


P.S. Of course the sleeping pills wouldn't have worked like Randhi tried to prove. He could have ate the whole lot and the packet as well and nothing would have happened. I could have told you that myself.
It was a very safe demo, but a useless one.

It was a stupid experiment in the first place as all he demonstrated was they do not work in the same way as orthodox medicine, which any homeopath knows.

Re: The Placebo Effect

They won't prove homeopathy and similar remedies in scientific studies. Scientific studies need a point of reference where everything is equal. This may be more or less the case with conventional meds where the majority of people have the same blood pressure, kidney function or whatever and that's the single focus. But with homeopathy and other alternative treatments the whole body is part of the equation and there's no way you can compare because there are too many conflicting variables.

My view is that humans find it hard to cope with more than two variables. We are limited by the way we think and our brains create bias pretty quickly.

In the past we discovered many cures because we were not hampered by the scientific community's obsession with statistics. People had ideas and would try them out rather than go through decades of study. Given the amount of investment and the number of individuals involved in scientific research we have made very little progress in real terms compared with past times when only a few individuals were involved but did not have their hands tied by those who do not want to see progress because it may be negative to their financial situation.

Re: The Placebo Effect

I would take that further in that the energy of one person with a desire to heal others will translate into healing based on the exchange of energies. We are like molecules. We can affect each other physically as well as mentally just by our presence.