Dwayne Godwin is a neuroscientist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Jorge Cham draws the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper at www.phdcomics.com.
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| September 15, 2012 | 16
Dwayne Godwin is a neuroscientist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Jorge Cham draws the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper at www.phdcomics.com.
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16 Comments
Add CommentThe placebo effect is also shown to correlate with activity in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, (the nucleus accumbens), the amygdala, periaqueductal gray matter, and even in the spinal cord.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe following quotes are from the review : Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions, Asbjørn Hróbjartsson, Peter C Gøtzsche, 2010
"We did not find that placebo interventions have important clinical effects in general. However, in certain settings placebo interventions can influence patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea"
"Variations in the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted and how patients were informed."
"The effect on pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, from negligible to clinically important."
"Meta-regression analyses showed that larger effects of placebo interventions were associated with physical placebo interventions (e.g. sham acupuncture)"
[ http://www.cochrane.dk/research/Placebo%20interventions%20for%20all%20clinical%20conditions%20(Cochrane%20review).pdf ]
This highlights one of the major challenges of modern medicine. Modern medicine is focused on making patients get better while complementary health care such as acupuncture and therapeutic touch focuses on making patients feel better. That is why people are so easily fooled. Most people base their health on the way they feel so if something makes them feel good, it must make them healthy. I think it is important for modern medicine to address a patient's feeling of well-being or risk losing that patient to snake-oil-salesmen who offer them a happier but shorter life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a shame that the theory of placebo effect is actually based on studies that use things such as sugar pills that are in fact active placebos. They induce an endorphin effect on the brain due to its opioid properties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is far too little regulation on to what can be deemed a placebo or not and there are countless studies that have used active placebos which kinda voids the results of the study.
Exactly *How* does 50mg or 100mg or even 1 gram of sugar affect the opiate system? Where's *YOUR* research? Care to link?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf all the studies I've read, the only evidence that sugar can have an obvious effect on the psychology of humans is that 10 grams of *Fructose* administered shortly after consumption of ethanol slightly reduces or delays ethanol's intoxicant effect. If anything, glucose, being an energy carrying nutrient should have an effect on the dopaminergic mesolimbic pathway in the brain, since consuming sugar is rewarding to the entire body!
To get you started...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_placebo
this is a short vision, placebo vision of placebo issue!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFYI Control subjects do not take actual "sugar" pills ... the placebo resembles the actual medication in every way except it contains no active ingredient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBelief in a religion is a placebo. You can say it has fooled a lot of people or you can say it has helped a lot of people ... take your choice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod is placebo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeauty is placebo.
Love is placebo.
And what is the difference between an automaton and a living person even Life is placebo.
So if you want to live don't use logic.
One should however always be wary of thugs who can use this effect for their own profit making and thus they need to be kept in check.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy call it a sugar pill then? misleading is it not? It is a sugar pill and that is why they call it as such.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe placebo effect does not work for me. I look for more meaning results than feeling a little moral boost. And I would be extremely angered if treated with placebo. Furthermore, it's misleading and will be misused by doctors. It provides doctors with another excuse not to believe the patient. And it provides an excuse for a myriad of ancillary and tertiary care providers (e.g., acupuncture, aroma therapy, etc) to dip into our healthcare insurance dollars. Although there may be a marginal statistical significance to the placebo effect, it's dangerous and expensive to introduce it into our medical care philosophy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf 'science' knew what the placebo was there would be no debate. Science will never know the way science goes about things today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe placebo effect is real and is useful on occasion in the clinical setting. Usually the most responsive patients have other serious psychiatric issues which need to be dealt with making the use of placebos ethically questionable. If placebos are used as a bridge to get the patient to deal with the organic issues I have no problem with them. However when patients are placed on the merry-go-rounfd of maximal cash extraction all the while letting the real problems go unaddressed, the use of placebos is malpractice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe placebo effect is real and is useful on occasion in the clinical setting. Usually the most responsive patients have other serious psychiatric issues which need to be dealt with making the use of placebos ethically questionable. If placebos are used as a bridge to get the patient to deal with the organic issues I have no problem with them. However when patients are placed on the merry-go-rounfd of maximal cash extraction all the while letting the real problems go unaddressed, the use of placebos is malpractice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiseste hombre ni es buen dibujante ni entendio el efecto placebo, es mas es un nocevo !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this