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Aches and pains getting you down? Or maybe they really tick you off. If that’s the case, maybe don’t look to a placebo to give you any relief. Because a new study shows that sugar pills are less effective for people who are quick to anger. The work appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. [Marta Peciña et al., Personality Trait Predictors of Placebo Analgesia and Neurobiological Correlates]
For centuries, physicians have known that some patients improve when given fake medicine, like pills that contain no real drugs. But how can docs predict which of their cases are most likely to benefit from the "placebo effect"?
To find out, researchers ran 50 volunteers through a battery of personality tests. They then injected a bit of saltwater into the subjects’ muscles and told them they’d be getting a little something to relieve the resulting pain. Although that little something was actually a sham.
The researchers found that pretend meds don’t do much for people who tend toward hostility. They work best for folks who are naturally resilient, and altruistic.
The subjects who responded to the faux treatment actually produced more of the body’s own natural painkillers. That’s good news for the stoic, and one more thing for the angry to be mad about.
—Karen Hopkin
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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9 Comments
Add CommentThe idea makes sense. I wonder if the same is true for prayer. Does prayer work better for the stoic than someone who are anger prone?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think we need to define "stoic". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it's unlikely that people who are supposedly "unbiased" show bias in in any survey of mental states.
No, prayer doesn't work at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislook up the definition in a Dictionary rather than on Wikipedia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStoic:
One who is seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain.
I would venture to say that a person of such temperament would be demonstrably easier to treat/cure in almost any circumstance. The sticking point of such a consideration comes outside the prescribed "box" of the study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was in hospital with the result of a dislocated knee I had reset myself on the slopes. Once my swelling had reduced enough to put a cast on, my "doctor" hung a huge plaster cast on my leg with all the weight on my ankle. In physical therapy I passed out from pain every time I stood up. Luckily my uncle, a Dr., had the cast cut off and sent me to a better hospital where I was fitted properly with a walking cast and walking within minutes. This one day "cure" came after nearly 2 weeks in the original hospital. I think my complaints, if anything, sped my recovery.
Planning for the possibility of professional incompetence does not encourage more of the same, when done properly, it reduces the occurrences.
I did a lot of pain treatment in my practice and the two types of patients were victims and non victims. Victims felt they were powerless to do anything, wanted more pain meds, wouldn't exercise or take control of their pain or physical condition. Those who weren't did the opposite. I'd say the non victims were more stoic or at least realized it was there issue to deal with. Perhaps that is the definition between the two. I have seen two different patients both of whom say their pain is a 9/10, one sits quietly and the other moans and is very animated. Not saying for sure, but my observation of 17 years of doing it. Now that I am dealing with my own issues, it seems to make sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm pleased with these results. Angry people deserve to be in pain, they're the cause of it for so many of us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've found that there are two types of medical professionals - those who are altruistic and wish to help patients recover and those who get angry with patients who complain too much or make too many demands. I predict the latter group would be far more likely to foster ineffective placebo treatments onto their patients, especially if they received bonuses for reducing health care costs...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooking at the study, altruism and "straightforwardness" were the other factors positively correlated with the placebo effect, and the composite index accounted for 25% of the variation. I'm guessing that none of the individual traits were significant predictors- only the interaction effet. Also, not knowing how large the variation actually is, the effect could be miniscule.
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