Recent video explaining the placebo effect (7 min)

Interviewer: If studies prove placebo works so well "why do we have to give medicine, anyway?"

Expert: "... because of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry"; also doctors have studied for years don't like it because "you can do it even without that".

That's TOO hilarious, Forest.

Interesting that he says the "self-healing powers of the body" is NOT the same as placebo.

He also says it's better to get your placebos from the doctor but "you can do it yourself".

Incredible video. I listened to it 3 times an probably still missed some stuff.

Also, loved your comment that these guys are "unbelievably German". When I was in China I kept thinking "Wow, it's actually here!" and realized I didn't truly "believe in" China before I arrived there.

 

Very interesting video on placebos.

Max, my black Lab before Annie, had arthritis bad and could hardly walk.
He was 12. I learned about a doctor who specialized in acupuncture for dogs and took
Max to see her. After the first session Max walked better. After a few more sessions,
Max ran and climbed stars like he was five years old. He lived four more active years
and I thank acupuncture for it. If he was getting a placebo in the pin points, I'll never know.
But I think he got real acupuncture. He wouldn't have known if it was a placebo.

So I believe in acupuncture.

 

Funny, I just saw this video this morning on YouTube and posted it here. And Forest had already posted it! Sure did grab my attention, Forest's too.
Thought it was very interesting that the efficacy of the placebo response varied between Germany and Brazil, with Germans reacting more positively. It made me wonder about the difference in back pain statistics between the developed world, and the Third World and how the incidence of back pain is much higher in the US, Europe and Japan than, say, the Australian outback or sub-Saharan Africa. Could it be that the same stress and anxieties that drive the back pain epidemic in the developed world could also be at work somehow in the placebo effect?

Interesting too how the professor notes that 80% of pain conditions along with hypertension and stomach ulcers respond favorable to placebos. Sure sounds like the same side of the street as TMS.

Here's one of Prof. Robert Jutte's books on the history of the senses in Western civilization from antiquity to cyberspace:

http://www.amazon.com/History-Sense...43M_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385149726&sr=1-1

 

Yeah, it's weird that he said that. Makes no sense.

 

The "self-healing powers of the body" and a "placebo" may not exactly operate the same way, it seems to me, but they do seem to be interrelated. You believe in the "placebo" and you heal; you self-heal because you generate a tremendous positive force in your mind that affects the biochemistry of your brain and autoimmune system. You might call that constructing a "positive belief structure". In both cases, the actual healing takes place at the unconscious level (i.e. beyond your conscious awareness of the process). The "placebo" itself - the sugar coated pill - may be the trigger that activates the same healing process at work in self-healing. I'm sure there haven't been any scientific peer-reviewed double blind experiments in this area yet, only empirical anecdotal observations without slice & dice brain tissue samples to back them up! Might be a good question to ask in the comments section below the YouTube video.

 

Here's an article I ran across today on Ted Kaptchuk who's doing scientifically controlled studies at Harvard of the placebo phenomenon:

http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/01/the-placebo-phenomenon

Kaptchuk's "experiment, among the first to tease apart the components of placebo response, shows that the methods of placebo administration are as important as the administration itself, he explains. It’s valuable insight for any caregiver: patients’ perceptions matter, and the ways physicians frame perceptions can have significant effects on their patients’ health." He does caution though that “Sham treatment won’t shrink tumors or cure viruses".

There's a link to Professor Kaptchuk's bio too:

http://www.bidmc.org/Research/Depar...eandPrimaryCare/ResearchFaculty/Kaptchuk.aspx