21
Physiology & Medicine / Re: How Does The Placebo Effect Work ?
« on: 14/11/2023 20:32:05 »
The mind does have considerable control over your body, and how you feel about your body (eg pain sensitivity).
- So telling your mind that someone you trust has prescribed this medication will probably make you feel better, even if it does nothing for an underlying biological problem.
- We saw this during the COVID pandemic, where a significant fraction of the US population believed that Ivermectin had protected them from COVID and/or cured them - because Donald Trump told them (with no clinical evidence at all, initially).
That's why the gold standard for clinical trials is to test a proposed medication/treatment against an identical-looking placebo.
- That tells you (and anyone funding your health) that paying for this medication is better than doing nothing (for free).
- Often, the placebo effect is bigger than the effect of the proposed medication! But the small effect of the medication is visible because you can "subtract out" the placebo effect.
- However, large studies have shown that Ivermectin is no better than placebo at treating COVID (with the possible exception of trials in some 2/3 world countries, where the proven de-worming effect of Ivermectin may have reduced the known immune-suppressing effects of parasitic worms, allowing a more robust immune response to COVID).
I have heard of a 2010 study that demonstrated that the placebo effect really makes people feel better, even if they know they are taking an inert substance!.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanisms
- So telling your mind that someone you trust has prescribed this medication will probably make you feel better, even if it does nothing for an underlying biological problem.
- We saw this during the COVID pandemic, where a significant fraction of the US population believed that Ivermectin had protected them from COVID and/or cured them - because Donald Trump told them (with no clinical evidence at all, initially).
That's why the gold standard for clinical trials is to test a proposed medication/treatment against an identical-looking placebo.
- That tells you (and anyone funding your health) that paying for this medication is better than doing nothing (for free).
- Often, the placebo effect is bigger than the effect of the proposed medication! But the small effect of the medication is visible because you can "subtract out" the placebo effect.
- However, large studies have shown that Ivermectin is no better than placebo at treating COVID (with the possible exception of trials in some 2/3 world countries, where the proven de-worming effect of Ivermectin may have reduced the known immune-suppressing effects of parasitic worms, allowing a more robust immune response to COVID).
I have heard of a 2010 study that demonstrated that the placebo effect really makes people feel better, even if they know they are taking an inert substance!.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanisms
The following users thanked this post: neilep