51–60 of 90 posts
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307452425/ref=s9_simh_gw_p... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465022006/ref=s9_simh_gw_p...
Rather than linking to a book on Amazon, could you link to some peer-reviewed journal articles?
Any idea how placebos work so well, what they are, and if we're doing anything to take advantage of the effect?
There is actually a discipline of medicine dedicated to researching and promoting the use of placebos to cure ailments called homeopathy.
Any idea how placebos work so well, what they are, and if we're doing anything to take advantage of the effect?
There is actually a discipline of medicine dedicated to researching and promoting the use of placebos to cure ailments called homeopathy.
On a more serious note, medicine has a general problem dealing with the mind. The "placebo effect" is just one case where this manifests itself, but in case of drugs at least this effect can be scientifically measured.
In case of psychosomatic ilnesses (e.g. ilnesses which manifest with real symptoms, but the underlying cause is in the mind) it is much harder to quantify anything. How do you create a control group, if each person is so different? There is no way to "look inside the mind", no universal way to influence the mind.
Having gone through several ilnesses which (as I later discovered) were psychosomatic, I know the issue first-hand. Doctors tend to avoid even considering the mind's role, just as if we were simple machines, with the mind completely separate. On one hand this annoys me, on the other hand I understand them: a doctor is supposed to deal only with what is measurable and quantifiable. Cause and effect should both be measurable.
I've noticed that the number of articles about placebo effects, mind-caused ilnesses and psychosomatic problems in general seems to be increasing. I'm glad this is happening, as we definitely need more research done on these kinds of problems and we need to find ways to deal with them. From what I can see around me (now that I know about psychosomatic illnesses), many people suffer from them, and only deal with the symptoms.
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> first-line ADHD medications (the stimulants) work in roughly 70% of cases What do you mean by 'work'? The research cited by Anatomy of an Epidemic shows that there is no affect on grades or other academic outcomes. And that while concentration itself improves somewhat in the short term, after 2+ years it is worse than if the person were never given the drugs to begin with. See also: http://online.wsj.com/news/artic…
Academic performance doesn't seem to be an optimal measure for Adult ADHD.
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307452425/ref=s9_simh_gw_p... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465022006/ref=s9_simh_gw_p...
Rather than linking to a book on Amazon, could you link to some peer-reviewed journal articles?
Any idea how placebos work so well, what they are, and if we're doing anything to take advantage of the effect?
Jokes about homeopathy aside, if you can answer your own question, there's probably a Nobel prize in it for you. Mind/body interactions are incredibly complex and as yet pretty poorly understood. There are some known ways to take advantage of similar effects--for instance, helping patients find ways to lower stress as a means of mitigating risk factors like high blood pressure.
I remember one time I needed eyedrops. They were only listed as homeopathic in tiny print and were adjacent to real eyedrops in the pharmacy, so it was a bit hard to read them with my allergies going.
And I've tried washing my eyes with water, but it's not as effective as real eyedrops. Moreover, these contained "aspis", allegedly some extract from bees, which I might be allergic to. One would hope that they'd diluted it enough, but it actually listed a fairly low dilution factor so I couldn't even be sure the damned things weren't harmful.
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There is actually a discipline of medicine dedicated to researching and promoting the use of placebos to cure ailments called homeopathy.
I assume you mean this as a joke, but homeopathic remedies are so popular here in Germany -- the pharmacy shelves are loaded with them!! -- that I wonder whether use of the placebo effect is an official component of the national healthcare strategy.
Germany generally does a good job on evidence-based herbal medicine (like standardizing St. John's wort extract), but I worry that the line can easily be blurred between them and homeopathic products in the eyes of most consumers. You really have to look carefully - they're not clearly marked.
So honestly, you're probably quite right about it being a deliberate exploitation of the placebo effect. Because otherwise, there's no reason not to ban them.
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I'm not sure I understand the first scenario. If they are tested against drugs which have already been shown to be better than a placebo, doesn't basic logic show they would be, as well? Or is there a case where one could "pass" this test, but still "lose" against a placebo? For the rest, I didn't realize there was a difference between inert and active placebos.
> Or is there a case where one could "pass" this test, but still "lose" against a placebo? The main issue is that a lot of the existing drugs aren't better than placebos: - Some were never required to be tested for efficacy by the FDA before approval. - Some were tested for whatever reason., but the methodology used by testing was flawed for whatever reason. - In many the data was blatantly faked or manipulated by th…
I'm not entirely sure what the plausible explanation for that one would be. Other than that the testing methods have changed to create a bias in favour of the placebos being successful.
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I assume you mean this as a joke, but homeopathic remedies are so popular here in Germany -- the pharmacy shelves are loaded with them!! -- that I wonder whether use of the placebo effect is an official component of the national healthcare strategy.
Yeah, it's extremely weird to see homeopathic "medicine" all over in a country with an otherwise excellent, modern medical system. Germany generally does a good job on evidence-based herbal medicine (like standardizing St. John's wort extract), but I worry that the line can easily be blurred between them and homeopathic products in the eyes of most consumers. You really have to look carefully - they're not clearly ma…
I went home and looked it up: a homeopathic panacea with only a single "study". Not double blind, not even single blind -- they literally just gave the drug to some participants and the self-reported symptoms "improved".
I'm still not sure whether the GP was just trolling me.
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Yeah, it's extremely weird to see homeopathic "medicine" all over in a country with an otherwise excellent, modern medical system. Germany generally does a good job on evidence-based herbal medicine (like standardizing St. John's wort extract), but I worry that the line can easily be blurred between them and homeopathic products in the eyes of most consumers. You really have to look carefully - they're not clearly ma…
No kidding. I went to the doctor with sleeping problems one time and he suggested I look up a certain drug. He said I couldn't get a prescription for it and it was to be taken therapeutically (i.e. indefinitely) and at the normal dosage it would cost something like 50 bucks a month. I went home and looked it up: a homeopathic panacea with only a single "study". Not double blind, not even single blind -- they literall…