71–80 of 90 posts
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http://alphachoices.com/repository/assets/pdf/EmperorsNewDru... http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...
The PLOS article isn't really news. It's been known for a long time that measuring the efficacy of drugs for CNS diseases is ridiculously hard.
> They had an incision, and a procedure was faked so that they didn’t know that they actually had nothing done. Is it just me, or does this seem ethically dubious? A sugar pill placebo does no harm, but when you are cutting people open to "fake" surgery...just doesn't sit right.
> The ethical issues aren’t easily dismissed. Theoretically, a sugar pill carries no risk, and a sham procedure does. This is especially true if the procedure requires anesthesia. The surgeon must go out of his or her way to fool the patient. Many would have difficulty doing that.
> But we continue to ignore the real potential that many of our surgical procedures and medical devices aren’t doing much good — and might even be doing harm, since real surgery has been shown to pose more risks than sham surgery.
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While there is a good amount of controversy around the efficacy of antidepressants, first-line ADHD medications (the stimulants) work in roughly 70% of cases, which is much superior to placebo. For those with ADHD, treatment can make a large quality of life improvement. Source - memory from having written a book on adult ADHD
> 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…
Can anyone say if this article is reliable? I can't even read it on this computer.
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The PLOS article isn't really news. It's been known for a long time that measuring the efficacy of drugs for CNS diseases is ridiculously hard.
The article doesn't say that it's hard, it says that when you do it, there aren't significant benefits over placebo.
The other thing to keep in mind is that this was a meta-analysis using data pooled across many different trials. It certainly isn't as rigorous as a RCT.[1]
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So you think there is nothing physical about mood? Interesting.
There is a distinction, though it's tricky to word. It's about what is a direct effect, and what is an indirect effect. There is a feedback loop between abstract thoughts and effects on the body, so to make a proper distinction you want to ignore the feedback loop and look at where the inputs are. A placebo's direct effect is not physical. The direct effect is that first thought that you are receiving treatment, befo…
"No physical effect" means the same thing as "no effect", unless we are willing to discuss metaphysical effects.
The indirect effects are somehow the result of the user's expectation that there is a direct effect.
That is to say, "placebo effect" is not "the effect of the placebo object", obviously.
It's the emergent effect of the whole situation of someone being duped with a placebo.
Being duped with a placebo has direct, physical effects, while the placebo object has no effect.
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Rather than linking to a book on Amazon, could you link to some peer-reviewed journal articles?
Both of these books are just writeups on peer reviewed journal articles. No individual article is going to tell you very much on its own, so I don't see much value in just linking to a random list of studies.
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Couldn't that raise the question of if the side effects themselves are a source of benefit?
This is what the book The Emperor's New Drugs is about. The idea of the book is that there was some well-known research showing that anti-depressants are effective for severe depression, but not mild or moderate cases. But if you actually only look at studies that used active placebos as controls, then there is no evidence clinical efficacy even for severe depression. Meaning that the nominal benefit for anti-depress…
There are probably many factors to depression which may include chemical or structural causes; however the human brain is a complex self adapting analog computer. It would be foolish to think that such a system can be reduced a single or even simple set of controlled variables.
I thought that was kind of obvious. A friend of mine who repairs PCs occasionally finds nothing wrong with them and does the usual "I'll run some maintenance on it" and the client is always happier afterwards. He doesn't charge for stuff unless anything needs to be done.
Wouldn't your friend get happier clients if he charged them a little bit? It'd probably give them a stronger placebo effect.
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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…
That's deeply concerning. Everything I've read highly recommended medication. People with ADHD report it significantly improved their lives. Can anyone say if this article is reliable? I can't even read it on this computer.
The confounding thing with stimulants of all varieties is that even people without any problem tend to report improvement.