Tag: placebo

Placebos work even after patients are told they’re placebos

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Patients continued to report that placebo drugs were working after being told they were not taking medications — but only if they had believed for long enough the placebo was working prior to being told, according to a new study.

Researchers said the new understanding of the placebo effect could lead to better ways to ease addiction and aid in pain management when dealing with stronger, more addictive drugs.

“We’re still learning a lot about the critical ingredients of placebo effects,” said Tor Wager, an associate professor…at the University of Colorado…”What we think now is that they require both belief in the power of the treatment and experiences that are consistent with those beliefs. Those experiences make the brain learn to respond to the treatment as a real event.”…

Schafer said the findings could lead to ways of weaning people off of drugs more easily and quickly, or not using the drugs at all.

“If a child has experience with a drug working, you could wean them off the drug, or switch that drug a placebo, and have them continue taking it,” Schafer said. “We know placebos induce the release of pain-relieving substances in the brain, but we don’t yet know whether this expectation-independent placebo effect is using the same or different systems.”

RTFA for details of the experiment/tests. The more we learn about our brain the smarter, sillier, more capable and unpredictable we seem. 🙂

Expensive placebos work better than cheap placebos — Gotcha!

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For the most part, there is no difference — chemical or otherwise — between generic drugs and their more expensive, brand-name counterparts. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have varying effects, especially if their users are under the assumption that expensive drugs are more effective.

In a recent study, researchers found a patient’s perception or expectations of a drug (based on how much it costs) significantly affected the drug’s efficacy.

“Patients’ expectations play an important role in the effectiveness of their treatments, and the placebo effect has been well documented, especially in people with Parkinson’s disease,” explained lead study author Alberto J. Espay, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati who is currently serving as a fellow with the American Academy of Neurology.

“We wanted to see if the people’s perceptions of the cost of the drug they received would affect the placebo response,” Espay added.

To find out, Espay and his colleagues gave a group of study volunteers two shots of a placebo drug for Parkinson’s disease. Of course, the participants weren’t told it was a simple saline solution. Doctors told them that they were receiving two drugs, one shot and then the second after the first “wore off.”

Prior to the shots, doctors told the participants each drug had proven equally effective, but that one was significantly more expensive than the other — one costing $100 per dose and the other costing $1,500 per dose.

Despite being the exact same saline solution, the “expensive” placebo minimized hand shaking and improved motor skills among the Parkinson’s disease patients more effectively than did the “cheap” placebo.

After eventually revealing the ruse, researchers found the difference in efficacy was most pronounced among patients who admitted to expecting an improved result from the expensive version of the drug.

The brain is powerful drug — one that researchers hope to use to improve treatments.

If you casually note the number of miraculous cures popular through history – you shouldn’t be surprised at any of this. Both the placebo effect and the belief in “getting what you pay for” are demonstrably strong. Combined in a society rife with ignorance, the sophistry is destined to have some effect.