You WILL feel better for reading this.

[dieseltaylor]

A new study in Science Translational Medicine has cast doubt over the scientific validity of nearly all randomized, double-blind placebo controlled studies involving pharmaceuticals used on human beings. It turns out that many pharmaceuticals only work because people expect them to, not because they have any "real" chemical effect on the body. As you'll see here, when test subjects were told that they were not receiving painkiller medications -- even though they were -- the medication proved to be completely worthless.

This particular experiment involved applying heat to the legs of test subjects in order to cause pain, then adding a painkiller medication to an IV drip while assessing the subjects' pain levels. When the painkiller drug was present, the test subjects were told about it, and just as expected their pain scores significantly dropped. But when test subjects were told the pain medication had been stopped, their pain levels returned back to the original, non-medicated levels even though the pain medication was secretly still being dripped into their IVs.

The mind of the patient, in other words, is what actually determines the "effectiveness" of the pain drug, not the chemical effect of the drug itself.

Talking to the BBC, Professor Irene Tracey from Oxford University said, "It's phenomenal, it's really cool. It's one of the best analgesics we have and the brain's influence can either vastly increase its effect, or completely remove it." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12...).

As pointed out by George Lewith, a professor of health research at the University of Southampton, these findings call into question the scientific validity of many randomized clinical trials. He said, "It completely blows cold randomized clinical trials, which don't take into account expectation."

Interesting. One thing not noted in that snippet from Natural Health is that placeboes can be anything you want. There is NO standard placebo so you can put arsenic in and say your drug did better than patients taking the placebo!

Golomb and her colleagues analyzed just how often randomized trials published in the past two years in each of the top four general medical journals actually disclosed the makeup of placebos. The answer is not reassuring, according to the researchers, who found that the placebo ingredients for pills were disclosed in fewer than 10 percent of cases. (The nature of the "control" was significantly more likely to be stated for other types of treatments -- like injections, acupuncture, or surgery -- where people are more likely to question what "placebo" actually means.)

"How often study results are affected by what's in the placebo is hard to say -- because, as this study showed, most of the time we have no idea what the placebo is,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101018174335.htm

[Pešadija]

There's nothing new. Where do you think buddhist monks get the strength of doing some of the outlandish **** they do? Mental discipline.

The body is always subordinate to a strong mind, but it's much harder to exercise the mind than the body, that's the pickle.

[Pak_43]

Ben Goldacre from about April last year I think?

If you haven't read Bad Science I can thoroughly recommend it...

http://www.badscience.net/2010/04/placebo-nocebo/

[abneo3sierra]

This is very interesting. And I agree, the mind is superior to the body. I have seen some people survive some things they should not have been able to, and mostly because they just refused to die. A lot of power there to harness, maybe, some day.

[dieseltaylor]

That was good,. I do have his first book but not the later two. Still good videos and very interesting for the latest research ... I have sent my money to keep him going!