The Placebo Effect

One of the most intriguing processes in medicine is the placebo effect: when a neutral substance is offered to patients with the suggestion that it will help. Neuroscientists have even observed where and how the placebo effect may work in the brain. In one recent study by University of Michigan researchers, participants who were told they would receive painkillers showed increased production of endorphins — the brain's natural pain reliever — even though they got no analgesic at all. It makes sense. Most people can attest that the mere expectation of relief can somehow prompt the body to respond.  Do you remember pavlov's dog? What most people don't know, however, is that doctors occasionally prescribe placebos to their patients in regular practice.

In a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, a student-and-professor team at the University of Chicago surveyed faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools. Almost half of the respondents (45%) said they had prescribed placebos in regular clinical practice and, of those, just over half had prescribed them in the previous year. Among the reasons the doctors gave: to calm a patient down, to respond to demands for medication that the doctor felt was unnecessary, or simply to do something after all other clinical treatment options had failed. Commonly, the physicians came up with creative ways to explain, saying the substance might help but wouldn't hurt, or that "this may help you but I'm not sure how it works."

By definition, physicians focus on the physical body and they seem to have forgotten that the mind and the body are inherently interconnected. What is the position of the American Medical Association (AMA)?  The AMA tells its members that "physicians may use placebos for diagnosis or treatment only if the patient is informed of and agrees to its use."

Can you see how this is absolutely STUPID?  Disclosure of the use of a placebo drains the power from a placebo!

The AMA guidelines reveal a fundamental disconnect between what science reveals about human nature and how the medical establishment misinterprets this data.  In the current study, 80% of doctors believed that using placebos was NOT a good way to determine whether the patient's problem was physical or biochemical or if they had a mental or emotional problem.

Yet these very same doctors will make outrageous statements that amount to powerful hypnotic suggestions...

"You are going to have to take this medication for the rest of your life."

"There is no cure for your disease."

"There is nothing we can do."

"You only have a few weeks to live."