Shooting From The Hip - 8 - Placebo Effect, Nocebo Effect, Mental rehearsal

Placebo Effect, Nocebo Effect
The idea that your brain can convince your body a fake treatment is the real thing - the so-called placebo effect - & thus stimulate healing has been around for millennia - placebo: from Latin, literally means, “I shall please”
The 1st use of placebo in English - 13th century - effects are psychobiological events. Placebo - defined as an inert substance that provokes benefits
nocebo is when an inert substance causes harm.
Psychology is the science of mind, but in any real sense a mind cannot exist without a body in which to reside.
Studying relations between mind & body can greatly inform our understanding of psychology – which is psychobiology. Psychobiology describes the interaction between biological systems & behavior. Psychobiologists research how cognition (what we are thinking) & mood (how we are feeling) combine with biological events. Striving to understand how psychological & biological connections shape the human experience provides psychobiology with a unique perspective in psychology.
Placebo & nocebo effects occur frequently & are clinically significant but are under recognized in clinical practice.

What is the placebo effect? The placebo effect is a beneficial health outcome resulting from a person's anticipation that an intervention will help.
The 1st to recognize & demonstrate the placebo effect was English physician John Haygarth in 1799. He used "Perkins tractors", pointers to 'draw out' disease.
Henry Beecher used the placebo effect as a medic in World War II. After running out of pain-killing morphine, he replaced it with a simple saline solution but continued telling the wounded soldiers it was morphine to calm them.
Has the placebo effect been proven? The idea that your brain can convince your body a fake treatment is the real thing - Now science has found that under the right circumstances, a placebo can be just as effective as traditional treatments. (Harvard health)
Spontaneous remission, (also called spontaneous healing, spontaneous regression) is an unexpected improvement or cure from a disease. The term refers to recovery of a patient from cancer in the absence of a disease-specific treatment or in the presence of inadequate therapy.
double-blind study, both participants & experimenters are blinded. triple-blind study - the assignment is hidden not only from participants & experimenters, but also from the researchers analyzing the data.
Feburary 22, 2022 A network of brain regions activated by the placebo effect overlaps with several regions targeted by brain-stimulation therapy for depression, according to a new analysis by a team that included several researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), who collaborated with colleagues at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre at the University of Toronto. The findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, will aid in understanding the neurobiology of placebo effects & could influence how the results of clinical trials of brain stimulation are interpreted. This work may also offer insights on how to harness placebo effects for the treatment of a variety of conditions.
These “Dr. Feelgood” modalities include pharmacologically active herbal products, quack formulas adulterated with prescription drugs, colonic irrigations, bodywork, & meditation.
Scientific experimentation is almost always necessary to establish whether health methods are truly effective.
Medical News Today: Fast facts on placebos
The placebo effect has been measured in thousands of medical experiments, & many Drs admit to regularly prescribing placebos.
Drug companies must show that their new drugs work better than a placebo before the drugs are approved.
Placebos have been shown to affect a range of health conditions. positive effects: reduce pain, antidepressant effects, anti-anxiety, 85% reduction in coughs, erectile dysfunction, IBS, Parkin's diease, Epilepsy
The color of a tablet can alter the strength of its placebo effect, & larger pills induce a stronger effect than smaller pills.
The placebo has become an essential part of all good clinical trials. In early clinical trials, the capabilities of a new drug are measured against a groups of people who took no medication.
A drug is only approved when it produces a greater effect than a placebo.
Placebos have been shown to produce measurable, physiological changes, increase in heart rate or blood pressure. However, illnesses that rely on the self-reporting of symptoms for measurement are most strongly influenced by placebos, such as depression, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) & chronic pain.
Placebo interventions vary in strength depending on many factors. For instance, an injection causes a stronger placebo effect than a tablet. 2 tablets work better than 1, capsules are stronger than tablets, & larger pills produce greater reactions.
Placebos can reduce the symptoms of numerous conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, depression, anxiety, & fatigue