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Non-Existent Placebo Effect

When talking about "placebo effect", it is useful to distinguish between two meanings of the term.

1) The original, and basic concept that some patients are observed to improve when given medicine, even if that medicine has no objective effect on the disease in question.

There are a number of reasons for this effect. First of all, a number of complaints are partly or even entirely psychological; here the belief that the condition is being treated has the potential for actually causing improvement. Also, the wellfeeling of any patient is not closely correlated to the actual severeness of their condition. For instance, seasick persons often feel they are on the verge of death, although the disease is really quite beneign. Finally, a number of patients will actually improve, if they relax and take it easy.

However, as recent research indicates, the actual progress of a basic pathological condition may not be influenced by placebo.

2) The other meaning is the meaning placebo attains in a double blind placebo controlled test, where "placebo" encompasses ALL influences that are not due to the active substance in the drug under test. This includes all of the above, plus various observer and reporting biases, advice and guidance by practitioners, and downright manipulation.

Hans
 
Placebo effect: a combination of wishful thinking and coincidental recovery.

Rolfe.
 
That's a third definition ;).

And, of course, imagined medicine is great for imagined diseases.

Hans
 
Vim Razz said:
Chronic stress does supress the immune system; this is not the same as saying that all stress supresses the immune system.

At the onset of the stress response (glucocorticids being the relevant trigger) the immune system is stimulated. Continued glucocorticid then supresses the immune system to bring it bsk down to "normal." (This is an important self-regulating function. If the immune system does not get supressed you run the risk of auto-immune disorders -- where the overly agressive immune system begins to attack normal body tissues.)

A problem arises when it comes to chronic stresses (which are a very recent challenge in our evolutionary history -- fretting about bills, deadlines and such) and glucocorticid release does not stop for extended periods of time. This continues to supress the immune system until it's below "normal" healthy levels and messes with the triggering mechanism in such a way that interferes with it's ability to respond properly to the next threat.

So you're not entirely wrong, Kumar, although much of your post is inacurate and/or unclear to me.

Glucocorticids do not only affect they immune system. They trigger a variety of stress reponses throughout the body -- mostly "fight or flight" responses that sacrifice long term heath in favor of short term survival -- and there are additional complications when glucocorticid levels remain high for a prolonged period of time.

In relation to the placebo effect, if an individual's primary source of anxiety is the condition that they believe they are treating with the placebo, then removing that source of anxiety (because they think the situation is now under control) can alow the stress funtions to shut off and thus return the body to "recovery mode."

This variety of plabebo does not, in itself, cause healing, but it does stop "fight or flight" functions that are inhibiting the healing process.




My source -- highy recomended, it's a great read. Any errors in this post are my own.
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Thanks for informative post. Pls think about; "Shocking effect" which I mentined in bold letters. Glucocorticoids are not a foreign substance to our body, so its optimal quantity may not matter but its imbalanced quantity can matter. What about gastric acid? Does it got effected by stresses or mental stressess or polluted environment & modern lifestyle?

Btw, are we sure that auto-immunity is always harming not an immune defense response? Whether some auto-immune responses can be thought as positive/beneficial immune responses in case of chronic problems, latencies & tumors, as RBCs destructions or hemolytic anemia?

Initiation of placebo effect by any mean can be thought as " by healing agent"--medicine or remedy. It can be more or less, depending upon the quantity or type of "healing agent" used. It can be also with or without strong effects + side/adverse/toxic effects--more or less visible/measurable. So it can't be said that any healing/treatment if initiated by any mean--chemical or otherwise--can be a fake effect--as sometimes we think to placebo effect?

Some informations:

How stress effects immune system
 
Kumar said:
Initiation of placebo effect by any mean can be thought as " by healing agent"--medicine or remedy. It can be more or less, depending upon the quantity or type of "healing agent" used.
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No! The whole point of the placebo effect is that it is independent of whether there is actually any "healing agent" present, let alone how much.
 
Mojo said:
No! The whole point of the placebo effect is that it is independent of whether there is actually any "healing agent" present, let alone how much.
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Do you want to say no trigger, initiation....psychological, physiological, mechanical...is required to get the placebo effect?

Do you want to say that people initiated by placebo & not given anything in DB studies will present same effects?
 
Kumar said:
Do you want to say no trigger, initiation....psychological, physiological, mechanical...is required to get the placebo effect?

Do you want to say that people initiated by placebo & not given anything in DB studies will present same effects?
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Kumar, for heaven's sake! Can't you at least PRETEND to read what people post? Mojo said "no healing agent". We have been discussing all the other things at lenght above.

... But I guess you are just too engulfed in your private nonsense world :nope:.

Hans
 
Kumar said:
Do you want to say no trigger, initiation....psychological, physiological, mechanical...is required to get the placebo effect?
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Obviously there is a psychological trigger! The placebo effect is caused by the subject's belief that they have been given a potentially effective treatment.
Do you want to say that people initiated by placebo & not given anything in DB studies will present same effects?
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A control group given a placebo will exhibit the placebo effect to the same degree as the group given the real treatment. That's why the control group is given a placebo: to enable the placebo effect to be eliminated from the results for the group given the real treatment.

You really don't get it, do you?
 
MRC_Hans said:
Kumar, for heaven's sake! Can't you at least PRETEND to read what people post? Mojo said "no healing agent". We have been discussing all the other things at lenght above.

... But I guess you are just too engulfed in your private nonsense world :nope:.

Hans
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Ok, but then what will make so called as "placebo effect"?
 
"a combination of wishful thinking and coincidental recovery"

Will "wishful thinking" not be an initiation & "any type of healing agent's" mediated? Will "coincidental recovery" not be a "self healing effect" as I indicated?
 
Kumar said:
Ok, but then what will make so called as "placebo effect"?
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The placebo effect is initiated by the subject's belief that they have been given a treatment. The placebo itself is just a sham treatment. For example, if the treatment is a course of pills, the control group can be given an identical looking course of pills, but without an active ingredient.

Please try to get your head around this.
 
Kumar said:
"a combination of wishful thinking and coincidental recovery"

Will "wishful thinking" not be an initiation & "any type of healing agent's" mediated? Will "coincidental recovery" not be a "self healing effect" as I indicated?
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No.
 
Kumar said:
"a combination of wishful thinking and coincidental recovery"

Will "wishful thinking" not be an initiation & "any type of healing agent's" mediated? Will "coincidental recovery" not be a "self healing effect" as I indicated?
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May I recomend you get a dictionary and look up the words? Cause making up definitions to suit your purpose is going to get you nowhere.
 
He's never going anywhere in any case. I don't know why some of you have been so patient for so long.
 
Jeff Corey said:
He's never going anywhere in any case. I don't know why some of you have been so patient for so long.
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I guess it's that we cannot belive somebody can really be this thick. Somehow Kumar manages to hover forever just on the brink of making sense, so we keep nudging him to see if he really won't budge. Actually, it is not Kumar's lack of sense that puts me off, it's his arrogance, his talking down to peole who are his intellectual superiours on every account.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
I guess it's that we cannot belive somebody can really be this thick. Somehow Kumar manages to hover forever just on the brink of making sense, so we keep nudging him to see if he really won't budge. Actually, it is not Kumar's lack of sense that puts me off, it's his arrogance, his talking down to peole who are his intellectual superiours on every account.
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What's beginning to really annoy me is his variable English skills. I've just looked over some threads of his from a while back (both here and on other forums) and found several posts where he expressed himself in perfectly good English (OK, the actual content of the posts was nonsense, but at least it made it easier to see why). But whenever he's contradicted (i.e. most of the time) he retreats into incomprehensible language and pretending he doesn't understand other people's posts.
 
No one can say what really cure. You say concentrated chemicals, homeopathy says "vital force" some other say "GOD", Some other may say "self healing power or defence mechanism". There can be so many theories. Some may present observable but not measurable real effects other observable real+ measurable adversities some other may only present only adversities.

We are concerned with real effects, placebo or otherwise should not be our concern.

Mr.Hans,

All people or different group of people can find themselves as intelligent or correct but to others not. But as all may have come out from one source, so considering to self as intelligent but others not, is biggest mistake.
 
Kumar said:
No one can say what really cure. You say concentrated chemicals, homeopathy says "vital force" some other say "GOD", Some other may say "self healing power or defence mechanism". There can be so many theories. Some may present observable but not measurable real effects other observable real+ measurable adversities some other may only present only adversities.
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Wrong. These theories make predictions. These predictions cn be tested. So far, the tests on "vital force" and "god" show nothing of any value.

We are concerned with real effects, placebo or otherwise should not be our concern.
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Wrong again. Even when measuring the effects of real treatments, you take placebo effects into account. That's what this thread is about.
 
Kumar said:
No one can say what really cure. You say concentrated chemicals
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I don't think anyone here suggested that "concentrated chemicals" cure. Therapeutic doses of drugs are pretty small.

In any case, we do know that certain treatments are effective. We know this because they consistently pass DBPC tests.
 
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