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The Placebo Effect

arthwollipot said:
Steve Novella discusses acupuncturist Ted Kaptchuk, who for some reason is a director of placebo studies at Harvard:

Placebo Effect Revisited

And I note that once again it is the New York Times that is promoting pseudoscientific bull. Whatever good reputation that paper once had, it is fast being eroded.
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I have plenty of problems with the NYT, but here they are not promoting anything. They are publishing an editorial reporting results of peer-reviewed research.
 
jt512 said:
I have plenty of problems with the NYT, but here they are not promoting anything. They are publishing an editorial reporting results of peer-reviewed research.
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Correction: they are publishing an editorial reporting questionable, biased results of barely peer-reviewed research.
 
arthwollipot said:
Correction: they are publishing an editorial reporting questionable, biased results of barely peer-reviewed research.
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It wasn't even an editorial actually—Science Based Medicine mischaracterized it. It was an opinion. Newspapers are supposed to publish controversial opinions...in the opinion section. Then they publish letters to the editorial that agree and disagree with those opinions. Then readers make up their own minds. That's how free speech—an idea that you "progressives" aren't real happy with—works.

And what the **** does "barely peer-reviewed" mean?

BTW, the author of that opinion piece calls himself a "placebo researcher." There's a humorous ambiguity there.
 
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New article at Science-Based Medicine today:
I have written about placebo before. Actually, much of my SCAM writings are about placebo. For those who do not want to search the site, try here, here and here.
(...)
Powerful is an adjective that isn’t ever strictly defined in reference to placebo that I can find. It appears to be an intrinsic but unmeasured and unmeasurable property of the placebo. Powerful is chi. Powerful is innate intelligence. Powerful is the dilution and succussion. Powerful is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Powerful is an axiom.
Placebos are not going to have any effect on any of the processes I saw in my career: placebo will not cure pneumonia, send lymphoma into remission or modify a heart attack. If there is an objective medical issue, expect no benefit from placebo. In comparison to placebo, even vancomycin would be powerful. But placebo would be not be reliably effective against any process that would send you the ER. So not powerful for most medical problems.
What the placebo does help is patient reported symptoms, usually pain. It does nothing for the underlying problem, but does change the perception of the problem.
Adjectives - When a placebo is called ‘powerful’, what is meant? Nothing. (Science-Based Medicine, Nov 21, 2023)
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I haven't had a chance to read this whole thread yet, but will try to catch up cause this is one topic where I have long disagreed with the skeptical community's consensus that the placebo effect is not a real thing. I used to argue this via emails with Randi and Novella back in the day...I admit my personal bias because I was completely cured of severe back pain and sciatica attributed to bulging/herniated disks (MRI demonstrated) back in ~1997 after I found John Sarno's book on healing back pain in the library, and after doing much research in a local medical library found that there was no real scientific evidence for herniations causing pain, along with the fact that many people with no pain had structural anomalies linked to pain by mainstream medicine. I cured myself completely in two weeks when it became clear to me that my pain was psychologic in origin and not structural. That's where my interest in placebos came from, cause of course many people called Sarnos' approach a placebo effect, which is why Sarno himself was so emphatic that his approach was not placebo-based because it relied on obtaining knowledge of the process rather than blind faith.

I have long since gone beyond Sarno's basic theories, and don't really see any huge distinctions that he tried to make back then. I do applaud the fact that his conclusions are now much more accepted now but there is still a ways to go and the science has been somewhat slow to catch up. A recent documentary 'Pain Brain" shows some of the more recent efforts to show scientific evidence for *real* effects caused by a change in belief--from assuming pain or numbness must be caused by physical anomaly rather than stress. (brain studies with imaging) The effects of stress on the body--for example the connection with cortisol and ensuing negative impacts--are much better known now. And Sarno's theory, which at the time was considered very fringe and alternative, has since been incorporated in more mainstream ideas such as centralized sensitization, and approaches to dealing with things like fibromyalgia and CFS. I think a lot more is on the horizon.

Personally, I believe the placebo effect goes beyond simple subjective perception or reporting, and can cause real physical changes in the body. Because it deals directly with stress levels, and the more we know about the effects of stress, the more we see how dangerous it can be to physical health. It is widely accepted that chronic stress will suppress the immune system--that alone should suggest that a reduction in stress (through placebo) can have an impact on things that are more than just subjective perception.
 
stanfr said:
I haven't had a chance to read this whole thread yet, but will try to catch up cause this is one topic where I have long disagreed with the skeptical community's consensus that the placebo effect is not a real thing.
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I very much suggest that you do - especially please read the articles, and watch Mike Hall's talk on YouTube, which I linked some time ago. It's a bit long, but he does cover most of the basics.

We'll talk more when you're up to speed. :D
 
stanfr said:
Personally, I believe the placebo effect goes beyond simple subjective perception or reporting, and can cause real physical changes in the body. Because it deals directly with stress levels, and the more we know about the effects of stress, the more we see how dangerous it can be to physical health. It is widely accepted that chronic stress will suppress the immune system--that alone should suggest that a reduction in stress (through placebo) can have an impact on things that are more than just subjective perception.
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I don't think anybody has denied that stress or anxiety impacts the body. See previous post. And nobody denies that relieving stress or anxiety will affect the body, too. And stress or anxiety may be caused by nocebos, much the same way placebos may make you relax and lower your blood pressure if it was caused by stress or anxiety in the first place and hasn't become chronic.
 
Hotels and houseplants: why we should doubt Ellen Langer’s mind-over-matter miracles

In a previous article for The Skeptic from January 2022, we discussed a paper titled ‘Mind-set matters: exercise and the placebo effect,’ which proposed that merely believing their work was good exercise led to significant health improvements among hotel room attendants. This 2007 study has been widely cited, both within academia and popular science literature.

For the study, eighty-four female room attendants from seven Boston-area hotels were divided into two groups. One group was informed that their daily tasks met the Surgeon General’s recommendations for a healthy and active lifestyle, while the other group was not. Four weeks later, the informed group showed improved physiological markers, such as lower weight, BMI, body fat percentage, and blood pressure, apparently without any additional exercise or dietary changes. The study concluded that perceived exercise could result in physiological improvements.

There are good reasons to be skeptical of these conclusions, including the small sample size and loose controls. Most notably, an attempted replication in 2011 yielded no significant differences between the informed and control groups...
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It's a long article, but it covers a lot of ground.
 
arthwollipot said:
Hotels and houseplants: why we should doubt Ellen Langer’s mind-over-matter miracles

It's a long article, but it covers a lot of ground.
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Quote from the referenced link: " an attempted replication in 2011 yielded no significant differences between the informed and control groups."

Next you'll be telling us that the Hawthorne Effect isn't real either!

Oh. Wait: Hawthorne Effect Definition: How It Works and Is It Real

It used be one of my favourite "explainers".

:(
 
Lots of pleasure watching the US gymnastics team trials today, until I see those stupid "cupping" bruise marks on their skin. (I think it may have only been one or two people, but still.) I can understand taping an injury, but not in crazy design shapes I see sometimes. But cupping is useless, stupid, ugly, (I keep thinking of that P.D. Eastmann book - Put Me in the Zoo), and is actually causing damage. I can't see an Olympic trainer allowing, or worse, promoting it. The athletes will go with virtually anything they say, so I don't really fault them.
 
Major Breakthrough! Controlling Placebo Effect Using Brain Stimulation
(Anton Petrov on YouTube, July 30, 2024 - 12:32 min.)
 
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