I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Placebo Effect.
Because I could really use a good placebo, right about now.
And I don’t mean just an ordinary sugar pill. I mean a high-octane, all-encompassing placebo.
According to a 2020 article by Dr. Robert H. Shmerling, Senior Faculty Editor at Harvard Health Publishing, the placebo effect is “a mysterious thing”. But it’s not just mysterious. It’s amazing. And real.
His article was titled, “The Placebo Effect: Amazing and Real”
In my experience, lots of things are real. Only a few things are amazing. And some of the most amazing things are not real.
When we come across something that is amazing and also real, it’s time to sit up and take notice.
Enter Stage Right, the Placebo.
Dr. Shmerling says the word “placebo” comes from Latin and means “I shall please.”
And “please” it does. In study after study, many people who take a placebo show improvement in their symptoms or condition.
And we’re talking “study after study” on steroids. Because whenever a drug company wants to get an expensive new drug approved, they have to do a trial.
They have to prove that their new drug is more effective than a placebo.
So they get a group of sick people together — volunteers, normally — and they tell them they have a new treatment for whatever ails them. Half of the group get a placebo — such as a sugar pill — and the other half get the expensive new drug. (Sugar pills are a dime a dozen, which saves the drug company some money.)
To have the new drug pass the trial successfully, it has to be more effective than a sugar pill. Sometimes, the sugar pill is just as effective as the expensive new drug. Sometimes it’s more effective.
Measureable physiological changes can be observed in the people taking a placebo, similar to those observed among people taking “effective” medications. In particular, blood pressure, heart rate, and various blood test results have been shown to change among research subjects who responded to a placebo.
And the great thing about sugar pills? No side effects. That is, unless the “nocebo effect” is in play.
The other side of the placebo coin is the “nocebo”. The placebo’s evil twin.
Here’s Dr. Shmerling
If you tell a person that a headache is a common side effect of a particular medication, that person is more likely to report headaches even if they are actually taking a placebo. The power of expectation is formidable and probably plays a significant role in the benefits and the side effects of commonly prescribed medications.
If the doctor gives you a sugar pill and suggests that it might cause a fever, you’re likely to get a fever.
Personally, I have no use whatsoever for nocebos. Or for doctors that pull that kind of stunt.
A sugar pill is just a sugar pill. According to science, a sugar pill has no business curing an illness, just because some doctor told you it was a powerful treatment.
Here’s a weird story. In 2015, a group for researchers studied the historical effects of placebos used to test new pain relievers, because the new drugs were consistently failing to perform better than placebos. Their conclusion, after looking at 84 trials, was that placebos had actually increased in their effectiveness between 1990 and 2013.
Sugar pills are kicking ass. But the new drugs aren’t.
Science has no explanation for this increase. I have my own explanation, however, even though I’m not a scientist. (As I have often stated.)
The drugs were garbage, and people have got used to believing doctors. And believing rich people, in general.
The problem with placebos is that someone you trust has to convince you that it’s more than a sugar pill. In other words, a placebo only works if you are being lied to by a scientist.
Meaning that you are putting your trust in someone you have no business trusting. But it still cures the pain.
Personally, I would be perfectly willing to trust someone I have no business trusting, if they could fix the economy. They can lie right to my face, and I would be delighted.
Like, for example, the people in Washington DC.
Where’s the sugar pill, guys?
We want the sugar pill.