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What do we know about him? Most will remember that this is a situation where we take a harmless “dummy” pill, and it magically works like a real medicine. Is it so? And is the placebo effect used in medicine?
The placebo effect was discovered back in the 1944th century, but medicine began to take this mechanism seriously only during World War II. It was XNUMX, the Allied army was liberating Southern Italy, the military doctor Henry Beecher was exhausted, the medicines were running out. The wounded soldier next to him was moaning in pain, and morphine, as luck would have it, was all gone. Desperate, Beecher injected saline into his wounded thigh. And he was surprised to notice that the soldier, writhing in pain, was calming down, his face was smoothing out, and the pain, apparently, was passing. So modern medicine turned to the study of the placebo effect – one of the most amazing phenomena.
How it works
The placebo effect is the subjective feeling of relief in a patient after taking a “dummy” (neutral drug) or after procedures that are not able to have a significant effect on the patient’s body. It is based on suggestion and self-hypnosis, which includes a number of neurophysiological systems (endocannabinoid, endorphin, dopaminergic …). These systems begin to make us “better”, and we feel relieved.
The same processes can occur spontaneously: for example, the endorphins that the body produces when we laugh or have sex can reduce pain. A placebo will not cure the disease, but it may relieve or relieve a symptom, such as pain or fear.
A doctor may prescribe a placebo to see if medication is really needed or if psychotherapy will suffice. Placebos are also sometimes given to patients who are easily suggestible or hypochondriacs. Prescribing a harmless drug helps to reduce the patient’s anxiety, which might otherwise become agitated, having only been advised by the doctor to wait and simply observe the state of health.
The placebo effect is also used in narcology: “Coding and stitching are placebo procedures, the purpose of which is to cause fear of the use of toxic substances,” says medical psychologist Sergey Malyukov, “for this, the confidence and authority of a doctor, as well as medical attributes are used.” Operations, ampoules, procedures reinforce the suggestion, make it more tangible and material.
Hypnosis is a man’s friend
Healing without drugs, or at least the impression that such a healing has taken place, is well known to many of our compatriots: let us recall the television sessions conducted in the 1990s by psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky and Alan Chumak, who considered himself a psychic. If the first made speeches, convincing the audience that our body is capable of complete self-healing, then the second made passes without words, “charging” water, creams and other substances that the audience brought to the TV.
A negative consequence was the refusal of patients from drug treatment and deterioration of the condition. But many claimed to have recovered! “There are still no convincing clinical studies of hypnosis,” Sergey Malyukov notes, “even a definition has not been formulated, but there are many myths. To have a result, two factors are needed: the charisma of the hypnotist and the suggestibility of the patient, and this sometimes works.
Best of all, hypnosis and placebo help with the actual psychosomatic diseases. Among them:
ulcerative colitis;
duodenal ulcer or stomach ulcer;
rheumatoid arthritis;
neurodermatitis;
bronchial asthma;
essential hypertension.
According to Sergey Malyukov, neurological and mental mechanisms are involved here, as a result of which the activity of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the nucleus accumbens and the so-called “pleasure center” increase. These areas are responsible for the production of substances that reduce anxiety and fear and induce a feeling of peace and lightness. Improving your emotional state can indeed contribute to recovery, although it does not guarantee it.
Care instead of pills
The placebo effect occurs when any drug-like drug is taken in a medical setting. It is used in drug research as a starting point. If the effect of the drug did not exceed the placebo effect, then they say that it has no clinically significant effect.
“When conducting such studies, the double-blind placebo-controlled method is considered the norm, when neither the staff nor the subjects know who is receiving the placebo and who is the drug,” explains psychiatrist Alexei Koshelev. In this case, it does not matter whether the patient believes in the medicine or not.
In the late 90s, the action of secretin was studied in this way.
Even earlier, the media trumpeted it as a super cure for autism: after the introduction of this hormone, a two-year-old boy with autistic disorder began to communicate and maintain eye contact. A few injections of the substance to other autistic people – and again a noticeable improvement. However, the placebo study showed that the effect of secretin is comparable to that of placebo, and therefore, the miracle hormone cannot be considered effective.
But here’s what’s interesting: while the experiment was going on, the manifestations of autism still decreased by about a third! It is unlikely that autistic children adjusted to the expected outcome, so what’s the matter?
Parents saw serious doctors, discussed with each other publications that glorified the new drug, and probably talked and played with children more often to test the results, thus creating an environment in which children became more sociable. Attention and care in relation to the subjects, and in parents to children, had a beneficial effect, although the medicine did not live up to expectations.
When it’s dangerous to believe
The nervous system can relieve the symptoms of diseases by communicating with other body systems. But it can also aggravate the patient’s condition. This effect is called “nocebo”.
“Nocebo can bring an impressionable person to a serious condition or even death,” explains medical psychologist Andrei Chetverikov. – This was used by African sorcerers, cursing the victim: the faith of the tribe members in the power of the shaman was so great that those who were cursed actually died.
And now the gullible and suggestible patient can die if doctors – modern “sorcerers” – mistakenly give him a fatal diagnosis. The nocebo effect, like the placebo effect, is due to the fact that the nervous system transmits a signal to other human systems. In particular, hormonal: the production of the hormone dopamine decreases, pain increases, the protective properties of the body weaken.
In medicine, the nocebo effect is well studied. Doctors agree that he is a real danger. You can counteract the nocebo effect with hypnosis.
For my benefit
If the placebo effect is explained by the patient’s belief in a cure, it is logical to assume that we ourselves will not be able to make life easier for ourselves with the help of it: after all, we probably know what we are taking. But it is not.
In a 2014 study at Harvard Medical School, one group received a migraine drug labeled with the name of the drug, one group received a placebo labeled honestly “placebo,” and one group received nothing. It turned out that in half of the cases, the placebo reduced migraine pain as effectively as the real medicine!
The researchers suggested that the healing power was the action itself: take the pill, swallow it with water…
“People associate the ritual of taking medication with a positive healing effect,” explains study leader Ted Kapchuk. “Even if they know it’s not a cure, the act itself can cause the brain to think the body is healing.”
Perhaps this also explains the fact that various and sometimes contradictory healthy eating systems have followers who claim that their system is good for health. And yoga, meditation and friendly communication are useful both in themselves and as a result of the fact that these practices are a message to the body: “I care about you and I want you to feel good.”
All parents who apply it to a child’s sore knee know about the healing remedies of plantain. Meanwhile, only plantain juice has a wound-healing effect, and not a whole leaf at all, which, in fact, turns out to be the same placebo. But attention and emotional support help those to whom they are addressed.