The Magic of the Placebo Effect

The placebo effect can be known and characterized as a sham or lie by several people when in reality they forget it's use is usually in benefit of society and natural cure. The truth is a placebo can be better defined as an effect that has a measurable or truly experienced improvement in health. A placebo effect includes no cure or treatment at all. A great and simple example of a placebo effect for medical purposes can be fake surgeries or pills. These pills or surgeries would produce an effect similar to that expected to be experienced by the genuine procedure or medicine.

This amazing discovery and effective idea was first reported by Henry k. Beecher in 1955. Henry first experimented with abut 800 different studies over time. One of his most famous controversial studies was done on patients that presented a cold. These patients were given a placebo and experienced an improvement in six days. However in general cases all patients of a cold experience an improvement in 6 days with or with no medication. Beecher did not report all of the data from his experiment and left out the fact that forty percent of the time the condition of the patients worsened.

In addition, the examination of Beecher's work determined that he reported only on the percentage of conditions that showed improvement from placebo, not the percentage that deteriorated. Yes, one-third of the time conditions improved while on, but not necessarily because of, placebo; however, about 40 percent of the time conditions worsened. Beecher did not report all the data. After this experiment people became very intrigued and Beecher along with researchers created another experiment on a group of three groups of patients. One group did not receive medicine, a second group was given a placebo and the last group received no treatment. The results of the placebo and no treatment groups matched 100 percent of the time. This proved the power of the placebo accompanied with imagination.

Even though placebo effects have been thoroughly and long studied many people still believe there is no adequate evidence from studies to prove that the new drugs are more effective than placebos. The reality of studies on placebos effect is very complicated due to the fact that a number of factors can affect many treatments and the evaluation of those treatments making hard to find out what produces or is perceived as improvement. Another factor that greatly affects this studies are the participants behavior and how in several cases they behave differently to please the researcher. Many researchers such as Dr. Hróbjartsson believe the reported high levels of placebo effects are in reality flawed research methodology. The main flaw is how many studies prove a surgery or a procedure or medicine is not necessary but don’t really demonstrate the placebo effect was indeed successful. The solution is using a third control group, which receives no treatment at all. If the placebo effect receives better results than the third group, then the placebo effect is proved effective. The biggest error in placebo studies are due to the small samples used and the participants who constantly try to please the researcher.

I personally believe even though many studies based on placebos effect have demonstrated great flaws the truth is placebo effects due have a great or very high rate of effectiveness. This is due to the power of the mind and the psychological factor in which our beliefs about what’s going to happen to us permits us perceive a deep transformation without relying on drugs. Many studies like the Sapiristein have even found 50 percent of the drug effect is due mostly to the placebo effect. A person’s belief and hopes on a certain treatment may have a significant biochemical effect. We can be conditioned to release substances as endorphins and adrenaline that will serve as a pain relief and will stimulate an improvement. Even though the placebo effect isn’t entirely psychology the majority f its effectiveness lies in the power of the mind and our ability to control it.

Sources:

http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html

http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/Debunking_the_Placebo.shtml