I’ve heard and read studies about it treating a multitude of mental things and lessen physical pain but like how? Is it real? I’m lost.
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That’s the neat part… it doesn’t!
A placebo treatment is one that is known to have no actual active ingredient for treatment. The sugar pill is the famous version, but also drops of water on the tongue will do the trick.
A placebo is used to filter out the purely psychological benefits humans feel when they think they are receiving medical treatment or care, especially for testing new drugs.
For example: My new drug cures headaches in 5 minutes. I set up a trial, get test patients presenting with symptoms, give them my pill, then in 5 minutes ask them if they feel better. They all say yes. So my drug is proven to work as designed, right?
Well, not yet.
I set up the same exact trial, but instead of my drug I give everyone a sugar pill. In 5 minutes they all say they are feeling better. So now there seems to be no difference between my drug and an inert sugar pill on making people with headaches feel better quickly. What’s going on?
The placebo effect studies you hear about measure that psychological effect on people reporting to feel better after receiving treatment. When we think we are getting medicine our body expects to feel better, so in testing we have to account for this if we want to accurately measure a treatment’s effectiveness.
Placebos work great for things that have basic treatment that doesn’t actually require medical intervention. A headache will usually clear up on its own with a bit of water and some rest. Feeling anxious? Treatment is to calm down. Struggle to focus? Treatment is to remove distractions.
Or, I can give you a sugar pill for that headache, tell you to take it with a glass of water and lie down while it takes affect. I can tell you to take three drops of sugar water on your tongue and sit in a quiet room for 5 minutes to help your anxiety. I can give you a piece of chewing gum and place you in a room without distractions to help you focus.
You might attribute your improvement to the “medicine”, but the truth is you’re just taking helpful actions for brief relief that you could have taken on your own. The difference was that you felt you were receiving medical treatment.
Placebo effect does nothing for things like cancer, broken bones, infections and such, unfortunately.
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