When you experience a placebo effect, how does your body know what chemicals to produce?
In: 0
[removed]
Shortest answer: we don’t entirely know.
More complete answer: the human body is an immensely complicated machine. A scratch on your foot can result in you craving (for example, I’m guessing on the specific food) chicken wings, because one part of you recognises something that is damaged, another part recognises what nutrients are needed to fix it, and another part compares those nutrients against what your body has recognised after eating different things before, and suddenly you have a craving.
In many cases, the placebo effect occurs because your body doesn’t know how to solve/heal a problem/wound, but once it gets the feedback that the issue is being dealt with, it starts pumping nutrients/antibodies/other problem solving resources to that point, and those things heal the problem themselves.
There is no proof that the placebo actually does any healing.
It might be that the effect is purely psychological: the brain thinks, that the issue has been dealt with, so it ignores the alerts from the body. It just makes you feel fine, without actual healing. It might work with minor diseases that your body can heal by itself, but deadly diseases will kill you anyway.
There is only one proven effect: when the brain experiences fear or anxiety – it can put the body on a “combat-ready alert”. This makes the body halt or slow down any healing to save the resources for a short-term survival. Being calm and relaxed cancels the alert – that allows the healing to continue. But again – that’s not enough with serious diseases – they can kill you even at your fill healing strength. Calm mind is not a substitute for a medical help.
Latest Answers