Powerful Placebo Effect

The placebo effect occurs when a person is treated using a fake (inactive) substance that looks like an ordinary medicine, the patient is generally unaware that the substance is inactive. It is the patient’s expectation to feel better, which seems to play a major role in the way the patient actually feels. However a placebo will not cure an illness. The placebo effect has been used in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of new drugs. Some

Imagine going to the doctor and being given medication to heal your pain. Now how would you feel if after taking the medication and feeling better you came to find out you were given a placebo? This may sound upsetting to some, however, “ a recent survey of U.S. internists and rheumatologists found that some 50% regular prescribe placebos.” A placebo is defined as a false treatment without any significant chemical properties or active ingredient. The use of placebos as a primary form of treatment with any pathology is not happening anytime soon, but their positive impact and usefulness in the medical field is becoming hard to deny. In the article, “The Magic of the Placebo”, author David Bjerklie attempts to explain the growing change in

While noting that the ethical issue of deception exists, the significant benefits of placebos are revealed through studying some clinical cases and by determining the actual changes taking place in the brain and the body. Trust, found in the doctor-patient relationship, impacts the extent of the placebo effect. To possibly help solve the ethical issue of deception surrounding around the placebo effect, Kaptchuk points out that more research needs to be executed in order to carry out the placebo effect “with conformed consent” of the patient for the doctor to do what they believe is necessary for the patient’s well-being (9). This would eliminate the ethical issue of deception while still allowing “medicine’s goal to heal” to remain intact

to question whether it is ethical for clinicians to prescribe placebos as medication in clinical practice. Through defining placebo and placebo effect and determining whether placebos should be prescribed in clinical practice, I argue that in limited cases it is ethical for

A placebo substance is an inert substance that should not directly cause any positive or negative changes in our health. These pills have no medicine in them and the patient gets well. To understand the placebo affect you need to understand the power of the brain. More than half of the population appears to have a positive experience from the placebo effect. Why doesn’t the rest of the population respond in the same way? The human brain is capable of preventing even the best well thought-out drug, medical procedure, therapy or nutritional program from working. Then why do we need supplements of medicine to feel better or reverse disease? Most diseases are related to nutrient deficiencies, chemicals, parasite or metal toxicity.

What do you guys think about the question posed on page 257, "What about using placebos in studies of serious illnesses like depression? Treatments for it are known to be effective, though imperfect. There is little doubt that the most powerful way to show a drug's efficacy and safety is to assign patients at random to the drug or a placebo. But depressed patient who get a placebo may not improve; they may get worse and even become suicidal" (257-258). This is a sticky situation, but I believe that placebos should still continued to be given. The patient's are aware of the consequences and the fact that they may receive a placebo. Being apart of the study, given the medicine or placebo, will help the research in anyway. Resources should be

Henry Beecher (1904–1976) was a physician who treated wounded soldiers in America during World War II. When he ran out of pain-killing morphine, he decided not to tell the wounded soldiers. Instead he kept telling them that he was giving them morphine, while he was actually giving a saline. Surprisingly, almost 40 percent of the wouded soldiers that were given the saline said their pain was actually reduced by the treatment. Breecher had discovered what is called the placebo effect. (Beecher, 1955)

A Placebo refers to any medicinal treatment that claims to be real, however turns out to only be a façade. In other words, the treatment is all bark and no bite. The concoction does absolutely nothing based off of the medicinal aspect of it. They contain nothing that contributes to the effect of one’s health. Researchers often use placebos during revisions to help contribute to the understanding of what effect a new drug or some other medicine might have on a certain condition. For instance, some people partaking in a study that might be given a new drug to lower blood pressure. Half of the people participating in the study would receive a placebo, and the other half would receive the drug with the intended treatments. None of the people in the study will know if they got the real treatment or if they had received the placebo. Researchers will then compare the effects of the drug and the placebo on the people in the study. In this way, they can then determine the effectiveness of the new drug and subsequently check for side effects. There are rare occasions in which people have reactions to the placebo. The response can be positive or negative. For example, the person's indicators may improve. Or the person may have what seems to be side effects from the conduct. These responses are mostly known as the "placebo effect." These effects can often result in less favorable results, such as, depression, pain, and sleeping disorders. However, many beneficial results have been documented as

the Placebo effect is interesting and open minding video, specially how the open the knee of the patient without doing anything, and how that made them feel relive. I like the part of positive thinking and working out and being more active.

The placebo effect merely emphasizes an individual's belief that something will happen. Once this belief is put into place, the power of self-persuasion comes into effect, and the ability to trick one's own brain becomes much easier. To summarize, if one thinks something will work, the chances of it actually working increase greatly. Dr. Hall, a woman who has devoted great time to the study of placebos has come up with a four variable explanation of how and why they work. These variables include “patient expectancy; motivation (the desire to improve one's health); a certain amount of conditioning, including from advertising; and endogenous opiates, or pain-relieving chemicals produced in the brain, which copy the effect of pain-relievers

Torok, an author to another study regarding Ménière's Disease, reviewed 834 articles pertaining to Ménière's Disease between 1951 and 1975. He found that advocates of either medical or surgical treatments claimed success in 60% to 80% of patients. Because there are so many different therapies deemed successful, Torok believed that the placebo effect might be a common factor to all of those treatments.

As per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a cure is defined as, “something (such as a drug or medical treatment) that stops a disease and makes someone healthy again; something that ends a problem or improves a bad situation” (Merriam-Webster's, 2014). The study of science and philosophy are trying to work together so that we may answer the difficult questions that we have surrounding the world in which we live in. Scientific experiments are often conducted so that results may be obtained. These results often verify or disprove a scientific hypothesis; philosophers on the other hand are more concerned about what the view of the world should be. A placebo is a pill, treatment, procedure or medicine used in place of a real treatment, the patient ends up having a psychological effect than a physiological one. In science and according to a philosophical view where does a placebo fit in? And whether it can really exist as a cure. For the purpose of this paper I will discuss placebos’ as a cure and discuss the realist and antirealist views about the observable and unobservable phenomena.

The Placebo Effect is essentially mind over matter in the sense that placebo means belief. The patient’s belief is in the treatment and or drug to be “real” even when there is no actual treatment or drug. Placebos are fake treatments and do not contain any active substances that may alter an individuals health. Placebos can come in all forms whether it be a pill, drink, shot, etc. Placebos are used in research studies in order to understand the effects and outcomes of a new drug or treatment. Placebos are linked to individual’s expectations of the drug or treatment. Mind over matter plays a huge role in the placebo effect when an individual expects to feel something different whether it be positive or negative. Your body responds in the physical

A lot of things in life could be healed simply by the Placebo effect. I definitely use this method of thinking for positive results and to deal with my chronic pain. 

The mind has often been referred to as the organ of consciousness. Daily functions such as thinking, breathing, and most any task we do rely heavily on use of this precious organ. However, through the use of placebos, it is becoming clear that the mind may have an even greater influence on our daily lives, influencing our perceptions of well- being. The placebo, which is Latin for to please, is a sugar-pill that is given under the guise of being a medication thought to treat an ailment. The use of placebos has shown us that the mind has tremendous potential to induce physiological changes in our body based solely on its perceptions. In example, as we swallow a sugar pill thinking