“The placebo effect is the biggest indicator that your healing ability starts in your mind.”
Do you remember that time in your childhood when all you wanted to do was ride a bike around the city with your friends? Rushing with the wind and performing various tricks, you most often fell off the bike.
Every time you fell down and ran home in tears, Mom just washed the wound and sent you off with a kiss, didn’t she? But this magic trick somehow always made you feel strong again, because you believed that it would be so.
This, in fact, is the concept of the placebo effect.
What is a placebo?
By definition, a placebo can be anything that looks like a medicine, but is not. It can be a pill, an injection, or any kind of medical treatment that looks exactly like the original treatment, but is not. That is, instead of the real components in the medicine, there will be only sugar or distilled water.
For the first time, this method was used in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of treatment. One group of people received a real medicine, and the other received a placebo, and the reactions of these two groups were compared. Doctors found that in some cases, participants who took a placebo control pill had an improvement in their condition. The placebo seemed to trick the brain by stimulating real physiological processes, such as hormone production or the release of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Your mind can be a powerful tool for healing if given the opportunity. It is able to believe that the medicine is working and demonstrate positive symptoms even when taking a placebo.
What is the placebo effect?
A placebo is only a medicine. The placebo effect is the changes that a person sees due to a placebo. This is a stimulation of the patient’s brain based on his expectations of treatment, when he believes that he is taking a real drug.
This is an active process taking place in the patient’s mind.
A placebo will not lower cholesterol and will not shrink tumors. Instead, they act on brain-modulated symptoms, such as pain. There are cases when placebos have had an effect on blood pressure and even struggled with depression.
For many years, doctors believed that the placebo effect was only psychological, meaning patients only thought they were getting better. However, recent studies show that taking a placebo can also have a physical effect.
For example, when we take a placebo, our brain releases endorphins-chemicals that act as natural painkillers. This is the reason for the reduction of pain sensation in patients, and it increases the strength of the placebo.
However, a question arises. What if the patient knows he’s getting a placebo? How does this affect treatment?
It is curious that a placebo works even when a person knows that he is receiving it. The reason for this may be that the brain is stimulated to think that the pill really heals the body. It is a belief in the practice of taking a pill every time the body is sick.
Do animals experience the placebo effect?
Based on the above arguments, this question seems far-fetched. The placebo effect is based on a person’s belief that they are getting something that helps them feel good.
Animals do not have the understanding to make this belief possible. The dog, for example, has no idea that the same doctor who is giving her a snack is giving her an injection. However, some studies have shown that the recovery format observed in animal trials is similar to that observed in human trials.
In a trial of epilepsy treatment in dogs, it was found that dogs in the placebo group had fewer seizures than when they participated in the trial. The reason for this does not necessarily have to be the behavior of the dog on the test. Such a reaction may be related to the reaction of the animal’s parents to the treatment of their dog. Parents’ expectations of the drug do not allow them to relax, and they monitor their pet, helping him recover.
The nocebo effect
The nocebo effect, the reverse of the placebo effect, is also a very important, but insufficiently evaluated phenomenon. This is when a negative result occurs due to the patient’s conviction that the treatment will cause harm.
This mainly refers to the terrible side effects that can be expected when undergoing a medical procedure. A person undergoing treatment always weighs the probability that something bad will happen during the treatment process.
If a person expects a side effect or a negative symptom, either due to a lack of proper communication, or because of their beliefs, these effects will definitely occur.
The process of placebo action in the body occurs through its influence on the mind. Whether it’s sugar or water, the medicine triggers a reaction in the brain, which in turn affects your response to treatment. The placebo effect is based on this.
