Tag Archives: Media

Microdosing with Psychedelics

Micro-dosing psychedelics as a therapy and productivity booster is all the rage in some quarters (like Silicon Valley). But is that a placebo effect?

People may not have to microdose psychedelics to feel their wellbeing benefits, according to a new study – they just have to believe (our italics) they’ve microdosed them.

Published in eLife, the new study found that participants who took placebos often reported the same beneficial effects as those that actually microdosed psychedelic substances. Likewise, those who believed they had taken a placebo, even when they had actually taken a psychedelic drug, experienced fewer improvements to their wellbeing.

Given these findings, the researchers suggest that the anecdotal benefits of microdosing can be explained by the placebo effect.

The ‘Pancebo’ Effect

“The pancebo effect is when a person begins to worry that the worst is about to happen without valid evidence. It’s panic over logic.”

This article at Huffpost was written by a Canadian in the early days of the virus (where were you on the 2nd of March?). Of course it reads as naive and uninformed right now, in August, but we include it because it’s the first time we’ve come across the term ‘pancebo’, which remains topical. This was not, perhaps, the author’s intent, since he was referring to a kind of fear-panic (a ‘nocebo’) inspired by the emergence of Covid-19. Instead, these days, it might better refer to the rash of crazy conspiracy theories that crowd our newsfeeds. It’s still about fear, but the ‘pancebo effect’ of fear of the virus seems to have been translated into a generalised fear of authority figures, health officials, government and anyone who can be vaguely associated with the panglobal lizard people who are ‘really’ in control.

Big Pharma: Organised Crime …?

This article isn’t pulling any punches: Big Pharma and Organized Crime — They Are More Similar Than You May Think

“If you believe pharmaceutical corporations hold the health of the general public in high regard, it’s time to reconsider. The industry is filled with examples of wrongful death, extortion, fraud, corruption, obstruction of justice, embezzlement, fake journals, harassment and hit lists that would make even the most hardened Mafia godfather blush.”

Cheesy Placebo Jokes

Scientists have come up with a new name for experiments that utilize placebos

Trick or treatment

+++++

I’m addicted to placebos.

I could quit but it wouldn’t matter.

+++++

On my way home from work today I was listening to Placebo..

I thought I was listening to something else, but obviously I was the control group.

+++++

Is that placebo working for you?

Well, now that you mention it, no.

+++++

My doctor is concerned my hypochondria is getting worse

So he put me on stronger placebos.

+++++

I got in trouble for using performance enhancing drugs

I took a placebo before my psychology exam

+++++

I was part of a scientific study on the calming effects of listening to the Three Tenors.

I felt great, but was in the control group. It turns out I was listening to Placebo Domingo.

Placebo as Science

Henry K. Beecher

What is now emerging as ‘placebo science’ has its roots in an influential 1955 paper entitled ‘The Powerful Placebo’ by Henry K. Beecher which proposed that placebo effects were clinically important. This remains the most commonly-cited placebo reference.

Henry Knowles Beecher (February 4, 1904 – July 25, 1976) was a pioneering American anesthesiologist, medical ethicist, and investigator of the placebo effect at Harvard Medical School, which now, fittingly enough, co-convenes the Program in Placebo Studies & Therapeutic Encounter (PiPS)
with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The prestigious Beecher Prize, named in his honor, is awarded annually by Harvard Medical School to a medical student who has produced exceptional work in the field of medical ethics.

To Use Or Not To Use The Term “Placebo,” That Is (Not) The Question

Like the word dirge, placebo has its origin in the Office of the Dead, the cycle of prayers traditionally sung or recited for the repose of the souls of the dead. The traditional liturgical language of the Roman Catholic Church is Latin, and in Latin, the first word of the first antiphon of the vespers service is placebo, “I shall please.” This word is taken from a phrase in the psalm text that is recited after the antiphon, placebo Domino in regione vivorum, ”I shall please the Lord in the land of the living.” The vespers service of the Office of the Dead came to be called placebo in Middle English, and the expression ‘sing placebo’ came to mean “to flatter, be obsequious.” … Placebo eventually came to mean “flatterer” and “sycophant.”

The term entered medical history in the late 18th century, with a few British doctors that can claim to be the originator. For one, there is Alex Sutherland (born before 1730 – died after 1773) a doctor living and practicing in Bath, Summerset, who used the term to describe certain types of doctors keen to prescribe fashionable medicines such as waters with healing power, which he called “placebo” (doctors) in a popular book published in 1763. About the same time, William Cullen (1710 – 1790) from Edinburgh, Scotland, used it for the first time in a textbook, his Clinical Lectures: He gave a patient mustard powder as a remedy noting “… that I did not trust much to it, but I gave it because it is necessary to give a medicine, and as what I call a placebo,” summarizing today’s entire discussion in a single sentence: Placebos are to please the patient and improve symptoms because of that – what we call the placebo effect. And the third gentleman is John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1815), a doctor from London who resumed a similar position to Cullen; they used placebos of ineffective doses of what were popular medicines of their time.

More on this fascinating history, including the inclusion of placebo in the earliest forms of homeopathic practice, here.

Placebos and Pain


 

Pain is something of a mystery. While we all experience it, and experience it in degrees, there’s no ‘gold standard’ for estimating the degree of pain. It seems to be a ‘subjective’ experience. In some of the research literature, such as this study, the placebo effect is given a credible place in the landscape of pain and pain management.

“Placebo effects that arise from patients’ positive expectancies and the underlying endogenous modulatory mechanisms may in part account for the variability in pain experience and severity, adherence to treatment, distinct coping strategies, and chronicity. Expectancy-induced analgesia and placebo effects in general have emerged as useful models to assess individual endogenous pain modulatory systems.”

Meantime, in the category of ‘Out There But Maybe Not As Out There As You Might Think’ virtual reality may have the capacity to harness the placebo effect in pain management.

“Recently, Cedars-Sinai also published research on the clinical utility of a virtual reality intervention in the Inpatient setting. The results of the study were overwhelmingly positive with most patients receiving pain and stress relief from the VR experience.”

More on VR applications here.