Tag Archives: Nocebo

Nocebo Effects: How to Prevent them in Patients

We’ve posted elsewhere about the placebo’s dark twin, the nocebo, the phenomenon of the mind provoking negative and damaging effects through the same mechanism that accounts for the positive effects of a placebo.

This paper brings focus to ‘nocebo algesia and hyperalgesia (ie, the occurrence and worsening of nocebo-induced pain, respectively)’ and makes practical suggestions for reducing the incidence of this. As always, these relate to the patient-practitioner relationships and interactions, and strongly reinforce the ‘subjective’ and ‘negotiated’ nature of the experience of pain.

‘In general, the literature shows that uncaring interactions that convey a message of invalidation and lack of warmth may trigger nocebo effects. Avoiding negative communication and interactions with a patient may help to shape a safe and positive environment that not only promotes placebo effects but that also reduces nocebo effects.’

Emerging Guidelines for Using Placebos in Clinical Practice

It is becoming increasingly clear that the placebo effect has a great influence on medical treatment. An international, interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Professor of Health Psychology Andrea Evers from Leiden University has now written a first set of guidelines on how to apply the placebo effect in clinical practice, published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

It was the result of the first official conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies (SIPS), which was held in Leiden last year. During an interdisciplinary workshop led by Evers, a group of leading international researchers reached the consensus that knowledge about placebo and nocebo effects could lead to better treatment results with fewer side-effects. According to the researchers, it is crucial that patients receive more information about these effects, and that doctors receive training on the best doctor-patient communication to maximise placebo effects and minimise nocebo effects.

Read the full article here.

The Man Who Overdosed on Placebo

The Nocebo effect, dramatically illustrated …

Several years ago, a published case study describes a 26-year-old man who was taken to the emergency room. After arguing with his ex-girlfriend, he attempted suicide by swallowing 29 capsules of an experimental drug that he obtained from a clinical trial that was testing a new antidepressant. When he arrived at the hospital, he was sluggish, shaking, and sweating and had rapid breathing. His blood pressure was extremely low at 80/40, and his pulse was 110.

Doctors were successful at raising his blood pressure. Over the course of four hours, they injected him with 6 liters of saline solution. His blood pressure increased to 100/62, which is at the lower end of the normal range, but his pulse remained high at 106.

What finally cured the patient wasn’t anything the emergency room staff did. Instead, a doctor from the clinical trial arrived at the hospital. He told the patient that those antidepressant pills weren’t antidepressants because he had been randomized into the control arm of the trial. Yes, that’s right: He overdosed on placebos.

Oh.

Within 15 minutes, the patient’s blood pressure stabilized at 126/80, and his heart rate dropped to a perfectly normal 80 beats per minute.

Read the entire article here.

Sex Differences in the Placebo Effect?

Do males and females respond differently to the placebo effect? This review of 18 studies concludes that “1) males responded more strongly to placebo treatment, and females responded more strongly to nocebo treatment, and 2) males responded with larger placebo effects induced by verbal information, and females responded with larger nocebo effects induced by conditioning procedures.”

Why?

It seems “that … differences in the placebo and nocebo effects (are) probably caused by sex differences in stress, anxiety, and the endogenous opioid system.”

Download the study ‘A systematic review of sex differences in the placebo and the nocebo effect’

The placebo’s evil twin

The placebo effect is one of the most mystifying phenomena in medicine. When we expect a pill to make us feel better, it does. If we see others get better while using a medicine, we will too.

But the placebo effect has an evil twin: the nocebo. It can kick in when negative expectations steer our experience of symptoms and create side effects where none should occur.

This means, incredibly, that you can get side effects from a sugar pill. And sometimes these side effects are so severe that patients drop out of clinical trials. More info here.

Recent evidence suggests that the muscle aches might be a big nocebo.