Tag Archives: Pain

Is acupuncture a placebo?

In a report published in the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Journals Library, the researchers showed that there is significant evidence to demonstrate that acupuncture provides more than a placebo effect.

Professor of Acupuncture Research, Hugh MacPherson, working with a team of scientists from the UK and US, brought together the results of 29 high quality clinical trials focused on patients treated with acupuncture and standard medical care.

In the majority of these trials, patients with chronic pain treated with acupuncture and standard medical care were tested against those who were provided with standard medical care alone, such as anti-inflammatory drugs and physiotherapy. The trials involved approximately 18,000 patients diagnosed with chronic pain of the neck, lower back, head, and knee.

The report shows that the addition of acupuncture compared to standard medical care alone significantly reduced the number of headaches and migraine attacks and reduced the severity of neck and lower back pain. It also showed that acupuncture reduced the pain and disability of osteoarthritis, which led to patients being less reliant on anti-inflammatory tablets to control pain.

Read the full article here.

‘Psychological Interventions’

A recent meta-study in the World Journal of Gastroenterology (March 28 2017) – Systematic review: The placebo effect of psychological interventions in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome

Aim – “To determine the placebo response rate associated with different types of placebo interventions used in psychological intervention studies for irritable bowel syndrome.” (Six studies, with a total of 555 patients met the inclusion criteria.)

… and the placebo effect, unsurprisingly, figures significantly:

“Contrary to our expectations, the PRR (Placebo Response Rate) in studies on psychological interventions was comparable to that in studies on pharmacological, dietary and alternative medical interventions.”

Download the whole study in PDF here.

Suggestible You

In his book, ‘Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal’ author Erik Vance explores placebos, hypnosis, and how beliefs influence bodily responses to pain.

“Placebos and beliefs generally is so much a part of our lives,” he tells Kishore Hari on a recent episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast. “It has an amazing power to change our bodies.”

Read the article here, or listen to the Podcast!

 

Branding Research Shows Placebo Effect on Consumers

“I was just amazed that you could change what price you were going to launch a product at, and you could change what brand it was, and people would have dramatically different impressions of that product. And they would tell you incredibly different things about the product: they thought it was made of different materials, they thought it weighed more or it weighed less. Really out-there stuff that, at the time, we joked about but we couldn’t explain.”

More here. And meanwhile, for your listening pleasure …

 

When you know you’re taking a placebo …

This question/comment/assumption comes up a lot when we talk to people about placebos and the placebo effect. ‘It works’ (is the assumption) ‘if people believe it’s something else’ …

Like the ‘real’ thing, perhaps …? We’ve posted on this before, and it seems the research is becoming more robust and rigorous.

Once more, courtesy of Professor Kaptchuk … read Knowingly Taking a Placebo Still Reduces Pain, Studies Find …

Placebos Help Kids With Migraines as Well as Drugs Do

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NBC News reports:

“The study included about 300 kids aged 8 to 17, enrolled at 31 centers. They had 11 migraines on average in the month before the study began and were randomly assigned to take either of the drugs or placebo pills daily for six months. Migraine frequency in the study’s last month was compared with what kids experienced before the study. At least half of kids in each group achieved the study goal, reducing migraine frequency by half.”

The same report, with a couple of videos, is over at CBS.

Taking placebo pills may ease chronic back pain

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Quite a buzz lately about the placebo effect and back pain, extending from a randomized control trial in Portugal.

“Our findings demonstrate the placebo effect can be elicited without deception. Patients were interested in what would happen and enjoyed this novel approach to their pain. They felt empowered.” – Lead author Claudia Carvalho, Ph.D., ISPA

“It’s the benefit of being immersed in treatment: interacting with a physician or nurse, taking pills, all the rituals and symbols of our healthcare system,” (says placebo researcher Ted Kaptchuk, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School). “The body responds to that.”

While this study focused on chronic pain, Kaptchuk says it is possible that patients with other conditions that involve self-observation – such as fatigue, depression, or digestive problems – may benefit from open-label placebo treatment.

“You’re never going to shrink a tumor or unclog an artery with placebo intervention,” notes Kaptchuk. “It’s not a cure-all, but it makes people feel better, for sure. Our lab is saying you can’t throw the placebo into the trash can. It has clinical meaning, it’s statically significant, and it relieves patients. It’s essential to what medicine means.”

Read the whole article here, and another here.

‘Useless’ surgery is still popular

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It seems that the placebo ‘hierarchy’ still plays out – a pill is trumped by a saline injection, which is trumped by ‘surgery’. Studies suggest that patients in the USA are opting for ineffective knee surgery in the belief this will relieve pain, even though it is likely that such an effect is … well, a placebo effect

“I personally think the operation should not be mentioned.” … But if a doctor says anything, Dr. Guyatt suggests saying this: “We have randomized clinical trials that produce the highest quality of evidence. They strongly suggest that the procedure is next to useless. If there is any benefit, it is very small and there are downsides, expense and potential complications.”

THIS COLUMN IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH, AS LONG AS YOU THINK IT IS.

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So you want to run faster — but you’re not ready for steroids?

No problem: just swallow a pill made of sugar and water that you think is a steroid — and you’ll run faster, because you believe you can.

A recent Scottish study found runners told they were getting performance-enhancing pills felt stronger and ran faster than normally — even though the pills were fake.

It’s just the latest example of the Placebo Effect, one of the most powerful effects known to humans, along with the Greenhouse Effect, the Brexit Effect and the Trump Defect.

Placebos are fake drugs you think are real — and a third of the time, they’re more effective than most drugs in the pharmacy at reducing everything from headaches, pain, nausea, coughs and colds to anxiety caused by fear that the pills your doctor gave you are actually placebos.

Read the full article here.

Back pain? Try placebo surgery

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“A common operation for back pain is not only ineffective but often leads to complications, a former spinal surgeon is claiming in a new book. In Surgery, The Ultimate Placebo Ian Harris says that when spine fusion operations appear to work, it’s usually because of a placebo effect.” Full article here