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Asked by to Aimee, Chris, Dave, Greig, Laurence on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
Question: Do you believe in the Placebo effect?
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Aimee Hopper answered on 23 Jun 2014:
Absolutely, the brain is an interesting and not-fully-understood place, and there is evidence that it does seem to work.
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Greig Cowan answered on 23 Jun 2014:
Yes, I think it is a real effect. We are at an early stage of really understanding how the brain works but there is evidence that people can experience an improvement in their symptoms simply from taking a placebo. There is also evidence to support the “nocebo” effect where someone thinks they are getting worse when they are treated with some procedure that they do not believe is effective.
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Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 23 Jun 2014:
Placebo is definitely a real effect. I read about a research few months ago that completely blew my mind.
It was a study where the subjects had chronic pains. The group to which they gave placebo ha significant improvement over their pain levels (so placebo effect). But the amazing thing is that this effect was actually measured in their brain, their pain diminution was REAL. The pain receptors in their brains was really less active than without any kind of medicine. It wasn’t just what they were reporting, their body really had less pain. I just blows me away how powerful the brain is.
Another thing that I find absolutely amazing about placebo is that, even if you KNOW what you are taking is a placebo, basically just a pill full of sugar, it’s been shown that there is ACTUAL pain and symptoms improvement on some patient.
Isn’t that completely crazy? I find it amazing!
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Dave Jones answered on 24 Jun 2014:
No need to believe, as everyone else has said, there is already proof. That’s the beauty of science, doesn’t matter whether you believe or not, it’s still going to be true!
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