The placebo still keeps certain mysteries and is the subject of research, because scientists still wonder how a harmless substance manages to turn into a real medicine.
Placebo, comes from Latin. It means “I like”.
The placebo is a “trompe l’oeil”. Listen to this story… Doctors gathered a group of volunteers and offered them to receive aspirin for a few days, while explaining the risks of this drug for the stomach. Then without informing them, they gave half of the group of volunteers aspirin and the other half the same capsule which, instead of containing aspirin, was filled with only… flour.
Some time later, we were looking with a camera inside the stomachs of all these volunteers. Surprise! 30% of those who had taken as aspirin only flour, presented signs of bleeding and ulcer in the stomach while the logic would have been to find nothing, the product swallowed being harmless. Thus, the placebo effect was demonstrated.
The brains of the flour-eaters had registered the possibility of complications and that same brain had made them.
Today we know well this placebo effect of drugs. Moreover to be precise we say, placebo effect when the effect is positive, that is to say that it brings relief and, we also say “nocebo” effect when it is a negative effect such as this happened in the case of flour. Or quite recently, probably in the Levothyrox affair
Distilled water as effective as morphine
Another impressive experiment, led by Samu. When the truck arrived for the people who were suffering, the doctors – without knowing what he was injecting because it is important that the doctor is not in the combination to influence the effect – injected at random, either morphine either water; Well, it has been shown to be as effective as morphine in 40% of cases. I reassure you if the pain did not give way very quickly, there was a real syringe of morphine ready. But it proves that the reassuring presence of emergency physicians accounts for a significant part of the relief.
Widely used for drug testing
To balance things out, so as not to mix up this victory of the mind over the body, any drug on the market must be compared with a placebo. To show that the new medication is at least more effective than… a lump of sugar.
Today we know well this placebo effect of drugs. It is estimated that almost 35% of those who take a drug see their symptoms decrease only because they think the product they are given is good for them.
Not used by doctors
Doctors don’t prescribe real placebos; because there are none on the market and if they were, they would quickly be unmasked. In reality, doctors hijack the subject by prescribing drugs, as soon as they have any doubts about the psychic nature of the problem, which they know very well have no effect. And in fact, there is no lack of choice!
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-1619513974.jpg "CBD for pain: the importance of the placebo effect")
