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The placebo effect

  • 21-10-2010 10:03pm
    #1
    Bottle_of_Smoke
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭


    Is much known about how the placebo effect works?

    For minor stuff it really does work well sometimes. Are there specific mechanisms that cause this or is it just simply the immune system being boosted by a relaxed sense of mind?

    If anyone cares to explain or knows a paper that explains it well I have access to most through work.

    Cheers


Comments

  • #2
    opinion guy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,001 ✭✭✭✭opinion guy


    Short answer: No-one knows.

    Neither is anyone likely to know in a hurry cause there is very little money put into researching it. After all where is the payback for an investor ? Its not like you can patent a drug out of it. (At least - there is no obvious opening for patenting a drug - who knows maybe there would be if you threw enough money at it)


  • #3
    kelle
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,243 ✭✭✭kelle


    Your post brought me back to this drug trial. The guy who got the placebo was one very lucky guy!

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-406764/Elephant-Man-drug-trial-victims-injected-quickly.html

    No mention of him in the article, but he was interviewed at the time. In this case, the placebo effect was very postitive!


  • #4
    hotspur
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,328 ✭✭✭hotspur


    Irving Kirsch is one of the leading psychologists in the world on the placebo effect. He explains it as a response expectancy effect, here is one of his papers on it:
    http://www.jgh.ca/uploads/Psychiatry/Links/kirsch_1985.pdf


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