How Real is the Placebo Effect?
Image Courtesy: Carter Jake via Wikimedia Commons
Imagine taking a pain relief pill, having your pain relieved, only to later find out that it was simply a sugar pill with no operational medicine. Surprising right?
This is called the placebo effect, a phenomenon that is yet to be fully understood in the medical field. It describes a person exhibiting real physiological changes as a result of an inactive treatment simply due to their faith in its effectiveness. But how likely is this effect to take place? Is it true that the mind is capable of healing the body, or is there some trickery involved?
The placebo effect is real, and it goes beyond just psychology. A biological impact is observable as well. People who have had placebo injections typically have observed that their brain and their sympathetic nervous system released endorphins and dopamine. For conditions like Parkinson’s disease, patients who receive higher doses of medication experience a boost in dopamine levels—even when they’re aware of the treatment.
Another case proving the validity of placebo effects are placebo painkillers. With the placebo painkiller, the opioid receptors in the brains of patients, which normally are activated by morphine, are engaged and as a consequence lessen the feeling of pain. This indicates that faith alone can activate the body’s intrinsic ability to relieve pain.
The placebo effect works best where perception and expectation play crucial roles, including pain, anxiety, depression, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). On the contrary, clear-cut biological issues like tumours, infections, or fractures are not easily impacted by hope. For instance, one can't genuinely believe away a tumour, but their nausea due to chemotherapy might reduce if they imagine they're being given anti-nausea medicine.
What’s astonishing is that placebos work even if the patients are aware it’s a placebo. "Open-label" placebo studies show patients in chronic pain or IBS conditions are given inactive pills and still report some degree of symptom reduction. This infers that taking the pill while knowing the true intention serves a certain therapeutic need with some extent of relief as a result.
The use of placebos, however, has triggered debates about the medical ethics implications. As the healthcare system is based on trust between patients and doctors, providing patients with inactive medication without their consent can be seen as destroying the reputation of the system. Yet, studies based on open clinical trials proved otherwise, as patients who participate in such trials are fully aware that they are not receiving an active medication, and at the same time, the results are still significant.
There is no doubt that the placebo effect greatly reduces the need for medication, but it certainly cannot replace it. Even though severe diseases cannot be cured through the placebo effect, those heavily influenced by perception such as nausea, it definitely eases the discomfort. In the future, with the continued advancement in placebos, the holistic healthcare approach can certainly become reality. When belief alone can induce physiological changes, it truly reinforces the mind as the most powerful attribute in medicine.