MY MUM swears that reiki, a technique claimed to channel healing energy through touch, cured her painful frozen shoulder. And my sister promises me a homeopathic remedy will relieve my frequent stomach aches.
Such claims raise eyebrows among those who champion rational thinking. There is often no physiological mechanism by which these and other alternative therapies could work, and they regularly fail to pass the standard tests for efficacy in medicine. But if someone feels better after their chosen remedy, who are we to say it didn’t work for them?
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At the heart of such questions lies the placebo effect – the way that we tend to feel better just because we believe a medical treatment is going to work, even if the treatment itself is a sham. The power of placebos has been shown in many settings. In one study from 2002, . An elaborate ruse involving doctored footage on a video screen convinced them that they had full surgery, whereas in reality they had only had the skin on their knees cut. Even so, their symptoms improved, and they recovered as well as those who had real surgery. The improvement lasted at least a year.
“We feel better if we believe a treatment will work – even if the treatment is a sham”
“It’s hard to believe that sham surgery can produce a long-lasting effect,” says , who studies the placebo effect at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. But it can.
Pain seems particularly susceptible to placebos, but they can also improve the symptoms of other conditions, even asthma and Parkinson’s disease. The effects are exceptionally strong in mental-health conditions such as depression and anxiety, says of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. In 2008, he and his colleagues found that the antidepressant Prozac and placebo were about as effective as each other.
The effect even works if we know about it. In a 2010 study, Kirsch and his colleagues gave an inert pill to people with irritable bowel syndrome. “We told them it was a placebo, but that it might make them feel better,” says Kirsch. Even so, the volunteers saw an improvement in their symptoms.
That doesn’t mean alternative remedies like reiki or homeopathy are fine. The placebo effect might make people feel better, but that doesn’t mean their underlying condition has improved. Harm might come from not seeking out proven treatments. And of course, any therapy comes at a price – hence the recent squabble in the UK over the public funding of alternative therapies such as homeopathy.
The positive message, though, is that by understanding the placebo effect, we can harness our minds to improve our own health prospects. Simply remaining optimistic when being treated helps, for example – as difficult as that might sometimes seem. So does maintaining a good relationship with your doctor, or surrounding yourself with people you feel comfortable with: studies have shown that hormones such as vasopressin, which are associated with trust, appear to boost the placebo effect.
A pleasant view can make you feel better too; a view of a park is compared with a view of a brick wall. If we can use what we are learning about the placebo effect to design medical treatments and clinical environments that are both physically and psychologically effective, we might all end up feeling a lot better.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TWJvK2y97c[/youtube]
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(Image: Arenda Oomen/Hollandse Hoogte/Eyevine)
This article appeared in print under the headline “Need to know: Placebo effects”
