Placebo Effect: The Power of the Mind

What is a Placebo?

A placebo is a substance or treatment that has no therapeutic effect.

Clinical trials are done to investigate the effectiveness of a new treatment strategy, drug, or medical device. During clinical trials, all the patients having the same health issue don’t receive the new treatment. They are distributed in several groups. Each group receives a completely different treatment. For example:

·??????? One group receives the new treatment under experiment.

·??????? Another one or more groups receive old established treatments for treating the same health issue. (But in many cases, any old treatment may not exist. The treatment under investigation may be the first approach to treat the disease.)

·??????? One group receives a “placebo” treatment. This treatment does not affect the body. They may take pills that look like the pills taken by other groups. But actually, these pills are made up of pharmacologically inert substances.

What Ideas the Researchers Get from Different Groups

·??????? Thus the researchers can compare the effectiveness of the new treatment with old treatments.

·??????? From the result of the “placebo” group, they can have an idea about the net effectiveness of the new treatment on disease progression or reversal.

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History of “Placebo” Treatment

The idea of a placebo was launched in the late 18th century. Sometimes patients demanded medicines from doctors, although the doctors felt no need for any medication for some petty health issues. The intake of medicines might cause problems if there was no need for it. ?

But to provide mental satisfaction to the patients, doctors started to provide medicines/syrups or any other treatments in extremely low doses. Such low doses could not create any physiological impact on the patients. Doctors did not disclose to the patients that they were getting an ineffective treatment.

But they felt happy after getting medicines. They knew that they recovered from the disease due to the medicines.

In the 18th century, the placebos were not pure. It means these were not completely pharmacologically inert. They were not made from pharmacologically inert substances. These were the medicines of extremely low doses. In such low doses, medicines lose their ability to create any impact on the body. The doctors used to provide some powerless, non-perturbing substances to the patients.

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Effectiveness of Placebo Treatment

Although the physicians were providing pharmacologically ineffective “placebos” to the patients, gradually they started to find this treatment was not completely ineffective.

Being doctors, they had ideas of how long time the patient would need to recover without medicines. But in many cases, patients recovered at a much faster rate than the expected rate. Not only that, they noticed patients recovered from some chronic (obviously not fatal) health issues from which they were suffering for a long time.

By that time, many diseases had no treatment at all. Receiving a “placebo” helped the patients to recover from these diseases. ?

These incidents forced the doctors to think about it.

We get many proofs if we search the history of “placebo” treatment. The hand-written documents, letters, and diaries of the late 18th and early 19th century doctors are preserved properly.

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Reason behind It

In “placebo” treatment, patients have an expectancy of pain relief. This expectancy is enough to reduce the experience of pain. ?

The reason lies in human minds. What our mind believes, our body responds accordingly.

Our body and mind are not separate. Ancient saints and philosophers were also aware of it. They called it “imaginatio”. It means the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.

Many doctors did experiments on “placebo” effects. They became sure about the role of the human mind in ensuring recovery. One document written in 1775 by bishop John Doglas states that: “That the eager confidence of the patient in the skill of his physician, and the firm expectation of relief by his means, have sometimes a wonderful efficacy in restoring health, is a point not to be doubted of.”

Being Indians, we can see the echo of the same concept in our ancient scriptures, like the Upanishads, Vedas, Gita, etc. Our wise rishis and philosophers never believed in only bodily existence. They always confirmed the three levels of our existence: Body, Mind, and Soul. There is much more in the world than only what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.

Having confidence and belief in mind can solve many of our life problems.

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References:

1.????? Jütte R. The early history of the placebo. Complement Ther Med. 2013 Apr;21(2):94-7. doi: 10.1016

2.????? https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2023/01/powerful-placebo

3.????? https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

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