The "nocebo effect"

[Nords]

Rich, Wordsmith.org's Word of the Day was "nocebo", which led me to this old Washington Post article:

"The Nocebo Effect: Placebo's Evil Twin"

Have you seen any updates on the subject?

Should I take the red pill or the blue pill?

[freebird5825]

from the article..."red and orange pills to be stimulating, with blue and green-colored pills more likely to have a depressant effect. "

is this a case of

"One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small" - Jefferson Airplane

Go ask Alice!

[Rich_in_Tampa]

Originally Posted by Nords

Rich, Wordsmith.org's Word of the Day was "nocebo", which led me to this old Washington Post article:

"The Nocebo Effect: Placebo's Evil Twin"

Have you seen any updates on the subject?

Should I take the red pill or the blue pill?

Interesting - never heard the term but I've certainly seen the effect. A patient I saw not long ago was incorrectly diagnosed a year before with a rare cancer-related eye problem that virtually always leads to blindness. Turns out that not only did he not have cancer, but he didn't even have the eye problem (long story, but abnormalities in his eye of a benign nature were misdiagnosed and he was counselled about it in an abrupt manner).

Meantime while coping with that news all year, he developed depression, deconditioning, perceived progressive decrease in his vision (not confirmed on later testing) and for all practical purposes was slowly dying, in spirit if not in the flesh. The correct diagnosis led to dramatic recovery.

And a law suit against the original provider.

[al_bundy]

there was just a study out of england that anti-depressants don't work for mild depression and long term studies of children and ritalin and whatever people give their kids these days doesn't seem to work either

[clifp]

I just heard on the radio of a similar study.

It appears than when you tell one group of patients that pills they take cost $2 and another group the pills cost $20. The patients taking the $20 pills feel better and report less pain.

Of course both the $2 and $20 pills are placebos!!

So actually the high price of prescription drugs is really making us better

[HFWR]

What a drag it is getting old...

Kids are different today,
I hear evry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though shes not really ill
Theres a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mothers little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.

Mick/Keef

[A854321]

clifp- I heard that article on NPR this morning too. I was chuckling all the way to work. What's so amazing, besides the price-cebo effect, was that more than 61% of the group had placebo effect for pain.