EDIT: Let’s cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We’re not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don’t believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I’m sure almost everybody has something to add.

  • kandoh
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    6 months ago

    There’s something up with the placebo effect.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      6 months ago

      Sometimes, people just get better. Your mood affects your heart rate, your blood sugar, your mobility even. Thinking you are getting better helps you get better. This isn’t controversial, the placebo effect has long been understood and accounted for in experimental design.

      • kandoh
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        6 months ago

        What I don’t understand then is why we don’t try to take advantage of this effect more often. If I have a small chance of making people feel better with a sugar pill, why not give out sugar pills and claim they have miracle effects all the time?

        • VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          6 months ago

          We do, I remember my friends mom had pills labeled placebo, and she said they where making her feel better, me and my friend looked at eachother and said nothing in front of her mom. When we where alone together we laughed a little and agreed that we shouldn’t say anything since her mom was doing better.

        • 211@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          6 months ago

          Because we’ve decided it’s nonethical for healthcare professionals. Any doctor knowingly prescribing placebo and lying about it could get in some major trouble. Like a couple decades ago I heard a psychiatrist mourn the loss of disulfiram (antabuse) implants from their treatment arsenal; it worked very well as a placebo but research didn’t show a clear improvement over placebo, so they could no longer use it.

          I am kind of glad that non-license-needing wellness consultants can still use the placebo effect for good, even if it is sometimes predatory and sometimes outright dangerous.