The Placebo Effect

          The Placebo Effect is a sort of reaction a patient have when they think they have been treated but are actually not. The most common placebos we see are sugar pills and fake surgeries. It shows the power of the human mind and that sometimes the pain can be reduced by psychological means. It can also be the power of the positive thinking.

          The thought of placebos in modern times came from H.K. Beecher’s study. He looked at 15 clinical trials and found out that 35% of the 1082 patients had satisfactory results being administered with the placebo effect. This is the evidence at the time that supported Beecher’s study. But many after found a lot of wrong issues with his results and data. In 10 of the 15 clinical trials Beecher used earlier, 66.7% of the patients improved as a normal course of their illness, and thus, was not an effect of the placebo. Also in another case, the patients improved after 6 days, but that was a normal result and they would have improved even if they didn’t take anything at all for their cold.

Another important issue with his results was that he only recorded the ones that were successful, and didn’t take into account the patients that deteriorated; therefore there was a misleading direction in the data he presented.

          My personal opinion of the placebo effect after reading all of that is that maybe it does exist, but one shouldn’t depend on it to save a life. Obviously if a patient’s status is critical, it would be unwise and unorthodox to use the placebo effect hoping that it would work. I think the placebo effect works best on more trivial things, such as the pressing of buttons and air conditioning. The mind is a very powerful thing, and perhaps it may trick our body into thinking it is in a condition it is actually not.