Meet The “Nocebo”: The Placebo's Evil Twin

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Riddick
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Meet The “Nocebo”: The Placebo's Evil Twin

Post by Riddick » 10-12-2017 01:02 AM

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There’s been a lot of recent fascinating scientific work trying to find ways to maximize the placebo effect, so that doctors can squeeze out the maximum therapeutic benefit from drugs. But scientists are also learning there are ways to minimize or maximize the nocebo effect too.

Like the placebo effect, the nocebo effect is influenced by expectations. The nocebo effect can kick in when negative expectations steer our experience of symptoms and create side effects where none should occur.

This means, incredibly, that you can get side effects from a sugar pill. And sometimes these side effects are so severe that patients drop out of clinical trials.

What researchers have realized in the past two decades is that the placebo and nocebo effects don’t just change how we talk about symptoms. Neuroscience studies find evidence that they actually change the way we perceive pain in the brain.

Given the real therapeutic power of the placebo effect, there’s been a small but growing thread of research looking into whether it can be harnessed to help treat diseases. It’s surprisingly promising.

But it’s still hard to know the best way to harness the placebo effect and downplay the nocebo effect. A fascinating recent study in Science shows the healing power of the placebo isn’t limitless — because where placebo lurks, nocebo may lurk too. FULL STORY
A mind should not be so open that the brains fall out; however, it should not be so closed that whatever gray matter which does reside may not be reached. ART BELL

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