USA, January 3, 2012 (WSJ): Say “placebo effect” and most people think of the boost they may get from a sugar pill simply because they believe it will work. But more and more research suggests there is more than a fleeting boost to be gained from placebos.
A particular mind-set or belief about one’s body or health may lead to improvements in disease symptoms as well as changes in appetite, brain chemicals and even vision, several recent studies have found, highlighting how fundamentally the mind and body are connected.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether people know they are getting a placebo and not a “real” treatment. Researchers want to know more about how the placebo effect works, and how to increase and decrease it. A more powerful, longer-lasting placebo effect might be helpful in treating health conditions related to weight and metabolism.
Do placebos work on the actual condition, or on patients’ perception of their symptoms? In a study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Kaptchuk’s team rotated 46 asthma patients through each of four types of treatment: no treatment at all, an albuterol inhaler, a placebo inhaler and sham acupuncture. As each participant got each treatment, researchers induced an asthma attack and measured the participant’s lung function and perception of symptoms. The albuterol improved measured lung function compared with placebo. But the patients reported feeling just as good whether getting placebo or the active treatment.
“Right now, I think evidence is that placebo changes not the underlying biology of an illness, but the way a person experiences or reacts to an illness,” Dr. Kaptchuk says.