Is the placebo an actual treatment?
It’s amazing how your mind can convince your brain that you’re healing and now that science has shown that placebos can be really effective, their use is increasing rapidly. Yet many people still ask the question, is placebo an actual treatment?
Do placebos have any medical credibility? Give this article a further read and find out.
Placebo is a treatment in which doctors use inactive drugs to treat a patient. The patients may be aware they are being treated by placebo, or they may not be aware that the medicine they are taking is a placebo, but what is often astonishing is how effective the treatment can be. When patients have an expectation that they’ll feel better, often that is exactly what happens. Though the placebo does not use active ingredients to heal, it can still work and often provides the best results, considering other treatments already failed and considering the fact that placebos are safe with no side effects.
However, there are still many common misunderstandings about this treatment. Some people think that it’s just a trick and nothing actually happens. People question the credibility of the effect in the brain, and even declare all such treatments as fake. Placebo treatment demands that the patient must want to improve and that they be hopeful and determined to fight whatever battle comes in the path.
The power of the placebo treatment
Researchers from all over the world over the past 60 years have proved to the world that placebos are not fake, they have the capability to trigger healing. In 2014 a research project was carried out by Ted Kaptchuk, Ph.D. at Havard Medical School, and it was published in Science Translational Medicine. In the study, Kaptchuk used a group of students who were suffering from migraines, and each member of the group was provided treatment. A drug which was given to group 1, a medicine which is commonly used to treat migraine. The other group was given a placebo and the third group was given nothing. To really test the power of the placebo effect, the researchers told the placebo group they are taking placebos.
The researchers discovered that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack. So the simple act of taking a pill turns out can be as effective than the use of an actual drug. We can also call it the power of our mind because it’s pretty obvious that the mind and the placebo treatment are linked to each other. It’s actually the brain that enables a placebo to function by releasing neurotransmitters. The placebo effect is built on the patient’s expectations. The more the patients prioritize health the more they are benefited from this treatment.
Studies and tests tell us that placebo treatment should be carried out in an effective way. The doctor’s body language, words, and actions should be convincing. That helps the patient and his/her brain gets a message that whatever is being given to them is actual and reliable. Even if the patient knows that they are being given placebos it will still work. As Dr. Kaptchuk stated, “People can still get a placebo response, even though they know they are on a placebo”.
Get a placebo
You can heal yourself and believe me, it’s easy just to have hope, don’t give up and fight. Resist the urge to give up fighting your own battles and win them. Being healthy should be your priority because the healthier you are the wiser you become. Treatments don’t work if the patient does not want them to work. Either it’s a placebo or any other medical treatment, it won’t show good outcomes if the patient is already ready to lose.
Baltimore doctors once gave placebos to patients and told them that “many people with your kind of condition have been helped by what are sometimes called sugar pills and we feel that this can also cure you” the results were perplexing and the patients were healthy and satisfied.
So your brain can convince your body in the most beautiful ways and placebo treatment is an appropriate example of how your brain amazingly collaborates with your body and helps you survive.