Placebo Controls

Placeboconfinal

Placebos are an amazing medicine.  They are highly effective from a purely objective eye in treating everything from Headaches, Bi-polar disorder, Depression and even Multiple Sclerosis.  Many studies show a positive Placebo response rate ranging from 20-40%*. Have you ever wondered why that is?  Isn't this in fact a form of faith?  Over the past 40 years looking at the effectiveness in Placebo across many different study types Placebos have actually shown an increase in effectiveness despite the fact that more patients are now aware that they may be taking Placebo verses the real drug.  You have to scratch your head and wonder what is going on?  One theory is that the quality of care that is given in combination with the study may increase patient’s responsiveness to therapy.  Things like physical therapy, psychotherapy, and more frequent physician and nurse visits. 

Could be? Maybe?  

Another theory is that this is faith at work.  Patients have had an ever-increasing belief that modern science can cure their ills.  There is little dispute that we are a society where a pill is seen as the quick and easy cure for most ailments.  Many patients choose to believe that the doctor will find a way to make their life better and in many cases that is exactly what happens.  But not necessary because of what is in the pill... but rather the faith they are placing in the medical community.  Many people today have faith and many have a lot of it, although they probably don't realize it.

"And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour."   Matthew 9:20-22

                                                                                                        

*Placebo Response in Studies of Major Depression
Variable, Substantial, and Growing 
B. Timothy Walsh, MD; Stuart N. Seidman, MD; Robyn Sysko, BA; Madelyn Gould, PhD