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@@sharifaa.8887 Couldn't agree more . I'm living with 3 of them , 2 of which 'showed up' after my 50's . A real bummer having a very over active immune system . One positive so far has been I haven't had a cold or flu since 2014 .
I just watched Kyle Hill's "Why reality is an illusion" video and I have to say it's the perfect complement to this one, to explain a mechanism that placebo's and your mind use to work.
To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, "Give me the maximum strength placebo. Figure out how strong of a placebo will kill me, and then back it off a little bit".
I get frequent tension headaches. Once, I got out a Tylenol to take, got distracted and set it down on my nightstand. But I *thought* I had taken it. Didn't realize until later when my headache was gone and I saw the pill sitting there. I sure wish I could get that to work all the time for me! Placebo effect is amazing.
IDK about colloidal silver, but if the hypothetical snake oil helps via placebo and does no harm (including but not limited to not preventing the person from seeking and accepting any available non-placebo indicated treatments), then in that specific scenario the snake oil could be a net-good for that patient.
yes, but the real kick in the guts.. you're already subscribed to that sponsor .. yet it keeps keeps harrassing you for more more more on nearly every channel you view.... that or vpns. thats a legit sponsor. hope they dont discover snake oil.spam spam spam.. youtube adverts. spam spam spam. theres so all contents worth watching all that advertising for. worsened when already bought the product.
@@GogiRegionThe point he was making is that a placebo it ISN'T a waste of money if it successfully engages the placebo effect, because the placebo effect, ironically, provides very real benefits.
"Doctor, I tell you I am going into recovery and I require your STRONGEST placebo" "Your mind is too frail for my strongest placebo, you would think you were dying."
1:52 "losing your lunch" is not a binary option. I have had several instances in which the said lunch was in a quantum superposition of staying down and being lost at the same time. Kinda like Schrodinger's Cat with a hair ball.
Also it's even more of a spectrum than that, I sometimes get mild nausea where I know that I’m not actually going to throw up unless I do something to upset my stomach even further. But the felling is still there and it's not a pleasant feeling.
It makes you wonder really, with the morphine. You can physically feel it kick in, especially when administered IV. Does that mean other psychoactive drugs can be simulated in the same way? Truly weird.
I had having chest pain (probably acid reflux) and I had worked myself into a frenzy to the point where I wanted to self delete. Got taken to urgent care by ambulance and I was I so much pain I couldn't sit still and I was swearing. One of the EMTs said something to the effect 'im going to give you some morphine so you can sleep'. I had never had morphine and I knew how addictive it was so I was nervous. Her partner said 'really?' but I didn't hear her response. I quickly tell asleep. She could have just as easily given me saline despite what she said, I would never have known.
@@EnigmaticLucasThat’s not for everyone though. You can reduce a placebos effect by explaining it away, so I’d tend not to tell people. It’s like when people say they feel immediately better the second they take a multivitamin. They obviously do feel better but it would be harmful or pointless for me to explain digestion times to them.
Yes this is why I don't tell individuals that their homeopathy is just water and useless. It is a placebo and works for them. With enough practice and meditation and trance work you can sort of do it on yourself but for me it means I can get nothing much else done.
@neermuse no it only really works on stuff like pain and side effects, you are supposed to use it to support the "real stuff" . It helps give people a sense of control and deal with the stress of the situation.
I've told people before "I don't believe in it, but if it works for you then I'm happy for you" As long as they're not endangering themselves or bleeding your bank account dry, they can participate in crystals or whatever all they want imo
That explains why snake oil salesmen have been so successful over the centuries. Explains why people will pay so much money for magical copper bracelets or magnetic pendents or distilled water that as some "memory" of some substance in it. If you believe that it will work, it just might.
@@davidhand9721Don't even get me started on it. "Reiki" is actually the name for a particularly terrifying type of ghost that forms when an Oni dies in such a way to leave a killing ghost. Whoever decided to name the mystic healing mumbo jumbo after those things really wasn't thinking things through.
@@choiswimmerchiropractors have a job because they do actually provide intimidate symptomatic relief for an amount of time. It's just that unless you actually work out and strengthen the areas causing you issues you're only treating the symptoms of the underlying problem. And that is you're too lazy to actually do sit-ups to make your back not cause you agonizing pain.
I'm a pharmacist at a hospital. I'm surprised we don't utilize this effect more. At some point you have to balance the ethics of it, which is an interesting idea in itself.
Yea ethics… I can see companies charging 10x for a placebo after scaring them into thinking it’s better than alternatives. Profits up, your bank account down
@@thomasr6732 Yup, and corporation costs, and R&D would go down. If they can "treat" people with sugar pills while not changing their price gouging, they absolutely would in a heartbeat.
If I went to a doctor for real help and they sent me home with pills containing no medicine, I'd have brand new blood pressure and anger management problems.
Yes, when he talked about the preconditioned placebos stimulating the same neural pathways, it really made me wonder how hard it would be to condition. Are you planning on taking the mints with pain meds to start? I’m very curious about this, so please please report back what works. Thank you.
Don't sell yourself short. Everyone has to learn at some point. The fact that you're watching this channel means you've already begun to learn the language.
This could really help folks with kidney or liver failure who are no longer able to take the drugs they used to. Unless the placebo causes the same kidney damage? That one seems hard to ethically study.
Does stress on the organs show up in people with healthy organs immediately or over time? If there is evidence of it without kidney or liver failure present, then it would be a relatively straightforward thing to test in theory. If the same effect happened in animals like rats, it would at least be a good starting point, but animal testing is not always accurate to human testing.
@@davidhand9721 That being said, a placebo is more or less just a cue or signal that your body uses to activate certain pathways, and as far as I know, the body also has pathways for killing cells (i.e. apoptosis), so is it really that far-fetched?
You can taste test two pieces of the exact same food, and put $5 on one, and $20 on the other…..and people consistently report the $20 food tastes much better. The human brain is crazy.
@@TheSuzberryi remember seeing smthn about a guy who convinced profesional wine tasters that his rly cheap wine was act rly expensive and they ranked it high up to which ones tasted the best
I can get a placebo high when I am on my way to my dealer to pick up some weed, I even feel my eyelids getting sort of heavy. But you didn't hear this from me.
Depends on what person think when you say aspirin and acetylsalisilic acid. For doctors,health workers,nurses and health students later will be more effective for common people aspirin could be more effective. If the person never heard both of them before it may not have any effect difference.
@@Kassidar That's the point. The known brand name strengthens the placebo's effect versus using a generic "cheap" one even if they're structurally the same.
the way placebos can still work even if you know it’s a placebo is wild. my mom takes tylenol for her nerve pain. she’s fully aware that anti-inflammatories don’t do anything for nerve pain, and yet taking tylenol makes her nerve pain go away.
similar to how taking a half dose of tylenol will alleviate some of my joint pain immediately, even though I know that it's way too low of a dose and it usually takes 20+ minutes.
tylenol's main action isnt as an anti-inflammatory despite what earlier research believed. Modern studies have demonstrated that in truth it acts on TRPV1 receptors in the brain and spinal cord to decrease pain signalling. it makes perfect sense why it would help, though typically tylenol is too weak for most patients with nerve pain .
@@LizzPrilope maybe this is related to the TRPV1 receptors maybe not but tylenol is known to primarily act on the endo-cannabinoid system once metabolized, so it does actually have anti-inflammatory effects
My grandma takes a Tylenol every night because she thinks it makes her sleep. I've told her that APAP is non-narcotic and doesn't even get into her CNS, and the Tylenol PM has _other drugs_ in it that make you drowsy, so just an extra strength Tylenol cannot make you drowsy, many many times. She says "oh, any pill makes me tired. I'm sensitive to drugs". I've given up trying to get her to understand. She needs the rest, after all.
I was really sad the one time I took my mood stabilizer fully believing it was vicodin for the wisdom tooth extraction I'd just had and I didn't figure it out until I realized the pain wasn't getting any better :( I don't know if that means the placebo effect would never work on me, but it sure doesn't seem like a good sign.
@@clogs4956 It's not about personal taste, which is all acquired besides sugar. Take something you enjoy, if présented with the exact same thing twice but told they are different in price and quality, the more expensive one WILL taste better.
While Aspirin is a brand name in other countries, it isn't a brand name in the USA. It is the generic term in the USA (in other countries, the generic term is ASA [acetylsalicylic acid]). Bayer lost the Aspirin brand name trademark in the United States in 1919 because too many people were using the term aspirin for the generic drug. That is why in the United States, Bayer always advertises its Aspirin as Bayer Aspirin or sometimes even just Bayer but never as just Aspirin.
There's also a lesser known treatment option called pseudo-placebo. These are pharmaceuticals with mild/minimal effects but also minimal (or zero) risk of adverse reactions. They're used primarily on patients who abuse prescription drugs, when their illness/condition isn't life threatening or severely debilitating. But just like regular placebos it's mostly about presentation, you have to be convincing for such treatment to be effective.
The concept of “placebo” is often misunderstood. firstly there are the “so-called placebo drugs”, they are specifically designed without the slightest active ingredient. Their objective is at a minimum not to do anything harmful, at best triggering a “placebo effect” in the patient (or according to their more explicit name “contextual effects”). there is also another context where the "placebo effect" works without a "placebo drug": If 2 equally competent doctors but one abrupt and not very empathetic while the other is more empathetic and listens to his patients. faced with the same symptoms in similar patients and if they use the same treatments, the results of the more empathetic doctor will be boosted by the contextual effects
I'm sadly one of those people that will know whether an opioid is real or not. I wish I wasn't, but theres a reason Ive taken Kratom instead of actual pharmaceuticals or worse for over a decade. I'd definitely volunteer for a cybernetic implant to help with opioid dependence
often referred to as "regression to the mean" in the literature. weird to go this hard pro-placebo and reject anti-placebo criticism without acknowledging how often it's not a real effect in most domains
Maybe they didn't mention that because it's kind of obvious? Idk but that seems like a no brainer, (I know in science we have to prove no brainers, but still lol).
This is very intresting. I think of a way to study how you can just DECIDE to come out better, like exact the way you do while being using a placebo. There is space !
8:27 in a situation where something has a negative (as opposed to positive) effect with merely perceived cause, it is inversely called a "nocebo". Another good example might be the reported adverse health effects of low frequency wind turbine noise or 5G
Drugs at times tends to be the stimulus that tells your body it's time to heal. Sometimes ques, or other mediums to signal the body to repair can at times be more useful and without having as many drawbacks or side effects
I've often been asked "Does Reiki really work?" and simply answer that all i can say, it's that I've had reported Many Happy Coincidences - because, although i may have Faith in Reiki - i certainly can't rule out the Placebo Effect ☯️
When I was a medical resident and we had a patient complaining of probably imaginary diseases, we use to joke with each other that we should order some "placebo-mycin".
I had to be airlifted off a high mountain pass in The Himalayas, when I got altitude sickness. A penalty of living pretty much most of my life at sea level.
I often hear that placebo effects work even if you know you're getting a placebo, but the size of the reduction of the effect is never mentioned. Is it actually known?
Imagine the implications of this for emergency situations, where medicines are limited. Placebo might be able to help some patients while more critical patients could receive the clinical treatments.
Is there a reverse effect? Like, if I were taking painkillers and you told me that my next dose was going to be a placebo, would the real thing be less effective?
@@lenabreijer1311 sure, that's a reversal, and I'd be curious to hear more. But I'm specifically wondering about medicine losing its effect if I believe I'm taking a sugar pill instead.
@@phodon129 I hadn't heard of this, but I think you're right -- expecting a placebo would be a "negative expectation" that impacts the effectiveness of a real drug.
I 100% agree placebos work. I for example avoid alcohol and caffeine because I also take diazepam ( Valium). I know the non alcoholic guinesss I’m drinking has no alcohol I still get drunk. It’s crazy has hell. But the taste smell and texture or mouth feel are all identical.
I hate flying. It is one of the most anxiety inducing experiences I can think of… Even thinking of it makes me extremely uncomfortable. The only way I can get through a flight is by “chain smoking” a pencil or something. I know that it’s not a real cigarette, but it’s similar enough that I feel relaxed, just like when I used to smoke. What does that mean? Probably that nothing is real, I would guess. 😂
My take on the placebo effect is that if you believe you are better/getting better you will. It explains why many ancient traditions that seem nonsensical to us but anecdotally were/are very effective. This could also explain many miracles that occur in patients who statistically shouldn't recover.
I have a feeling that this is based on only American studies. Especially when it comes to the cheap or expensive placebo. In the UK all meds from the doctor costs the same price. Thank you NHS. The Aspirin would not work for me because Aspirin, whether placebo or not, has never helped with any pain for me.
cheap vs expensive is more a way to indicate quality rather than actual value. Even if the cost is the same if you believe one to be of higher quality it would be the same effect.
@@JimboJuice I understand that, but it still would not mean anything in the UK because we do not know (unless the newspapers tell us) what the various medications actually cost the government, so I do not think that the premise of cheap or expensive as a way to tell quality would work. Now the name of the company that made the medication, that might make a massive difference with better known companies possibly perceived as better quality maybe.
I believe working with spirits and doing ancient magick for healing is equivalent to doing very strong placebo i wish there were more research, i think spiritual rituals can be a much stronger way of causing placebo effect
A lot of medicine is getting the body and mind to a point where they can heal themselves. It's kinda wild that you can trick that pathway into working.
Makes sense, some people might think that only one brand of acetaminophen works for their headaches for example, even though every brand has the same active ingredients. And to people thinking that it could be the binders/fillers, those are listed as inactive for a reason
certain binders and fillers do actually change the rate of absorption, mostly relating to how far it can travel in your system before its processed. But most over the counter medicines end up having even the exact same fillers.
I read something a few years ago that said that they don't recommend using a paper bag for hyperventilating. I don't remember why though. It doesn't seem like it would be harmful though.
Placebos work even if you know you are getting one. When I learned that, I told myself that cough drops would help me stop my drinking habit, and they worked. Then I said lemonade would work even better, and it did.
i heard a case of this woman who tried a bunch of medications to treat an illness of hers (i forget sorry) but she tried a placebo knowing it was one & it actually worked! she went off it & the pain came back. no clue why. she’s been on em since
They need to study the placebo effect vs a person's gullibility (their propensity to believe unproven things like lying politicians, anti-science, evidence-less beliefs, as opposed to those who read studies, gather published evidence, believe evidenced-based science and so on). Would someone who believes in astrology for example find more relief from placebos than someone who buys cheaper identical drugs rather than brand name drugs? Gullible people are everywhere and easy to fool about a lot of things.
Yes, I agree, but you missed the elephant in the room: how are you going to get anti-science people to agree to participate in a scientific study, especially one where they need to take a mystery pill given to them by scientists?
My dad says that if you’re trying to stop smoking with hypnotherapy, you need to be paying out of pocket and it should be a lot. Being invested in the treatment makes it more likely to work. He told me about another therapist who charged a rich client more than he had been charged by previous therapists and he was able to quit smoking when he wasn’t before.
Re brand names, afaik the "new cola" in the 80s/90s didn't catch on because it's a replacement to a well known brand, and in blind tests people actually preferred it.
In the study that had the opiate placebos at the different price points, I'm so curious what would have happened if they also presented the participants with another placebo that was significantly more expensive than market cost
@Sethafella The nocebo effect is a thing but somewhat different from the scenario you describe. Otherwise, yes, a botched placebo effect, or a placebo administered to certain neuroatypical people (e.g. some on the autism spectrum) can definitely have negative unintended consequences and disrupt the effectiveness of real medicine.
Interesting and all, but it also kinda sounds like an excuse for Insurance and whatnot to charge you the same for cheaply made placebos as the real more expensive thing.
It is in the realms of Psychiatry that drugs have greater differences reported by patients. Some have worked for me, but it took 4 or 5 years for me to report that such-and-such a pill was best for me.
I have permanent nerve damage and limited use of my left hand because my insurance company insisted that I try the placebos of chiropractic care and physical therapy before seeing a neurologist.
I imagine the more invasive it is, the more effective, too. Or if they have to wait a certain period of time to get it again, because it's too strong to take frequently. Or if they have to make sure they don't eat anything for a certain period of time beforehand. I just realised that the placebo must have unintentionally and unknowingly been a huge element of medicine hundreds of years ago.
I'm not immune to Placebos, but generally, they don't work as much as you'd expect. I'm pretty attuned to effects on my body, but I can also make effects without anything at times, just brain power. I'm weird that way.
When in was an anthropology student I thought about combining effective treatments with preconditioning. Then my son was born and away went that furure
"It works better for subjective symptoms better". Maybe this can largely be explained by the fact that for subjective symptoms, docs usually rely on patient reporting rather than actual biochem measurements of the body and if we feel like we're being cared for, we will believe we must be feeling better and thus report as such. "The pathways used are the same as from pre-conditioning". Yeah expected, because human mind is a correlation machine. If you gave me a piece of info say a, before you did any action b, which my body responded to with a response say c, resulting in an outcome d It correlates in mind the piece of info a and the body's response c together and c will happen with a even if you skip b and hence will result in the same outcome d.
When I think about the placebo effect, I think, there must be a way to train your brain to help healing your body, without taking anything. A "willpower" of some kind.
If you have sinus infection you need antibiotics dont just take plecebo but for all of them vit d is both in plecebo and pathologically effective. For allergic I suggest allergy vaccines they work wonders it will also decrease your sinus infections. For cold you can take high dosage vit c and zinc suplements amazing plecebo effects it also gives energy and helps immun system. You can also go for essential oils that is ptoven to be anbacterial and antiviral like mint or lavender to put in your nose so your nose can open up. Lavender also helps with relaxation(They activate relaxation receptor through smell receptors directly) so the plecebo effect will be high
what if you gave someone a sugar pill claiming that they had been tested for a disease they actually didn''t have and said the disease would manifest in symptoms before the pill worked?
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There is also the nocebo effect, where being aware of potential side effects makes you more likely to feel them - even from a placebo
yess I’m prone to this so I never and I mean NEVERRR research side effects of pills I take until I’m done taking them
Apparently beta blockers are one of the drugs that this happens with a lot.
more so you can actually make someone think they are sick or ill/injured with nocebo
Drug ad: side effects may include death
Your brain: guess I'll die then
As an occupational therapist who specializes in pain science, I so appreciate your use of language around “pain experience.” Well done.
whats your thoughts on the true pain of sponsors targeting you CNS ..even though you're already subscribed to that sponsor?
Outch! 😉
Me: "Brain, heal me."
Brain: "No."
Me: (takes placebo)
Brain: "You son of a *****, I'm in!"
Our body is both amazing and amazingly stupid.
@@TheDeadEyeSamuraiAgree. For example, autoimmune diseases.
Me: "I'm taking a placebo"
Brain: "You son of a b****, I'm in!"
Stupid brain!
Best comment.
@@sharifaa.8887 Couldn't agree more . I'm living with 3 of them , 2 of which 'showed up' after my 50's . A real bummer having a very over active immune system . One positive so far has been I haven't had a cold or flu since 2014 .
Its insane that the placebo effect is even real to begin with
I just watched Kyle Hill's "Why reality is an illusion" video and I have to say it's the perfect complement to this one, to explain a mechanism that placebo's and your mind use to work.
Aren't minds amazing!
Belief influences reality
@@EclecticFruithaha awesome! I did it in the exact order as well! Great content choice
We construct our realities inside our heads.
To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, "Give me the maximum strength placebo. Figure out how strong of a placebo will kill me, and then back it off a little bit".
How much are you willing to pay?
Im dead but, not... 😉
The great Jerry beats out Confucius every time! 🤓
I get frequent tension headaches. Once, I got out a Tylenol to take, got distracted and set it down on my nightstand. But I *thought* I had taken it. Didn't realize until later when my headache was gone and I saw the pill sitting there. I sure wish I could get that to work all the time for me! Placebo effect is amazing.
Modern snake oil sellers take advantage of this. Especially colloidal silver. "That sounds expensive, must work" (or turn you blue)
IDK about colloidal silver, but if the hypothetical snake oil helps via placebo and does no harm (including but not limited to not preventing the person from seeking and accepting any available non-placebo indicated treatments), then in that specific scenario the snake oil could be a net-good for that patient.
See the blue means that it's working
@@Mikee512Generally it's a waste of money.
yes, but the real kick in the guts.. you're already subscribed to that sponsor .. yet it keeps keeps harrassing you for more more more on nearly every channel you view.... that or vpns. thats a legit sponsor. hope they dont discover snake oil.spam spam spam.. youtube adverts. spam spam spam. theres so all contents worth watching all that advertising for. worsened when already bought the product.
@@GogiRegionThe point he was making is that a placebo it ISN'T a waste of money if it successfully engages the placebo effect, because the placebo effect, ironically, provides very real benefits.
00:55 "Doc, give me the strongest placebo you got!"
Doc: "You can't handle my strongest placebo, traveller!"
"Doctor, I tell you I am going into recovery and I require your STRONGEST placebo"
"Your mind is too frail for my strongest placebo, you would think you were dying."
"An infant that hasn't passed the rouge-test yet can't handle my strongest placebo, let alone a fully conscious man!"
1:52 "losing your lunch" is not a binary option. I have had several instances in which the said lunch was in a quantum superposition of staying down and being lost at the same time. Kinda like Schrodinger's Cat with a hair ball.
This is an amazing simile.
During those situations, it just burns your throat. Goes straight past heartburn to throatburn
Also it's even more of a spectrum than that, I sometimes get mild nausea where I know that I’m not actually going to throw up unless I do something to upset my stomach even further. But the felling is still there and it's not a pleasant feeling.
Anyone else find this so utterly bizzare?
It's like scientifically analyzing magic tricks - except they are real.
The ultimate _why we can't have nice things_
It makes you wonder really, with the morphine. You can physically feel it kick in, especially when administered IV. Does that mean other psychoactive drugs can be simulated in the same way? Truly weird.
I had having chest pain (probably acid reflux) and I had worked myself into a frenzy to the point where I wanted to self delete.
Got taken to urgent care by ambulance and I was I so much pain I couldn't sit still and I was swearing. One of the EMTs said something to the effect 'im going to give you some morphine so you can sleep'.
I had never had morphine and I knew how addictive it was so I was nervous.
Her partner said 'really?' but I didn't hear her response.
I quickly tell asleep.
She could have just as easily given me saline despite what she said, I would never have known.
Fascinating results. This is why, as long as it isn't something drastic, I try not to criticize if a placebo treatment is working for someone.
The placebo effect works even if you know it’s placebo, so there wouldn’t be any harm in politely telling them that it is
@@EnigmaticLucasThat’s not for everyone though. You can reduce a placebos effect by explaining it away, so I’d tend not to tell people.
It’s like when people say they feel immediately better the second they take a multivitamin. They obviously do feel better but it would be harmful or pointless for me to explain digestion times to them.
Yes this is why I don't tell individuals that their homeopathy is just water and useless. It is a placebo and works for them.
With enough practice and meditation and trance work you can sort of do it on yourself but for me it means I can get nothing much else done.
@neermuse no it only really works on stuff like pain and side effects, you are supposed to use it to support the "real stuff" . It helps give people a sense of control and deal with the stress of the situation.
I've told people before "I don't believe in it, but if it works for you then I'm happy for you"
As long as they're not endangering themselves or bleeding your bank account dry, they can participate in crystals or whatever all they want imo
That explains why snake oil salesmen have been so successful over the centuries. Explains why people will pay so much money for magical copper bracelets or magnetic pendents or distilled water that as some "memory" of some substance in it. If you believe that it will work, it just might.
Yup, I suspect that's how homeotherapy work too.
It's why chiropractors still have a job
Reiki is another example.
@@davidhand9721Don't even get me started on it. "Reiki" is actually the name for a particularly terrifying type of ghost that forms when an Oni dies in such a way to leave a killing ghost. Whoever decided to name the mystic healing mumbo jumbo after those things really wasn't thinking things through.
@@choiswimmerchiropractors have a job because they do actually provide intimidate symptomatic relief for an amount of time. It's just that unless you actually work out and strengthen the areas causing you issues you're only treating the symptoms of the underlying problem. And that is you're too lazy to actually do sit-ups to make your back not cause you agonizing pain.
The mind is amazing. I wish we had more funding for this type of studies on both a psychological and neurological level.
I'm a pharmacist at a hospital. I'm surprised we don't utilize this effect more. At some point you have to balance the ethics of it, which is an interesting idea in itself.
Even if people know it's a placebo, it can help.
With the cost of my prescriptions, I should be feeling perfect!
Yea ethics… I can see companies charging 10x for a placebo after scaring them into thinking it’s better than alternatives. Profits up, your bank account down
@@thomasr6732 Yup, and corporation costs, and R&D would go down. If they can "treat" people with sugar pills while not changing their price gouging, they absolutely would in a heartbeat.
If I went to a doctor for real help and they sent me home with pills containing no medicine, I'd have brand new blood pressure and anger management problems.
Gonna gaslight myself into believing mints will cure my chronic pain 👍
EDIT: the mints didn't cure me. 🤨
DO IT! 😂 That's not the stupidest Idea I've ever heard honestly. Maybe I'll give it a whirl. 😂😂😂
Buy expensive ones and tell yourself its cuz theyre made with high quality health healing ingredients.
Yes, when he talked about the preconditioned placebos stimulating the same neural pathways, it really made me wonder how hard it would be to condition. Are you planning on taking the mints with pain meds to start? I’m very curious about this, so please please report back what works. Thank you.
now if you believed mints could cure a patient's chronic pain, you would qualify to work at the DEA
i recommend taking opioids for chronic pain
imagine the placebos themselves were a placebo, and they both are $1
that's called American insurance.
Great to see we're placebo testing placebo, the placebo being now the price tag.
As a general human being with no special career path, I appreciate your use of English in this video. Well done.
this had me laughing for 10 minutes straight
@@woosh_police4018 awesome! Glad I provided you with the funnies!
Don't sell yourself short. Everyone has to learn at some point. The fact that you're watching this channel means you've already begun to learn the language.
This could really help folks with kidney or liver failure who are no longer able to take the drugs they used to. Unless the placebo causes the same kidney damage? That one seems hard to ethically study.
Does stress on the organs show up in people with healthy organs immediately or over time? If there is evidence of it without kidney or liver failure present, then it would be a relatively straightforward thing to test in theory.
If the same effect happened in animals like rats, it would at least be a good starting point, but animal testing is not always accurate to human testing.
It would really stretch the imagination if your brain could physically deteriorate your organs just out of habit...
@@davidhand9721 That being said, a placebo is more or less just a cue or signal that your body uses to activate certain pathways, and as far as I know, the body also has pathways for killing cells (i.e. apoptosis), so is it really that far-fetched?
not sure about the hyperventilation one.. because breathing INTO a container is usually effective enough -- even a paper bag.
You can taste test two pieces of the exact same food, and put $5 on one, and $20 on the other…..and people consistently report the $20 food tastes much better. The human brain is crazy.
That’s how wine prices work, IMO.
@@TheSuzberryi remember seeing smthn about a guy who convinced profesional wine tasters that his rly cheap wine was act rly expensive and they ranked it high up to which ones tasted the best
I can get a placebo high when I am on my way to my dealer to pick up some weed, I even feel my eyelids getting sort of heavy. But you didn't hear this from me.
so aspirin works better than acetylsalicylic acid?
Depends on what person think when you say aspirin and acetylsalisilic acid. For doctors,health workers,nurses and health students later will be more effective for common people aspirin could be more effective. If the person never heard both of them before it may not have any effect difference.
@exosproudmamabear558 Acetylsalicylic acid is Asprin.
@@Kassidar That's the point. The known brand name strengthens the placebo's effect versus using a generic "cheap" one even if they're structurally the same.
Granny Weatherwax was a good witch because she knew it didn't matter what was in the potion. Magrat was a good physician because she thought it did.
Headology FTW
the way placebos can still work even if you know it’s a placebo is wild. my mom takes tylenol for her nerve pain. she’s fully aware that anti-inflammatories don’t do anything for nerve pain, and yet taking tylenol makes her nerve pain go away.
similar to how taking a half dose of tylenol will alleviate some of my joint pain immediately, even though I know that it's way too low of a dose and it usually takes 20+ minutes.
tylenol's main action isnt as an anti-inflammatory despite what earlier research believed. Modern studies have demonstrated that in truth it acts on TRPV1 receptors in the brain and spinal cord to decrease pain signalling. it makes perfect sense why it would help, though typically tylenol is too weak for most patients with nerve pain .
@@LizzPrilope maybe this is related to the TRPV1 receptors maybe not but tylenol is known to primarily act on the endo-cannabinoid system once metabolized, so it does actually have anti-inflammatory effects
My grandma takes a Tylenol every night because she thinks it makes her sleep. I've told her that APAP is non-narcotic and doesn't even get into her CNS, and the Tylenol PM has _other drugs_ in it that make you drowsy, so just an extra strength Tylenol cannot make you drowsy, many many times. She says "oh, any pill makes me tired. I'm sensitive to drugs". I've given up trying to get her to understand. She needs the rest, after all.
@@davidhand9721 i mean if it works, it works. wish that worked on my insomnia
I was really sad the one time I took my mood stabilizer fully believing it was vicodin for the wisdom tooth extraction I'd just had and I didn't figure it out until I realized the pain wasn't getting any better :( I don't know if that means the placebo effect would never work on me, but it sure doesn't seem like a good sign.
@overlordfemto7523 Very stable behavior of you to be tracking my comments down hours later. You sure you don't need them, too?
this is what ritual healing is based on.. the more impressive the ritual, the more potent the effect.
Really not surprised since this already works with any consumer goods. Anything will taste/feel better when you're told it's expensive
Ever tried caviar? Yeurch!
@@clogs4956 It's not about personal taste, which is all acquired besides sugar. Take something you enjoy, if présented with the exact same thing twice but told they are different in price and quality, the more expensive one WILL taste better.
I'm glad you link the sources to these studies 😃
While Aspirin is a brand name in other countries, it isn't a brand name in the USA. It is the generic term in the USA (in other countries, the generic term is ASA [acetylsalicylic acid]). Bayer lost the Aspirin brand name trademark in the United States in 1919 because too many people were using the term aspirin for the generic drug. That is why in the United States, Bayer always advertises its Aspirin as Bayer Aspirin or sometimes even just Bayer but never as just Aspirin.
This is fascinating. I am recovering from multiple abdominal surgeries, and the brain is very powerful in processing what the body is feeling.
Was really interesting to learn about actually, I've been curious about these for a while!
I once raised a smile by asking a pharmacist if the generic placebo was as good as the real thing . . .
You've simply demonstrated the manipulation of expectations. The placebo effect is still just the placebo effect.
"Doc, give me the strongest placebo you've got!" -- "Whoa, hold on, you don't want to take something too strong, you might placeb-OD."
Psychics, shamen, and similar hucksters of all types have known about this for centuries.
There's also a lesser known treatment option called pseudo-placebo. These are pharmaceuticals with mild/minimal effects but also minimal (or zero) risk of adverse reactions. They're used primarily on patients who abuse prescription drugs, when their illness/condition isn't life threatening or severely debilitating. But just like regular placebos it's mostly about presentation, you have to be convincing for such treatment to be effective.
The concept of “placebo” is often misunderstood.
firstly there are the “so-called placebo drugs”, they are specifically designed without the slightest active ingredient.
Their objective is at a minimum not to do anything harmful, at best triggering a “placebo effect” in the patient (or according to their more explicit name “contextual effects”).
there is also another context where the "placebo effect" works without a "placebo drug":
If 2 equally competent doctors but
one abrupt and not very empathetic while the other is more empathetic and listens to his patients.
faced with the same symptoms in similar patients and if they use the same treatments, the results of the more empathetic doctor will be boosted by the contextual effects
I'm sadly one of those people that will know whether an opioid is real or not. I wish I wasn't, but theres a reason Ive taken Kratom instead of actual pharmaceuticals or worse for over a decade. I'd definitely volunteer for a cybernetic implant to help with opioid dependence
In cases where you're recovering over time, the "placebo" effect is actually just natural recovery.
often referred to as "regression to the mean" in the literature. weird to go this hard pro-placebo and reject anti-placebo criticism without acknowledging how often it's not a real effect in most domains
Maybe they didn't mention that because it's kind of obvious? Idk but that seems like a no brainer, (I know in science we have to prove no brainers, but still lol).
The fact that naloxone reversed the pain relief differentially is breaking my brain.
This is very intresting. I think of a way to study how you can just DECIDE to come out better, like exact the way you do while being using a placebo. There is space !
Very curious on how these studies stack up between patients who do and don't experience chronic pain.
8:27 in a situation where something has a negative (as opposed to positive) effect with merely perceived cause, it is inversely called a "nocebo". Another good example might be the reported adverse health effects of low frequency wind turbine noise or 5G
Ive read that the colour is important eg. Blue/green for sleeping and calming.
Drugs at times tends to be the stimulus that tells your body it's time to heal. Sometimes ques, or other mediums to signal the body to repair can at times be more useful and without having as many drawbacks or side effects
I've often been asked "Does Reiki really work?" and simply answer that all i can say, it's that I've had reported Many Happy Coincidences - because, although i may have Faith in Reiki - i certainly can't rule out the Placebo Effect ☯️
When I was a medical resident and we had a patient complaining of probably imaginary diseases, we use to joke with each other that we should order some "placebo-mycin".
I had to be airlifted off a high mountain pass in The Himalayas, when I got altitude sickness. A penalty of living pretty much most of my life at sea level.
I often hear that placebo effects work even if you know you're getting a placebo, but the size of the reduction of the effect is never mentioned.
Is it actually known?
Imagine the implications of this for emergency situations, where medicines are limited. Placebo might be able to help some patients while more critical patients could receive the clinical treatments.
I wonder if the brand name placebo effect is involved in the inflation of healthcare costs
if a placebo is working is it ethical to keep charging patients
Me: **takes two advil** (TM)
Morpheus: He's beginning to believe
Is there a reverse effect? Like, if I were taking painkillers and you told me that my next dose was going to be a placebo, would the real thing be less effective?
The reverse is telling someone "this is going to hurt and make you very sick" and then giving them just sugar. And the hurt and get sick
@@lenabreijer1311 sure, that's a reversal, and I'd be curious to hear more. But I'm specifically wondering about medicine losing its effect if I believe I'm taking a sugar pill instead.
The Closest I know of is the Nocebo effect.
@at330606 Short answer: yes. Longer answer: see my response to @Sethafella in this thread.
@@phodon129 I hadn't heard of this, but I think you're right -- expecting a placebo would be a "negative expectation" that impacts the effectiveness of a real drug.
The naloxone experiment is absolutely wild!
I 100% agree placebos work. I for example avoid alcohol and caffeine because I also take diazepam ( Valium). I know the non alcoholic guinesss I’m drinking has no alcohol I still get drunk. It’s crazy has hell. But the taste smell and texture or mouth feel are all identical.
I hate flying. It is one of the most anxiety inducing experiences I can think of… Even thinking of it makes me extremely uncomfortable. The only way I can get through a flight is by “chain smoking” a pencil or something. I know that it’s not a real cigarette, but it’s similar enough that I feel relaxed, just like when I used to smoke. What does that mean? Probably that nothing is real, I would guess. 😂
My take on the placebo effect is that if you believe you are better/getting better you will. It explains why many ancient traditions that seem nonsensical to us but anecdotally were/are very effective. This could also explain many miracles that occur in patients who statistically shouldn't recover.
Hi Stefan!
I think Stefan is my favorite host.
I'm sad he left scishow tangents, and super happy whenever I see hom in a video
This was so fascinating!
The human mind truly is amazing.
I know it's just B roll, but the guy at 2:38 only taking one of the pills and the giver just accepting it is hilarious
1:58 For the record I am frequently have nausea 🤢 but do not vomit 🤮
These terms are not interchangeable.
the idea that "Aspirin" worked better than the generic is extra amusing bc Aspirin as been a generic ever since the Treaty of Versailles (end of WW1)
I have a feeling that this is based on only American studies. Especially when it comes to the cheap or expensive placebo. In the UK all meds from the doctor costs the same price. Thank you NHS. The Aspirin would not work for me because Aspirin, whether placebo or not, has never helped with any pain for me.
cheap vs expensive is more a way to indicate quality rather than actual value. Even if the cost is the same if you believe one to be of higher quality it would be the same effect.
@@JimboJuice I understand that, but it still would not mean anything in the UK because we do not know (unless the newspapers tell us) what the various medications actually cost the government, so I do not think that the premise of cheap or expensive as a way to tell quality would work. Now the name of the company that made the medication, that might make a massive difference with better known companies possibly perceived as better quality maybe.
the medical version of $1 pizza vs $1000 pizza
I believe working with spirits and doing ancient magick for healing is equivalent to doing very strong placebo i wish there were more research, i think spiritual rituals can be a much stronger way of causing placebo effect
Could the placebo effect and the preconditioning be used to help drug addiction?
This video was mind blowing! The brain and body are so cool
It is possible for naloxone to relieve pain as well. It has something to do with homeostasis.
A lot of medicine is getting the body and mind to a point where they can heal themselves. It's kinda wild that you can trick that pathway into working.
Makes sense, some people might think that only one brand of acetaminophen works for their headaches for example, even though every brand has the same active ingredients. And to people thinking that it could be the binders/fillers, those are listed as inactive for a reason
certain binders and fillers do actually change the rate of absorption, mostly relating to how far it can travel in your system before its processed. But most over the counter medicines end up having even the exact same fillers.
I read something a few years ago that said that they don't recommend using a paper bag for hyperventilating. I don't remember why though. It doesn't seem like it would be harmful though.
Placebos work even if you know you are getting one. When I learned that, I told myself that cough drops would help me stop my drinking habit, and they worked. Then I said lemonade would work even better, and it did.
i heard a case of this woman who tried a bunch of medications to treat an illness of hers (i forget sorry)
but she tried a placebo knowing it was one & it actually worked! she went off it & the pain came back. no clue why. she’s been on em since
They need to study the placebo effect vs a person's gullibility (their propensity to believe unproven things like lying politicians, anti-science, evidence-less beliefs, as opposed to those who read studies, gather published evidence, believe evidenced-based science and so on).
Would someone who believes in astrology for example find more relief from placebos than someone who buys cheaper identical drugs rather than brand name drugs? Gullible people are everywhere and easy to fool about a lot of things.
Yes, I agree, but you missed the elephant in the room: how are you going to get anti-science people to agree to participate in a scientific study, especially one where they need to take a mystery pill given to them by scientists?
The thing about the placebo effect is that it works even if you know it's a placebo, even if you're skeptical.
It could also be closely related to belief in the medical system / doctors
@@vlogbrotherdaveand religion. (Faith healing)
My dad says that if you’re trying to stop smoking with hypnotherapy, you need to be paying out of pocket and it should be a lot. Being invested in the treatment makes it more likely to work. He told me about another therapist who charged a rich client more than he had been charged by previous therapists and he was able to quit smoking when he wasn’t before.
Re brand names, afaik the "new cola" in the 80s/90s didn't catch on because it's a replacement to a well known brand, and in blind tests people actually preferred it.
In the study that had the opiate placebos at the different price points, I'm so curious what would have happened if they also presented the participants with another placebo that was significantly more expensive than market cost
Can the placebo effect have an opposite effect? Like if your given “real” medicine and you believe it to be a placebo, could it just not work?
Good question! Hope someone has a good answer.
@Sethafella The nocebo effect is a thing but somewhat different from the scenario you describe. Otherwise, yes, a botched placebo effect, or a placebo administered to certain neuroatypical people (e.g. some on the autism spectrum) can definitely have negative unintended consequences and disrupt the effectiveness of real medicine.
Interesting and all, but it also kinda sounds like an excuse for Insurance and whatnot to charge you the same for cheaply made placebos as the real more expensive thing.
It is in the realms of Psychiatry that drugs have greater differences reported by patients. Some have worked for me, but it took 4 or 5 years for me to report that such-and-such a pill was best for me.
I have permanent nerve damage and limited use of my left hand because my insurance company insisted that I try the placebos of chiropractic care and physical therapy before seeing a neurologist.
I imagine the more invasive it is, the more effective, too. Or if they have to wait a certain period of time to get it again, because it's too strong to take frequently. Or if they have to make sure they don't eat anything for a certain period of time beforehand.
I just realised that the placebo must have unintentionally and unknowingly been a huge element of medicine hundreds of years ago.
The placebo effect is such a strange concept to me
I'm not immune to Placebos, but generally, they don't work as much as you'd expect. I'm pretty attuned to effects on my body, but I can also make effects without anything at times, just brain power. I'm weird that way.
When in was an anthropology student I thought about combining effective treatments with preconditioning. Then my son was born and away went that furure
"It works better for subjective symptoms better".
Maybe this can largely be explained by the fact that for subjective symptoms, docs usually rely on patient reporting rather than actual biochem measurements of the body and if we feel like we're being cared for, we will believe we must be feeling better and thus report as such.
"The pathways used are the same as from pre-conditioning".
Yeah expected, because human mind is a correlation machine.
If you gave me a piece of info say a, before you did any action b, which my body responded to with a response say c, resulting in an outcome d
It correlates in mind the piece of info a and the body's response c together and c will happen with a even if you skip b and hence will result in the same outcome d.
Thanks.
When I think about the placebo effect, I think, there must be a way to train your brain to help healing your body, without taking anything. A "willpower" of some kind.
I'm gonna break my leg then tell myself that "This tape will get rid of the pain just as well as pain killers"
New marketing hire at Tylenol, "let's mame 1/5 of the pills out if sugar!"
3:15 ah yes very moral study
3:15 if you have never experienced an opioid painkiller (you only heard of them), would an opioid placebo still work?
Very informative!
I wonder if doubling the dosage of all medicines but having half the doses be placebos would make medicine more effective
Is that why medication is so expensive in the US? It’s all just placebos of varying expense. So much would make sense if that were the case.
I’m feeling terrible. It’s either a sinus infection, allergies, or a cold of some sort. Can someone please recommend a placebo?
Bananas work wonders
Yeah: homeopathic remedies.
A hot shower and gargle salt water.
If you have sinus infection you need antibiotics dont just take plecebo but for all of them vit d is both in plecebo and pathologically effective. For allergic I suggest allergy vaccines they work wonders it will also decrease your sinus infections. For cold you can take high dosage vit c and zinc suplements amazing plecebo effects it also gives energy and helps immun system. You can also go for essential oils that is ptoven to be anbacterial and antiviral like mint or lavender to put in your nose so your nose can open up. Lavender also helps with relaxation(They activate relaxation receptor through smell receptors directly) so the plecebo effect will be high
I'll send you a miracle pill for 1000$
Thank you!
what if you gave someone a sugar pill claiming that they had been tested for a disease they actually didn''t have and said the disease would manifest in symptoms before the pill worked?