The Placebo Effect Demystified

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit jonathanroseland.substack.com The placebo effect is one of the most reliable things in science, so much so that every good human clinical trial accounts for it. Belief has power, clearly. And this book delves into how to yield it without invoking too much pseudospiritual silliness. You've probably heard all your life that belief and consciousness have power. Power to transform your life, to determine your future, to heal your body, and to change the world around you. This book, better than any other I've read, breaks down why and how that works without delving into a lot of pseudoscientific nonsense. The placebo effect is the healing power of belief how people can take a sugar pill or get a saline injection and then their belief in something outside of themselves makes them get better. The flip side of the placebo effect is the nocebo effect a harmless substance that, thanks to strong expectations, causes harmful effects. nocebo (Latin for “I shall harm,” as opposed to “I shall please,” the Latin translation of placebo), referring to an inert substance that causes a harmful effect—simply because someone believes or expects it will harm her. (p. 29) The book thoroughly documents a number of fantastic cases of the placebo effect working... * The author's own story, his back was badly broken as a young man when a car hit him while he was cycling, he was told by doctors that he would never walk again unless he received invasive surgery. Instead, he chose to heal himself with the power of the mind. He went home, spent hours daily meditating and visualizing his body healing and amazingly in 12 weeks his severe back injury was totally healed and he was back to lifting weights! * In a 2002 trial of 180 patients (that's statistically significant), some received sham placebo surgery, and amazingly their knees healed themselves, their pain went away and the patients could walk again, neither of the two groups who actually had the surgery improved any more than the patients who received the placebo surgery—and this held true even after two years. * Fake heart surgery is similarly effective, 67 percent of the patients who had received the actual surgery felt less pain and needed less medication, while 83 percent of those who had received the sham surgery enjoyed the same level of improvement. The placebo surgery had actually worked better than the real surgery! * A Harvard study of elderly men who were placed in an environment for several days that was meticulously and convincingly designed to feel like it was from 22 years earlier and the men's biological aging markers when measured showed a positive regression towards a more youthful state. They felt and acted younger and amazingly various symptoms of aging disappeared in just a few days. * A wheelchair-bound woman suffering from crippling multiple sclerosis who healed herself and reversed her condition just by the power of meditation. * People who died of cancer that upon autopsy didn't actually have cancer. The power of the placebo is well documented in this book and the scientific literature referenced. In your own experience (or that of those close to you) you can probably think of examples of the placebo effect working. The placebo effect is so common that over 150,000 published clinical trials mention it prominently, it's a universal factor in our health.