Placebo Effect
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Costly Placebo Works Better Than Cheap One
A 10-cent pill doesn’t kill pain as well as a $2.50 pill, even when they are identical placebos, according to a provocative study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Doling out the placebo effect
A recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found, physicians on the front lines of patient care are reaching for the power of Obecalp—a backward spelling of the word “placebo”—with surprising frequency, and for different reasons, than patients might suspect.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
HeartMath’s emWave Personal Stress Reliever
Our emWave Personal Stress Reliever is on sale until the end of the April for $20.00 off. If you’re interested in realtime stress reduction and peak performance, please take a look at the two-minute demo.
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
It’s the thought that counts
Using brain scans, acupuncture and the nasty stuff that puts the sting in pepper spray, researchers are learning how placebos play out in our brains. These innocuous medications - long used as decoys in clinical drug trials - aren’t supposed to have real chemical effect on the body. But experience over the years has taught doctors that some patients who take placebos experience real relief.
Monday, November 27, 2006
This Will Hurt - And Now We Know Why - could lead to drugs that reduce pain
You might not believe it, but telling a lie can cause physical pain. What’s more there is a name for it, the nocebo effect. It can take hold when patients are given an inert pill and told it will intensify unpleasant symptoms. Now its biochemical pathway has been traced - a breakthrough that could lead to drugs that reduce pain.
Anxiety • Pain • Placebo Effect • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Placebo’s power goes beyond the mind
For years, scientists have looked at the placebo effect as just a figment of overactive patient imaginations. Sure, dummy medications seemed to curb epileptic seizures, lower blood pressure, soothe migraines and smooth out jerky movements in Parkinson’s — but these people weren’t really better. Or so scientists thought. Now, using PET scanners and MRIs to peer into the heads of patients who respond to sugar pills, researchers have discovered that the placebo effect is not “all in patients’ heads” but rather, in their brains. New research shows that belief in a dummy treatment leads to changes in brain chemistry.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
emWave Personal Stress Reliever: A Sleek, Compact Portable Device for Reducing Stress Anytim
emWave™ is an entertaining mobile handheld device the size of a cell phone. At only 2.2 ounces, it’s the smallest, lightest personal stress reliever on the market today. emWave users learn how to easily reduce stress—such as anger, frustration, worry, and anxiety—in real-time. HeartMath has earned a global reputation for their 15 years of innovative research on the relationship between stress and emotions. emWave represents a breakthrough in personal stress reduction technology.
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Monday, March 27, 2006
Power of Placebo
A visit to the doctor might not be your favorite thing, but everything — from the time you spend talking with the doctor to the diploma on the wall — could be helping to make you better. “The ritual of medicine, the context of medicine, is important to take into consideration in healthcare,” says Harvard Medical School’s Ted Kaptchuk. “There’s an implication that how you describe your intervention, what you tell patients, has an impact on how that intervention effects their illness and health.”
Article
Healthcare • Placebo Effect • Relationships • (2) Comments • Permalink
Monday, January 09, 2006
Mystery Painkiller
Most of us assume that a hospital injection must have medicine in it to do any good, but University of Michigan psychiatrist Jon-Kar Zubieta proved that assumption wrong. He found that if he told patients that an injection contained an experimental painkiller--even though it actually contained nothing but salt water--most of them reported a decrease in the pain they felt from a previous shot. We may call it “mind over matter”; doctors call it the placebo effect.
Friday, July 29, 2005
The Anatomy of Hope
The ability of the mind to foster healing has long been an intriguing concept. Ailing patients who believe that they can get better often do. In his practice, Dr. Jerome Groopman, an expert in blood diseases, cancer, and AIDS at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, recognized that giving patients hope for recovery could be helpful in their treatment. But he never realized the full importance of hope for healing until he experienced it firsthand in his recovery from a chronic ailment.
Pain • Placebo Effect • Psychology • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Placebos can bring emotional relief
Just as placebos have been shown to bring relief from pain, researchers have now found that they can affect emotion, alleviating the impact of unpleasant experiences. Researchers show that, in relieving anxiety, placebo treatment affects the same basic modulatory circuitry in the brain as it does for relieving pain.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
If placebos work, should doctors use them?
Most people think of placebos as harmless “sugar pills” given in clinic trials to some participants so that medical researchers can gauge the effects of the real drug on others. But in some trials, the “placebo effect” proves to be as strong as that of the drug. Consistently 30 percent or more of the subjects given placebos will show some improvement by taking the dummy pills.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Even Placebo Pills Can Help Heart-Failure Patients
Heart-failure patients have a better chance of survival if they’re conscientious about taking their pills, even if those pills are placebos, says a Duke University Medical Center study.
Cardiovascular Health • Placebo Effect • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
This Pill Will Make You Feel Better, but We’re Not Sure Why
Most people have heard of the placebo effect, in which patients given sugar pills feel better because they think the pills are medicine. But few would like to be on the receiving end of a placebo: a person who asks for a painkiller wants the real thing.
Monday, August 02, 2004
New Views On Mind-Body Connection
Revealing the complexities of the pain experience may offer a window into the mind-body interaction. Several recent studies into the placebo effect, human empathy, and their apparent interconnectedness are providing insight into the human subjective experience.