The Placebo Effect

Most of us have heard about the placebo effect but I would wager that many people don’t fully understand what that means. To help explain it I will describe an experiment. So let’s say I am conducting an experiment to test the effect of aspirin on back pain. To determine if this actually helps I am going to split up my subjects two groups. One group will receive aspirin pills and the other will be given sugar pills. Considering past experiments I know that the sugar pill will have no effect on back pain. To demonstrate the placebo effect we are going to focus on the placebo group and ignore the aspirin group. After giving each patient the sugar pill most of them may say that they feel better. They indicate that there back pain has greatly diminished or has stopped altogether. Does this mean that sugar pills help will back pain? No probably not, in fact we would probably get the same results if we had given them water pills. So the question is; why do they feel better? All these patients thought they were getting aspirin so psychologically they expected to feel better. Their perception of pain has changed because they thought they were getting the real treatment when in fact they were getting a sugar pill. This happens all the time in experiments and it has been well documented¹. What is important to remember however is that these patients physical condition has not changed. Whatever caused their pain in the first place is still there. The sugar pills have not cured anything but have made the person perceive their pain differently. The placebo effect cannot cure cancer, heart failure, kidney disease or anything for that matter. All it can do is make people think they feel better when in fact nothing has changed.

Sometimes the placebo effect is used as evidence that people can “will” themselves to good health. Considering what I have discussed that is obviously not the case. This understanding will become pivotal in future discussion because it shows that placebo treatments are a deception and should never be promoted as real medicine. Tricking someone into thinking they feel better is morally wrong.  

References

1. de Craen ,A.J., Kaptchuk TJ, Tijssen JG, Kleijnen J. Placebos and placebo effects in medicine: Historical overview. J R Soc Med. 1999;92(10):511-515. 
http://search.proquest.com/docview/69443209?accountid=11233.