Could a placebo be your cure?

Placebo is defined as a medically inert substance or technique, which is administered like a drug that results in a psychological response such as relief. The use of placebos has been around for many years. Medical trials used to widely use a placebo as a control to test whether a drug was efficient in its function by seeing if the drug worked any better on a patient than the placebo. However, the use of placebos has decreased over time. There is no sufficient explanation for the placebo effect, thus there are many conflicting views on whether it is a real or just an illusion, as well as how it works.

From research of the placebo effect, some studies have found that a placebo can cause psychological effects, via changes in neurobiological signalling pathways. One of the ways this supposedly works is down to the expectations of the placebo, such as a fake pill thought to reduce stress, causing a release of endorphins activating the reward pathway in our brain. Endorphins bind to receptors, mainly resulting in a positive mental response, such as relief of stress. Therefore, the expectation actually triggers a chemical response, seemingly causing an improvement in health. The release of endorphins isn’t the only response thought to be caused by a positive expectation of a placebo, change in blood pressure and heart rate are also other examples. This theory is controversial, despite research alluding to the effects explained actually occurring some believe there is still not enough evidence to support this, and other things could have interfered with the results of the experiments.

There is the common belief that placebo is confused with other factors, such as the intake of other substances causing an effect or even patients trying to please doctors. As a result of the uncertainty of placebos having any effect ethical issues are raised. Such as if patients were only given placebos they could miss out on effective drugs and treatments which is deemed unethical in many ways, as the drugs and treatment are likely to be more efficient. Not only that, but if placebo was to work it is unknown whether the effects are long lasting, many believing that they would only be short term. Consequently, placebos are rarely prescribed and used in the UK, yet some people seek placebos in other ways.

Despite everything we already know about the human body the phenomenon of the placebo is yet to be proved. Results of experiments and research provide reason for scientists to further investigate the matter and delve deeper into how it could work.

Hope you found this insightful. Thanks for reading.
Written by Aarti Chopra
Universal Medicine

Sources:
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/complementary-alternative-medicine/Pages/placebo-effect.aspx

http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/what-is-the-placebo-effect#2

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