The Placebo Effect

According to H.K Beecher the placebo effect is the outcome of feeling cured, better or actually being cured with just believing you would get cured or better. Confusing isn’t it? Well let me explain you with an example, a person is feeling ill, a doctor very convincingly gives her a pill that medically speaking makes no difference or treats the illness, but she or he are convinced it does. The person gets much better and feels healthier, this is the placebo effect. The patient’s symptoms were alleviated by an ineffective treatment. It is said that all medication includes the placebo effect since the patient is receiving the treatment but are also convinced the treatment works. Placebo is proven to work on 35 percent of 1082patients according to H.K Beecher study. Doctors all over the word have used this for centuries. Some researchers say that the placebo effect may involve conditioned response which is a learned response to a stimulus that previously had no meaning. We have learned that medicine makes us feel better and cures us when we are sick. So any treatment we receive makes us psychologically believe this. Other research has shown that conditional response provides stimulus that releases endorphins in the brain. Endorphins are the body’s own pain killers. There are many types of experiments that show many types of different results but most if not all show positive results for placebos. Some problems of these studies is the amount of deception used in the experiment and also the type of placebo such as surgery or medication.

http://www.ukskeptics.com/explanation.php?dir=articles/explanations&article=placebo_effect.php

http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/medication/placebo-effect.htm