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November 2, 2015
Robert H. Shmerling

The placebo effect is a mysterious thing. I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that something as inert and harmless as a sugar pill could relieve a person’s pain or hasten their recovery just by the expectation that it would. Studies use placebos – an inactive  treatment, such as asugar pill – in an attempt to understand the true impact of the active drug. Comparing what happens to a group of patients taking the active drug with the results of those taking a placebo can help researchers understand just how good the active drug is.
​The word “placebo” comes from Latin and means “I shall please.” And “please” it does. In study after study, many patients who  take a placebo show improvement intheir symptoms or condition.

  The placebo effect is for real

Recent research on the placebo effect only confirmshow powerful it can be – and  that the benefits of a placebo treatment aren’t just “all in your head.” Measureable physiological changes can be observed in those taking a placebo, similar to those observed among people taking effective medications. In particular, blood pressure, heartrate, and blood test results have been shown to improve among subsets of research subjects who responded to a placebo.
Of course, not everyone has a therapeutic response to a placebo. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need medications at all. Instead , we could simply wield the
power of suggestion. Understanding why certain peopleimprove with  placebo treatment and others do not is the“holy grail” of placebo research.

The power of suggestion is a double-edged sword. If you expect a treatment to help you, it’s more likely todoso. And if you expect  a treatment will be harmful, you are more likely to experience negative effects. That  phenomenon is called the “nocebo effect” (from the Latin “I shall harm”). For example, if you tell a person that a headache is a common side effect of a particularmedication, that person is more likely to report headacheseven if they are actually taking a placebo. The power of expectation is formidable and probably plays a significantrole in the benefits and the side effects of commonly prescribed medications.