{"id":3356,"date":"2016-03-28T16:04:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T21:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=3356"},"modified":"2016-03-28T16:04:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T21:04:58","slug":"the-placebo-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/03\/28\/the-placebo-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The Placebo Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>NewScientist&#8217;s<\/strong><\/em> (12 March 2016, paywall) Shannon Fischer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2079643-tap-the-placebo-effect-to-unlock-your-bodys-healing-powers\/\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> on using placebos on the placebo-aware:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>LINDA BUONANNO had been sick with irritable bowel syndrome for 15 years when she saw a TV advertisement recruiting participants for a new study. Desperate for help, she signed on, even after learning that the potential treatments she would be offered consisted of either nothing \u2013 or pills filled with nothing.<\/p>\n<p>When the experiment ended, she begged the researchers to let her keep the pills. \u201cI felt fantastic,\u201d Buonanno says. \u201cI felt almost like I was before I got sick with IBS. It was the best three weeks of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She has been trying to get her hands on more ever since. A replication study will start later this spring, and Buonanno is desperately hoping she gets in.<\/p>\n<p>This is the placebo effect in action, and it may come as a surprise to learn that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/dn19904-placebos-can-work-even-when-you-know-theyre-fakes\">it works even when people<\/a> know they are being given a sham treatment. That finding has brought with it the possibility of using placebos as therapy. The vision is of a future in which clinicians cajole the mind into healing itself and the body \u2013 without the drugs that can be nearly as much of a problem as those they purport to solve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fascinating stuff. The researchers are trying to understand this using a psychosociological model as the trigger for the body&#8217;s self-healing efforts, such as ordering the pills be taken on a tight schedule. I&#8217;ve never experienced a placebo effect myself, not having been seriously ill &#8211; unless they&#8217;re handing out sugar pills for Lyme&#8217;s Disease. The implications for our mental stability are not really explored, but are equally fascinating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NewScientist&#8217;s (12 March 2016, paywall) Shannon Fischer reports on using placebos on the placebo-aware: LINDA BUONANNO had been sick with irritable bowel syndrome for 15 years when she saw a TV advertisement recruiting participants for a new study. Desperate for help, she signed on, even after learning that the potential \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/03\/28\/the-placebo-game\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3357,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356\/revisions\/3357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}