The Placebo Effect: Is it real?

Recent Posts

July 14, 2015

Do you know what the placebo effect is? First, let’s define what a placebo is. A placebo is any inactive substance (could be plain sugar, saline solution, distilled water) or false (fake) treatment. Sometimes that substance or treatment can cure or improve a patient’s medical condition or symptoms. It’s then called a placebo effect or placebo response. This happens purely because that patient has the thought and/or expectation that the treatment will be helpful or curative. Your expectation towards the treatment plays a pivotal role in the placebo effect. The more you believe that the treatment will help you, the more likely it is that you will experience a benefit from the treatment.

So, how do we know that the substance or treatment did benefit you? To determine the actual medical benefit of a substance, drug companies use placebo-controlled clinical trials. If the patient taking their new drug fares significantly better than taking a placebo, their drug gets FDA approval. What sometimes bugs these clinical trials is the placebo effect. People taking placebos sometimes claim that it did help them. Hidden from their knowledge is the fact that they were given only placebos. The patients improved because of the thought that they were getting the real medications and not just the sugar pill..

Who experiences the placebo effect? What are its causes? How does the brain create a placebo effect? These are essential questions running through our minds when talking about the placebo effect. For now, we can only address the second question. Here are some theories as to what causes it:

A preliminary review on an ongoing study suggests that some people are more genetically inclined to feel better after undergoing placebo treatment or taking a placebo drug. Imagine yourself as one of these people. By just taking a placebo drug, you’re prone to get better or experience fewer and shorter symptoms because of your genes. Your genetic profile fits the characteristics of a placebo responder. But does this mean you will respond favourably to all placebos? Not necessarily, more studies are needed to nail down this theory.
Almost all neurologists, neurosurgeons, anatomists and neuroscientists believe that the human central nervous system doesn’t have its own lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is similar to your circulatory system. But instead of blood, it carries lymph, a colourless liquid which carries inflammatory cells (cells that respond to inflammation and infection), wastes and other toxic products, similar to a rubbish/recycling collector. But one scientist found that the coverings of the mouse brain he was examining contained a lymphatic vessel. This was quite surprising because nobody expected to find that structure there.

It has been an undisputed fact that the brain is the only organ which doesn’t have its own rubbish collector (lymphatic system). The findings above could very well change respected textbooks on anatomy and neuroanatomy not to mention how treatment is conducted for well-known diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

What’s puzzling is that when you have an infection in your brain, inflammatory cells gather around the infection. Neuroscientists wonder where they came from. How did they arrive at the site of infection? The presence of a lymphatic system in your brain could answer that.

The brain having its own lymphatic system could also address the question regarding why some people are placebo responders. Besides the circulatory system, substances can now traverse the brain barrier readily. Of course, all of these are presumptions at this stage and they also came from animal studies, not humans. We still have to wait for human studies.
Realistic expectations. This is one of the common theories about the placebo effect. If you expect a drug to improve your health and well-being, it’s possible that your body cooks up something in its chemistry lab (your brain, not the kitchen) making the placebo effect a reality.
You were told it does this and it does that. One research study informed the participants that the pill they were going to take was a stimulant. After taking the pill, their blood pressures rose, heart rates increased and reaction time sped up. The participants were then given the same pill again, but this time were told that it would make them sleepy. When they took the pill, they became sleepy. Weird, huh? Take a bow the placebo effect.

A fun fact for you: You can also get a negative effect from a placebo. It’s called a nocebo effect. Its similar to a side effect you may experience when you take a particular drug like constipation or diarrhoea.

The answer to the question in the title of this article is yes. The placebo effect or response is real. As to why it happens, there are several conflicting theories. For now, let’s just be aware that it exists and that some people are more susceptible to it than others. It can happen to anyone whether you are aware of it or not.

The placebo effect is all about the power of your mind to influence your body. New research in the coming years will most certainly try to answer more questions as to why it happens and who is the most vulnerable to it with more clarity and clinical evidence. The next time you take a pill, think about the placebo effect. Is the pill really effective or are you just expecting it to make you feel better?